POLITICAL ANALYSIS, 2022, FIRST EXAM (100-point test)

1.      (12 points) What are the 6 characteristics of the Behavioral era of political science (according to the lecturer), and briefly explain why each of those characteristics is important by applying it to a specific study?

 

2.       (8 points) What are the 4 characteristics of a “good theory,” according to the lecturer, and briefly explain how each one operates? You can explain how each characteristic operates by taking an existing theory mentioned in class and showing how the characteristic does or does not apply to it.

 

3.       (10 points) What are the 5 hypotheses in the model below? Use the precise wording that is necessary for a hypothesis in each of your 5 sentences. The variables are all dichotomous (with 2 categories), such as white and black, liberal and conservative, low and high income, and Democrats and Republicans. The categories in parentheses are the categories that tend to go together.
Note: Race is the earliest variable; ideology and income are the two intervening variables in the middle; party identification is the dependent variable (the figure did not reproduce in web language).

 

Ideology

(conservative)

Race Party Identification

(Whites) (Republicans)

 


Income

(high)

 

4.       (10 points) What is the unit of analysis (individual, county, state, nation) for each of the following 5 studies? A one-word answer for each is desired.

 

A.   A study of preferences on paid family leave in the United States, based on a national survey of 1500 individuals, asking each of them the following questions: should large businesses be required to provide 3 months of paid family leave to their employees; party identification of respondents; ideological self-identification of respondents; family income of each individual.

 

B.      A study of voter fraud in the American states, based on the following information about each state: number of votes cast by each state in the last presidential election; state adult population in the last census; whether or not the state government checks voter registration claims of residency and citizenship; number of convictions for voter fraud over the past four years, adjusted for state population.

 

C.      A study of racial polarization in Mississippi, based on the following information on each of the 82 counties: percentage African American of the county’s population; percentage vote cast for Biden for President; a measure of how racially segregated the public schools are in each county; census data on racial differences in income.

 

D A study of democracy in each nation, based on a worldwide study of 180 different nations determining answers to the following questions: a measure of free speech in each nation, based on extent of prosecutions or firings for political speech; a measure of press freedom in each nation, drawn from an international think tank’s data; a measure of rule of law, based on the number (adjusted for population) of prison inmates who have received a public trial with access to a defense attorney; extent of competitive elections in each nation, measuring how frequently the legislative and executive bodies are controlled by different parties.

 

E.      A study of migration in the American states, based on the following information drawn from each of 50 states: percentage of population that was born in a different state or nation; average wage of workers in each state; percentage of population that is college educated in each state; a measure of extent of leisure and cultural opportunities in each state; a measure of how severe the climate is in each state.

 

 

5.       (10 points) What is the level of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval) of each of the following indicators: A one-word answer for each is desired.

 

A.      In general, do you think that the courts in your area deal with criminals too harshly, about right, or not harshly enough? (Revised from GSS survey)

 

B.      Last year, how many weeks did you work full-time or part-time? (GSS revision)

 

C.      Remembering that it might require a tax increase, how much money should the government spend in the area of health care. Should it spend much more, somewhat more, about the same, somewhat less, or much less than it is currently spending? (GSS revision in 1 year)

 

D.      For whom did you vote for President? Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Joe Jorgensen, Howie Hawkins, or someone else? (NES 2020 survey, asked of voters)

 

E.       In what state or country did you mainly grow up in? (NES 2020 revision)

 

6.       (10 points) A public administration graduate student was hired to test the reliability of an Alabama city government’s indicator of job satisfaction of its municipal workers. 500 workers of the city were surveyed in October of 2021, and the same people were re-surveyed in December of 2021. She conducts a test-retest of the job satisfaction indicator’s reliability, and obtains the following table of workers’ responses at 2 time points. Is this a reliable indicator? Yes, or no? How could you tell, and be specific and include the definition of reliability in your answer? (Hypothetical data)

 

JOB SATISFACTION LEVEL IN OCTOBER 2021

Job satisfaction in December of 2021

Dissatisfied in October

Mixed in October

Satisfied in October

Dissatisfied in December

70

15

20

Mixed in December

15

80

30

Satisfied in December

5

15

250

 

 

7.       (10 points) This is a Construct or Criterion Validity Test.

 

 

Strong Dem

Weak

Dem

Indep

Dem

Pure

Indep

Indep

Rep

Weak Rep

Strong

Rep

% favoring always allowing abortion

 

74%

 

69%

 

73%

 

52%

 

32%

 

33%

 

16%

% favoring death penalty for 1st degree murder

 

41%

 

51%

 

43%

 

69%

 

75%

 

77%

 

87%

% greatly favoring gov’t requiring paid family leave

 

65%

 

56%

 

54%

 

35%

 

32%

 

30%

 

29%

% for increased federal spending on welfare

 

69%

 

56%

 

66%

 

49%

 

32%

 

37%

 

19%

% favor increased defense spending

 

10%

 

27%

 

21%

 

39%

 

57%

 

56%

 

79%

 

It is drawn from the 2020 National Election Study conducted by the University of Michigan (with one revision for defense spending strong Democrats). It relates the questionable 7 category indicator of party identification to five well-established issue items. For each row, each cell entry is the percentage of people having that particular partisan orientation (strong Democratic, weak Democratic, etc.) that agrees with the opinion at the extreme left of that row. For example, in the first row and column, 74% of Strong Democrats favor always allowing abortions (and 26% therefore oppose this pro-choice position). Also, please note that the five well-established issue items are sometimes liberal policies and sometimes conservative policies, so that the highest percentages will sometimes be in the Strong Democrat category and sometimes in the Strong Republican category, so the percentages will either decrease or increase going across the rows depending on the ideology of the policy.

Remember that party identification is measured at the ordinal level of measurement, so the validity question that we are addressing is whether this party indicator is actually a valid ordinal indicator. For each row, just circle each pair of adjacent categories that exhibits a validity problem (in terms of ordinality of the questionable indicator). No other answer is needed.

 

8.       (8 points) What are the four components of Informed Consent? Briefly explain each.

 

9.       (6 points) What is the difference between Anonymity and Confidentiality?

 

 

10.   (10 points) What are the problems with in-person surveys, the problems with mail surveys, and the advantages of telephone surveys, according to the lecturer? Short sentences are fine.

 

 

 

11.   (6 points) What are 2 major historic problems with polls, and give a specific example of each, and explain why and how there were problems?