Module 1 Quiz: SGS 401: Political Statistics (2024 Spring - B)

2024SpringB-X-Kaire Quizzes Module 1 Quiz  Module 1 Quiz Due Mar 17 at 11:59pm Points 9 Questions 9 Available Mar 11 at 12am - May 16 at 11:59pm Time Limit None Allowed Attempts Unlimited Instruc ! ons A ! empt History Attempt Time Score KEPT Attempt 2 1 minute 9 out of 9 LATEST Attempt 2 1 minute 9 out of 9 Attempt 1 5 minutes 7 out of 9 Score for this attempt: 9 out of 9 Submitted Mar 18 at 10:08pm This attempt took 1 minute. This quiz covers all the material related to Module 1. You can retake it as many times as you want, but you must complete it before the deadline. Please take notes as you go through the quiz. You want to pay attention to why each question is right or wrong, as it would greatly beneSt you in the exam. Remember that I will only count your highest grade. Please go through the quiz several times and make sure you understand the material. Take the Quiz Again 1 / 1 pts Question 1 What are some of the reasons why it is diYcult to gain knowledge about politics? We do not have enough data on politics. The interpretation of political events is always subjective Political events are the result of many interacting forces. Correct! Correct! This is what we called the complexity problem. Unlike in other scientiSc disciplines, the experimental method has limited applicability in politics. This means that is often hard to isolate the effect of any one factor in the overall outcome we are interested in. Do social movements succeed when popular dissatisfaction is high, when the government is too weak to resist them, or when the international community supports them? It may be all three, but it's hard to tell because we cannot change the data to St our needs as you would do in an experiment. Moreover, if it's all three, which one is more important? Statistics can help us here by quantifying their respective in]uence. Political actors do not always act in the expected ways. Correct! Correct! This is the individuality problem. Our understanding of human behavior is certainly incomplete, and even it was not, humans are not automatons. This makes predicting the behavior of individuals a very hard thing to do. However, we can still do a good job at predicting what the behavior will be *on average*. Statistics can tell us how conSdent we should be about these abstract predictions. 1 / 1 pts Question 2 Which of the following is a conclusion of the reliabilist view of science? Studies that cannot explain why something happened are unscientiSc Science is characterized by its method Correct! Correct! Recall reliabilism argues that we cannot know if a belief is true and justiSed until tested. We can only know if the process that we followed to obtain that belief produces "good" answers (i.e. true and justiSed) most of the time. Therefore, it suggests that we should focus on the methods to assess scientiSc quality. Research is scientiSc when it allows us to predict what will happen in the future 1 / 1 pts Question 3 The following may is a reason why our statistical analysis may produce a wrong answer Lack of data Inadequate measurement Correct! Correct! Statistics depend on the quality of our evidence. If our evidence misrepresents what is out in the world because of measurement error, then the statistical analysis will be wrong. While statistics have answers to the problem of measurement error, researchers need to take explicit steps to address it. Otherwise, we are left with bad evidence and bad inferences. Inadequate research design Correct! Correct! Statistics tells us what to except given the evidence. However, if the evidence we are analyzing is not the right one, statistics cannot give us the right answer. An example of this is survivor bias, where we analyze an incomplete and non-representative sample to learn about the entire population of cases. 1 / 1 pts Question 4 How do we deSne statistics? Statistics is a way to summarize complex data. The application of mathematics to uncover patterns in observed data and make probabilistic predictions about unobserved data. Correct! Correct! This deSnition highlights three important elements: the mathematical backing of statistics, the differentiation between observed (known) data and unobserved (unknown) data, and the generation of predictions with quantiSed uncertainty. Statistics is the application of mathematics to make predictions about unobserved data. Statistics is the application of mathematics to uncover patterns in observed data. 1 / 1 pts Question 5 Statistical predictions are based on identifying the event with 'maximum likelihood'. How is this estimated? Through combinatorics We count the number of ways in which each outcome could have occurred and choose the one that can emerge in the greatest number of ways. Correct! Correct! There are many ways in which we can describe the inner workings of statistics. This is the traditional Bayesian description; you might Snd others elsewhere. 1 / 1 pts Question 6 What do we mean when we say a research question must be motivated by theory? It refers to previous work in the area It means we should be concerned with abstract categories It must explain why things occur. Correct! Correct! Take for example the difference between saying “in]ation has increased in the last year” to “in]ations has increased in the last year due to problems with the supply chain”. The latter may be true, but it does not tell us why in]ation has occurred. Good statistical work would show that supply chain issues increase in]ation, thus explaining why in]ation has occurred. 1 / 1 pts Question 7 What do we mean when we say that a hypothesis should be falsiSable? That some evidence could show that the hypothesis is wrong. Correct! Correct! The textbook refers to this as a hypothesis (or research question) being answerable. That we will gather evidence to show the hypothesis is wrong. 1 / 1 pts Question 8 What is the problem of observational equivalence? That two competing theories have indistinguishable observable implications Correct! Correct! This is bad news because then we will not have data to judge which one of these two theories does a better job at explaining reality. This is a problem different from falsiScation, however. In the latter, no possible evidence can show the theory is wrong. In observational equivalence, we cannot show that the evidence supports one theory over the other. That our observations are very similar to each other 1 / 1 pts Question 9 In a dataset, we have variables and observations. Which one is which? Observations are the rows in our dataset. Variables are elements that can be measured or categorized that contain information about our cases. Correct! Correct! Variables are the columns in our dataset Observations are our unit of analysis. Correct! Correct! They are the cases that we are studying, and for which we gather the necessary data to test our theory. Quiz Score: 9 out of 9  Previous Next  Last Attempt Details: Time: 1 minute Current Score: 9 out of 9 Kept Score: 9 out of 9 2 Attempts so far  View Previous Attempts Unlimited Attempts Take the Quiz Again (Will keep the highest of all your scores) 3 2024 Spring B Home Announcements Modules Discussions Grades Honorlock ASUO After Hours Tutoring ASU Tutoring ASU Course Policies Accessibility Resources Time in AZ ASU Home My ASU Colleges & Schools Map & Locations Contact Us