Today’s Plan

4:30pm—5:30pm elaborating bivariate relationships

5:30pm--6:30 SPSS(TE lab) 6:30pm—7:00pm dinner break 7:00—8:10pm interpreting data and

drawing conclusions

Elaborating relationships

Why does the relationship exist? What is the nature of the

relationship? How general is the relationship? Elaboration model interpretation method the Columbia School Lazarsfeld method

Elaboration paradigm

Aim to provide a logical/statistical technique that would allow researchers to elaborate on the nature of observed relationships

The Elaboration Model

Change in Original Relationship After Test FactorAdditional Variable Antecedent Intervening Introduced ---------------- ------------------------------------------------ Same relationship ReplicationWeaker or no relationship Explanation Interpretation Split, one subset the same Specification or greater, the other is less or none

How to choose a test factor?

We choose a test factor that we have reason to believe is related to both the independent and dependent variables.

How do we add a test factor?

Mechanically, we accomplish this by first dividing our sample into subsets on the basis of the values of the test variable. The relationship between the original two variables is then recomputed for each of the subsets. The table produced in this manner is called the partial table. The relationships found in the partial table are called partial relationships.

Replication

Replication occurs whenever the partial relationships are essentially the same as the original relationship.

Replication

Men Women

Approve 63% 75%

Disapprove 37% 25%

400 400

“Do you approve or disapprove of the proposition thatmen and women should be treated equally in all regards”

Epsilon = 12 percentage points

Replication

Under 30 30 and over

Women Men Women Men

Approve 90% 78% 60% 48%

Dossapprove 10% 22% 40% 52%

200 200 200 200

Epsilon = 12 percentage points

Epsilon = 12 percentage points

Specification

Sometimes the elaboration model produces partial relationship that differ significantly from each other. For example, one partial relationship is the same as or stronger than the original two-variable relationship and the second partial relationship is less than the original and may be reduced to zero.

Specification (Glock)

Social class level

Low High

0 1 2 3 4

Meaninvolvement

.63 .58 .49 .48 .45

Social Class and Church Involvement

Church involvement provides an alternative form of gratification for people deniedgratification in secular society

People of lower social class have fewer opportunities to gain self esteem from secular society

Specification

Social class level

Low High

0 1 2 3 4

% womenwho haveheld officein secularorganisation

46 47 54 60 83

Social Class and Holding Office in Organisations

Social class is strongly related to the likelihoodthat a woman has every held an office in asecular organization

Specification

Social class level

Low High

0 1 2 3 4

Have heldoffice

.46 .53 .46 .46 .46

Have notheld office

.62 .55 .47 .46 .40

Church Involvement by Social Class and Holding Secular Office

Mean churchinvolvement for

Rough indicatorof gratificationin secular society

Explanation

Explanation is the term that used to describe a spurious relationship. The relationship disappears when the test factor is included. The test factor must be antecedent to both variables.

Explanation - spurious relationships

spurious - not a genuine relationship test variable must be antecedent

Strength of peace movement

Strength of peace movement

Likelihoodof war

Likelihoodof war

Internationaltensions

Spurious relationship

compare the initial bivariate relationship with the conditional relationship

no relationship in the conditional table - we have explained the original relationship

completely and partly spurious relationships

Number of firetrucks

Damage done

Size of thefire

Interpretation - Intervening variable (Stoufler)

High Education Low Education

Should not havebeen deferred

88% 70%

Should have beendeferred

12% 30%

(1761) (1896)

Education and Acceptance of Being Drafted

Education FriendsDeferred

Attitudes

Intervening variable

Friends deferred No friends deferred

High Edn Low Edn High Edn Low Edn

Should nothave beendeferred

63% 63% 94% 95%

Shouldhave beendeferred

37% 37% 6% 5%

(335) (1484) (1426) (392)

Relating education to acceptance of being drafted through the factor of having friends deferred

Interpretation

Interpretation is similar to explanation, except for the time placement of the test variable. The test variable is antecedent to only the dependent variable.

Drawing conclusion (Bouma)

What did you ask? What did you find? What do you conclude? To whom do your conclusions

apply?

Reporting your research

the objectives or hypotheses the major concept(s) and conceptual

definition(s) the major variables and operational

definitions the measurement instrument, for

example the self-administered; questionnaire or content analysis sheets

Reporting your research

a description of the research design, for example a quantitative “case study”, an experiment.

a definition of the population (group of interest) and a short discussion of the sampling methods you would use in a larger scale study. The method for selecting participants for the pilot study

Reporting your research

a description of the data collection methods

the presentation of the results a discussion and interpretation of the

results, i.e. what they mean to you, and any limitations or concerns, for example ethical, validity, reliability.

Conclusions