CRIM 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Policy Analysis, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Dependent And Independent Variables
8 Aug 2015
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Social science is value free: well maybe at least it tries, has to do with what is and why, not what should be, what should be depends on policy/decision makers, subjectivity v. objectivity. Social research is probabilistic: attempts to find patterns and regularities, but there are always exceptions. Inferences about social regularities are based on probabilities: an identified pattern does not have to include 100% of cases. Concepts (aka constructs : abstract ideas around which we do research and build theory, can be measured in diff ways. Theories and hypotheses (pg 48: research is theoretical and empirical, theory : systematic expln for observed facts, hypothesis: testable statement that delineates association among variables. No: hypotheses are testable, but not provable because alt expln will always exist, hypothesis testing shows support or refutation. Variables: concrete representation of constructs, can be observed and can take on diff values.
