The Great paper chase

Understanding social organization requires surveying members of a neighborhood about their relationships and interactions–in fact, Sampson and colleagues developed a whole new set of surveys to conduct their study of Chicago! We are going to collectively learn more about the range of things that one can ask in a neighborhood survey. To get there, we are going to do a special assignment called “The Great Paper Chase.”

Using your preferred database or search engine for finding scholarly papers, find one academic paper of your choosing and that are centered on neighborhood surveys.

Identify and describe 3 different survey scales (also known as instruments) from these papers, not including collective efficacy or its components (social cohesion and social control). Note: A survey scale is one or more questions intended to measure a specific concept, like collective efficacy, fear of crime, or perceived disorder. For our purposes here, it is not the measurement strategy itself (e.g., Likert scale), which some of you may have seen in methods courses.

Construct 1 PPT slides, one corresponding to one of the papers and scale you identified. On each PPT slide, provide:

• The reference for the paper
• The concept being measured
• The scale intended to measure the concept
• The items used to measure the concept
• Provide a discussion of reliability related to the measure of the concept.

In constructing your paper, please recall the following definitions:

Survey A data collection tool used to collect responses from participants on multiple, often related subjects, typically broken up into scales.

Scale (aka Instrument) A set of one or more items intended to measure a specific topic or concept.

Item A single statement or question to which a survey participant responds.

Your Assignment will be graded according to the Activity Rubric below.