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 Factor Additional Variable Antecedent Intervening Introduced Same relationship Replication Weaker 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 “Do you approve or disapprove of the proposition that men and women should be treated equally in all regards” Epsilon = 12 percentage points

Replication 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 and Church Involvement Church involvement provides an alternative form of gratification for people denied gratification in secular society People of lower social class have fewer opportunities to gain self esteem from secular society

Specification Social Class and Holding Office in Organisations Social class is strongly related to the likelihood that a woman has every held an office in a secular organization

Specification Church Involvement by Social Class and Holding Secular Office Mean church involvement for Rough indicator of gratification in 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 Likelihood of war Likelihood of war International tensions

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 fire trucks Damage done Size of the fire

Interpretation - Intervening variable (Stoufler) Education and Acceptance of Being Drafted EducationFriends Deferred Attitudes

Intervening variable 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