Sociology 2206A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Content Validity, Semantic Differential, Face Validity

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 2206A/B
• Professor: Stephen Lin

Document Summary

Concept: an idea expressed as a symbol or in words. Quantitative researchers more concerned about details around measurement issues. Begin with a concept then create empirical measures that precisely and accurately capture the concept in a form that can be expressed in #"s. Person/family said to be in poverty if their family income is below the lico (low income cut off line) for their fam size and geographic location. We measure physically, non-physically, with our senses, sci measurement (more sensitive and yields more exact info- thermometer gives you a more precise measure than touch), helps ppl observe what is otherwise invisible (magnetism) Some things are easy to see (age, sex, skin) but most cannot be directly observed (attitudes, divorce rates, deviance, sex roles) Blishen scale: socio-economic index of occupations that takes occupation, education and earnings into account. Timing: quan: occurs before and is separate from gathering or analyzing data, qual: measurement occurs during data collection.