Thomas C. answered • 08/10/19
Clear Communicator for Math, Science and Writing
Before you proceed, you ought to look into the concept of operationalization.
For instance, how do you measure customer satisfaction? We understand the idea abstractly, as a sort of mean of "happiness" people have with a product or service. Measuring satisfaction on the other hand is the task of operationalization. What can you physically do in order to quantify satisfaction? Sales numbers and their derivatives don't cut it (just ask cable/Internet/cellphone service customers). Asking directly - "How satisfied are you with this widget?" - can be fraught with other issues.
From what you've written, it seems like you've got the outline of your conceptual variables: familial relations attributes and perceived risk of victimization. You next need to figure out your operational variables. How will you measure familial relations attributes and perceived risk? How have other researchers done this?
You're going to have to consider what data and data gathering resources are available to you. Do you have access to previously completed surveys? Funding to recruit experiment participants? Mandatory participation by your classmates? Until the end of the semester or completion of a thesis to work on this?
Another thing that might help would be to refine your research question. A good indication that you know what you're trying to accomplish is when you can state your research question one simple sentence. As short as, "Television viewing reduces civic engagement?" The model you come up with can be as complicated as you like, but you'll be spinning your wheels until you can nail down your research question.
Good luck!
Thomas
Alexandra S.
Also, I'm not sure why this posted as one large paragraph. I apologize for the inconvenience.08/12/19
Thomas C.
From my reading of how you're deriving your independent variable, I think the basic problem is you're trying to encode a binary variable. You *can* peform linear regression for binary variables, but it's not particularly appropriate most single-variable OLS setups. That and your question is way way WAY WAAAAAAY more complicated than one independent variable and one dependent variable. Maybe your encoding thing will yield some interesting results, but who knows? That said, in order to accomplish what you want, you have two basic choices. 1) Find two data columns/questions in the GSS that get as close as possible to what you're asking. 2) Develop an index - a single variable that is a function of some set of other variables - for your independent and dependent variables. The S&P 500 is an example of an index. -Thomas08/13/19
Alexandra S.
Hello Thomas! Thank you for your thoughtful response. In terms of operationalization, I am utilizing the 2018 General Social Survey, which includes a questions regarding perceived risk of victimization (i.e. Are you afraid to walk alone at night -- Within a mile radius of your home?) I am aware this is limited, however fear of crime/perceived risk of victimization is very difficult to measure, and prior criminological studies have utilized similar questions (hence why I am calling it perceived risk of victimization rather than fear of crime, because some have argued questions such as the one I am utilizing do not accurately measure "fear of crime," per se, but instead measure an individuals perceived risk of victimization in a given situation). In terms of measuring familial class relations, there is a question asking whether the mother/father was self-employed or had a supervisor, and for the mother there's an additional variable that accounts for whether she was unemployed or didn't work for a period of a year or greater when the respondent was 16. Together from this, I can recode the father and mother (separately) into the obey or command classes (not relevant to my question at all) and term the family balanced or unbalanced based off of that. For this project, the operationalization and/or measurement of our variables isn't necessarily important (we're not graded on that aspect). The most important part is that we are running OLS regression on one independent variable on one dependent variable, and test the assumptions and correct the issues if violated. My research question essentially is "Why are women, on average, perceive significantly more risk of victimization than do men?" In this case, my ideal hypothesis that I would like to test, as previously mentioned, is "the relationship between gender and perceived risk of victimization should be reduced in 'balanced' family structures." I simply need help trying to figure out how to "dumb it down" to be one independent variable and one dependent variable so that I can do the project. Doesn't matter if it's correct, because that's the point of the project: to test the assumptions and see if they hold, and make recommendations/adjustments accordingly. Thanks!08/12/19