2.1 A prominent social scientist believes that she can measure the eff ectiveness of police departments by asking citizens how eff ective they feel their police depart- ment is. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this measure?
2.2 Compile a list of indicators that could be used to evaluate the quality of a city’s sanitary landfi ll (garbage dump).
2.3 A campus safety program requires all volunteer safety offi cers to be at least 5 feet, 8 inches tall and to be able to chin themselves on an 8-foot bar. What concept does the program seem to measure? Evaluate these indicators.
2.4 Compile a list of indicators that could be used to evaluate a building mainte- nance crew.
2.5 What are the relative advantages of subjective and objective indicators of a concept?
2.6 Evaluate the validity and reliability of the survey question, “To what extent does this department have waste and ineffi ciency in its operations?” as a measure of the waste and ineffi ciency in the department. Suggest other measures that the department could use to measure waste and ineffi ciency and explain why they would be an improvement over the survey question.
2.7 Th e head of a municipal recreation department is not satisfi ed with the city’s standardized performance evaluation form for employees. The form consists largely of a rating system that includes fi ve categories: far above expectations, above expectations, meets expectations, below expectations, and far below expec- tations. Th e department head wants to develop improved measures of employee performance. Help him by suggesting improved measures and by evaluating their validity and reliability. Consider objective as well as subjective measures and ob- trusive as well as unobtrusive measures of employee performance.
2.8 Identify a crucial concept in public administration, such as bureaucracy, profes- sionalism, or responsiveness, and explain how this concept has been measured in the literature.
(a) What are some of the ways that researchers have measured the concept?
(b) To what degree have researchers established valid and reliable measures of the concept?
(c) Suggest new indicators that might improve on the measurement of the concept.
2.9 Th e director of the Art Institute would like to present some data on the size of donations in this year’s annual report. He selects the following four categories to summarize donations:
Friend of the Institute ($25 to $99)
Silver Member ($100 to $249)
Gold Member ($250 to $499)
Platinum Member ($500 and above)
To get a sense of what the data will look like, the director gives you a sample of donations measured at the interval level and asks you to apply the coding scheme.
Create an ordinal-level variable for donations using the data below. (Hint: To get started, you fi rst need to assign a numerical code to each category.)
Interval Version (in $) Ordinal Version 25
150 75 450 100 750 90 175 250 50
2.10 Th e director of the West Arbor Senior Center decides to put together a database on the center’s activities. Th e center currently takes written records of services provided to clients, but the director feels that program information will be easier
to access and analyze if the records are computerized. The program director generates the following sample data for 10 current clients:
Service Provided
Gender Home Delivery
of Meals Assistance with Transportation
Male Yes Never
Female Yes Frequently
Female No Never
Male No Rarely
Female Yes Never
Male Yes Rarely
Male Yes Frequently
Female No Never
Male Yes Never
Female No Frequently
Th e director asks you to develop a measurement scheme and turn the data into numbers that can be put into a computerized database. Show the director how much you know about measurement, and develop a numerical coding scheme for each of the variables. Is a nominal-level coding scheme suffi cient for all three variables, or does one variable need to be constructed using a higher level of measurement?
2.11 Th e Wildlife Conservation Center has put together a database to keep track of the attributes of its employees. Specifi cally, numerical codes are assigned to vari- ables as follows:
Gender 1 5 female 2 5 male
Job Status 1 5 full time 2 5 part time
Job Description 1 5 professional 2 5 administrative 3 5 general labor
Employee Gender Job Status Job Description
1 1 1 1
2 2 1 3
3 1 2 2
4 2 1 2
5 1 2 1
6 1 2 1
7 2 2 3
8 1 1 3
Use the variable codes above to describe in words the attributes of each employee.
2.12 Th e city manager of Snook, Texas, wants to generate some statistics on a volun- tary free fl u shot clinic for city employees. Specifi cally, she has the following data on whether employees received shots and whether they took sick leave during the winter months:
Received Shot Took Sick Leave
Yes No
No Yes
No Yes
Yes No
Yes Yes
Yes No
No No
Yes No
Yes No
No Yes
Th e city manager asks you to come up with a numerical coding scheme so that these data can be placed in a statistical program for analysis. Develop a coding scheme for each variable.
W
inston Lewis, mayor of the city of Bison, Kansas, is upset. Th e show- case of his community pride program, “Stand Up for Bison,” is a failure. Th e program was intended to upgrade the quality of life of senior citizens in Bison by relocating those living below the poverty line to new federally subsidized public housing, operated by a consortium of nonprofi t hous- ing agencies. Because termination of the program means a loss not only of federal funds but also of local jobs, Mayor Lewis is especially perturbed.To add to the mayor’s problems, in a blistering front-page editorial, the local newspaper, the Bison News, blamed the failure of the community pride program on the incompetence of Lewis and his staff . Th e editorial claimed that the mayor did not take a personal interest in running the program and instead delegated its administration largely to cronies, none of whom had education or training in the needs and problems of senior citizens. As a result, the editorial contended, the senior citizens were treated shabbily—“as a product”—by the program, and insuffi cient attention was paid to their rights, convenience, and welfare. Th e edi- torial also suggested that the housing program might be more eff ective were the nonprofi t providers given greater funding.
Lewis’s initial reaction was to counterattack in the public media. He and his staff assembled information intended to refute the charges made in the editorial, and a press conference was tentatively scheduled.
Before the press conference took place, however, the mayor’s chief strategist, Dick Murray, informed Lewis of his misgivings about this type of response to the editorial. In the fi rst place, argued Murray, it would be certain to occasion a rejoinder from the newspaper, further publicity, and perhaps an offi cial investi- gation of the program. Understandably, the mayor would prefer to avoid all of these. Second, even if the mayor were able to refute the newspaper charges, the nagging question would remain: What did cause the program to fail? Murray maintained that if he could demonstrate that factors other than those pertaining to the mayor and his staff were responsible for the failure of the program, then he could limit the adverse publicity and take the heat off Lewis—a nice solution to the mayor’s problems. Suitably impressed, Lewis canceled the press conference and told Murray to proceed.
Research Design
3
Murray fi rst undertook his research. A telephone call to Washington, D.C., yielded the information that the federal government had funded the same program for senior citizens in Virtuous, Montana, a city similar to Bison in area, popula- tion, and other crucial characteristics (economic base, form of government, and so forth). In contrast to the experience in Bison, however, the federal government was quite pleased with the program in Virtuous; the Washington bureaucrat quipped that the program has enjoyed a success “as big as the sky.” Murray reasoned that if Lewis and his staff have comparable levels of interest and competence in run- ning the program as their counterparts in Virtuous, then these factors cannot be the cause of the failure of the program in Bison, for the program has succeeded in Virtuous with the same level of offi cial involvement. Murray checked with the Vir- tuous authorities and found that in both cities, the levels of interest and of compe- tence of the mayor and staff were very similar. Th us, Murray concluded that some other factor must be responsible for the failure of the program in Bison.
What might this factor be? Murray thought that the newspaper editorial might be on to something with regard to the need for greater funding. With more funding for the nonprofi t housing providers, the results might look far diff erent.
Murray checked again with the Virtuous authorities and learned that Bison was awarded far less in federal funds to run the senior citizen program than was Virtu- ous. Th is information provided support for Murray’s hunch. He concluded that the program in Bison failed not because of lack of offi cial involvement—recall that the program in Virtuous succeeded with the same level of involvement—but because of a lack of suffi cient federal funding. He reasoned that had the program in Bison received the same level of funding as that in Virtuous, it would have been a success. After all, look at the experience in Virtuous, where more money was made available.
Murray delivered his fi ndings to Mayor Lewis, who naturally was pleased. At a newly scheduled press conference, the mayor presented Murray’s evidence to refute the allegations of the Bison News editorial and to establish a new possible cause of the failure of the program in Bison: inadequate federal funding. Th e press conference had the desired impact. Murray was given a raise.
Th e process in which Murray was engaged—attempting to determine the cause of a relationship or event—is at the core of all social research. Social scien- tists seek to discover the causes of phenomena and rule out possible rival causes.
Th e nature of this enterprise provides the focus for this chapter.
Th e fi rst section of the chapter introduces the process and terminology com- monly used by social scientists in constructing causal explanations. Th e second portion of the chapter discusses the formal criteria necessary to establish a re- lationship as causal. In other words, what evidence must the researcher present in order to demonstrate that A causes B? Th e fi nal chapter segment is devoted to research design. A research design is a systematic program intended to evalu- ate proposed causal explanations on the basis of data. Th e two major types of design—experimental and quasi-experimental—are distinguished and elaborated.
As you will see, a solid research design is essential to public and nonprofi t manag- ers in introducing and assessing administrative changes for maximum impact.