2.12 Glossary
American Community Survey: is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau of the U.S. population that asks questions about education and employment.
American Time Use Survey: “measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, and socializing” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021a).
Causation: a change in one variable causes the change in another variable.
Cohabitation: the practice of living together as if married but without being married.
Common Sense: relies on our personal experience and lay knowledge to tell us why people do what they do.
Conceptualization: the process whereby the researcher explains what their variables mean.
Correlation: there is a relationship or an association between two or more variables.
Current Population Survey: collects monthly labor or employment statistics using a survey from about 60,000 US households (including all 50 states and the District of Columbia.)
Decennial Census: is a count of everyone in the United States that occurs every ten years as required by the U.S. Constitution and determines government representation.
Descriptive statistics: a numerical summary of patterns occurring in a dataset.
Divorce Rate: the number of marriages occurring per 1,000 women in a year.
Ethics: moral principles and standards that guide one’s everyday conduct.
Family: people who share biological or legal ties (e.g., marriage, adoption) with each other.
Fieldwork Observations: the researcher goes to the field site and makes repeated observations of social phenomena.
Frequency: a count of how often something occurs.
Generalizable: a study’s results should hold in similar contexts with different individuals.
Hypothesis: the expected relationship between two or more variables.
In-Depth Interviews: a meeting covering a series of questions or prompts and follow-up questions for the research participant to answer in detail.
Informed Consent: the process in which the research participant agrees to take part in the research and grants permission to the researcher to use their data for research purposes.
Marriage rate: the number of marriages occurring per 1,000 women in a year.
Mean: a measure of central tendency that refers to the arithmetic average of all values for a variable.
Median: a measure of central tendency that refers to the number that occurs in the middle of all values for a variable.
Mode: a measure of central tendency that refers to the value that occurs most often in the dataset.
Nonprobability Samples: a sample that is drawn using convenience or availability sampling techniques instead of random selection.
Operationalization: how a variable is measured.
Percentage: a number that states the data as a fraction of 100.
Population: all individuals to which a study’s results are generalized.
Primary data: data collected by the researcher.
Probability Sample: everyone was randomly selected for inclusion in the study.
Qualitative Research: research that involves uncovering the meaning of non-numerical data, such as field notes, interview transcripts, visual images, audio recordings, and so on.
Quantitative Methods: research that uses statistical data that is usually from surveys completed by large, random sample sizes.
Random selection: each person has an equal and non-zero chance of being chosen.
Rates: are usually calculated per 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 people and allow researchers to report how common or rare a social phenomenon is in the population.
Reliability: the consistency of the results.
Secondary Data: data collected by other researchers or organizations.
Statistically Significant: a change in one condition is related to a change in another condition and the change is not due to chance.
Surveys: ask a standard set of questions of a large pool (hundreds or thousands) of research participants.
Validity: the accuracy of the measurements used in a research study.
Value-Free Research: the researcher puts aside their own values when conducting research.
Variables: the social phenomena that can change that the researchers seek to measure.