Exam 1: The Definition and Measurement of Concepts

A measure that records the true value of an intended characteristic is said to be?

The primary goals of political research are to describe ______ and ______ the relationship between them.

Democratization is an example of a(n) ______ in political research.

A measure that "picks up" an unintended characteristic when studying human subjects is known as the Hawthorne effect.

One way to test the reliability of a measure is the ______ method.

A measure is said to be reliable when it accurately measures the concept being studied.

A question that may be answered empirically using tangible properties is called a ______.

A(n) ______ describes clearly the concept's measurable properties and specifies the units of analysis.

Liberalism is the extent to which individuals express support for increased government spending for social programs is an example of an operational definition.

______ introduces consistent, chronic distortion into an empirical measurement.

Two or more distinct groups of empirical characteristics are known as a ______.

Data sets are always large and tend to contain large numbers.

An interviewer who records a respondent's answer incorrectly has introduced random measurement error into the research.

Every concept must have two essential properties, concreteness and variability.

A researcher is studying the attitudes of liberals and determines that one characteristic of liberals is support for abortion rights. Joe describes himself as a liberal, so the researcher concludes that Joe supports abortion rights. This is an example of ______.