PO217 Lecture Notes - Fall 2018 Lecture 4 - Mediation (statistics), Socioeconomic status, Operationalization
Document Summary
Overview: the nature of causal inferences, what are concepts, nominal vs. Independent vs dependent variables: spurious, intervening and conditional (reinforcing) variables, levels of measurement crash course, formulating hypotheses, common errors in formulating hypotheses, what are indicators, converting a proposition into a testable form, key terms. The nature of causal inferences: we can never be certain that o(cid:374)e (cid:448)aria(cid:271)le (cid:858)(cid:272)auses(cid:859) a(cid:374)other but we can increase confidence in our causal inferences if we are able to, demonstrate co-variation. If one thing changes, the other must change: establish time order, eliminate sources of spuriousness. What are concepts: a word or symbol that represents some idea (manheim et al. Operational definitions: every concept must be given both a, nominal definition, what we mean, operational definition, how we measure. What can we do with useful concepts: concepts can provide a basis for, classification, comparison, quantification.
