- Act - Cultural Diversity
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- A
CT
- – See “assertive community treatment.”
Advocate
– A person who argues for a
cause or a group of people; for example, a lawyer who works for “patients’
rights.” Often, but not always,
the advocate is a member of that group.
Aggregated statistics
– Information,
written as numbers, about whole groups, not individuals in the groups; the term
can also mean the study of this information.
Analysis
of variance (ANOVA) -A statistical test showing the effects of an
“independent variable” on a “dependent variable”; a technique to
determine whether there are “statistically significant” differences of
“means” between two or more groups.
Anecdotal evidence
– What people say
about something; not proven by “hard” (experimental) research.
Anonymity
– The state of having your
individual identity protected, especially from researchers. For example, someone
would be anonymous who answered a mail survey that didn’t ask for the
person’s name or any other ID.
ANOVA
– See “analysis of
variance.”
Applied research
– A kind of study
that tries to make sense of the real world and to change what people actually do
in the real world.
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)
– A form of treatment that encourages people to stay in the community rather
than the hospital, and that tries to bring together different types of
approaches, services, and professionals. For
example, an ACT team might include a social worker who helps a person with
housing, a doctor who gives the person medication, a substance abuse specialist
who helps the person to stop drinking, and a vocational counselor who helps the
person to find a job.
Assessment
– A test or other way of
measuring something, such as a person’s mental health or goals or needs; often the first
test in a series of tests, or a test given before treatment starts.
Association (statistical)
– A
measure of whether and how closely certain values (numbers, amounts) in a study
go up or down at the same time.
Attrition
– The “drop-out” rate
among people who are being studied. People may quit because they want to, or they may not be able
to stay in the study group (because of illness, lack of time, moving to another
city, etc.), or they may not fit into the study anymore (if they get a job or
marry, for example, in a study about single people who are not working).
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Bar
graph
-A drawing that uses bars for various groupings.
The height of the bar shows how many things or people are in that
grouping.
Bell Curve
– See “normal frequency
distribution curve.”
Benchmark
-A standard, test, or point of reference (often a number).
Bias
– Something that may lead a
researcher to wrong conclusions; for example, mistakes or problems in how the
study is planned, or how the information is gathered or looked at.
If two different interviewers had different styles that caused people
with the same thoughts to give different answers, but the answers were all put
together in one pool, there would be a bias.
It is impossible to conduct completely bias-free research.
Bimodal distribution
– A range of
scores that has two most frequent scores instead of one.
Bivariate analysis
– The study of
two things (amounts, values, “variables”) and how they are connected.
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Case
study method
-The close study of one person, group, process, event, etc.
(most often, one person). The one chosen (for example, Lauren Slater, who takes
Prozac) is seen as like others in a larger group (for example, the larger group
of all people taking Prozac) who are not being studied.
Catchment area
– The place near a
certain organization, like a center or hospital, which includes a set of clients
(patients, participants).
Categorical variable
– A piece of
information that can be put in a single category, instead of being given a
number: for example, the
information about whether a person owns a car or about whether the person
belongs to a certain race can be put in the category of “yes” or the
category of “no.”
CATI
– See “computer-assisted
telephone interviewing.”
Causality
– The link between causes
and their effects. For example,
smoking (the cause) leads to lung cancer (the effect), and studying how often
this happens and why would be studying causality.
In most research about how people behave, causality can’t be proven,
and ideas are tested by whether things (“variables,” amounts) change
together.
Census
– A count and record of how
many people live in a certain area. A census taker often asks for information like address, age,
birth date, sex, etc., for each person.
Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS)
-A part of the “Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration” (within the federal
government’s Department of Health and Human Services).
CMHS focuses on mental health services, evaluation, and exchanging
knowledge and information.
Chemical dependence
– The habit of
using alcohol or drugs; usually separated from “substance abuse” or
“addiction,” in which the habit is more severe.
Chi-square
– A statistical test that
measures “significance” in the study of “frequency distributions.”
Classification
– A way of putting
facts, things, people, etc. into groups based on something they have in common.
Close-ended questions
– Questions
that list the possible answers; for example, “multiple-choice” questions or
“true-false” questions.
Cluster analysis
– A study that puts
people or things into a small number of separate groups, so that there will be
as much likeness within each group, and as much difference among the groups, as
possible.
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CMHS
– See “Center for Mental
Health Services.”
Coding
– Putting answers into groups
(usually numbered groups), so the answers can be counted and studied more
easily.
Cohort analysis
– A study of a group
of people who stay in that group over a long time.
For example, all people born in 1960 are a cohort; or all students who
will graduate from high school in 1999. The
study follows this group over time, rather than looking at them once.
Co-morbidity
– The state of having
more than one disease, “diagnosis,” or “disorder” at the same time; for
example, the same person might have “depression” and “panic attacks”
during the same period.
Comparability
– A measure of whether
things can really be compared in a way that is fair and helpful.
For example, oranges and grapefruits, because they are both citrus
fruits, would have comparability in a study of vitamin C content, but oranges
and sausages would not.
Comparison group
– See “control
group.”
Computer-Assisted Telephone
Interviewing (CATI)
– A way of interviewing people over the phone; CATI uses a
computer to choose the interviewees and to ask questions and record answers, as
well as to keep track of information.
Concept mapping
– Grouping ideas or
results based on how alike they are and showing the groups in picture form.
Concepts
– Thoughts or ideas,
especially about how to organize things or about how things are alike or
different.
Confidence interval
– A number
(range) that shows how likely it is that the true amount is inside the listed
range of amounts; for example, a 95% confidence interval of 25-45 would mean
there is a 95% chance that the right amount (number, score, measurement) is
somewhere between 25 and 45.
Confidentiality
– A promise from the
interviewer to the person being interviewed that no information will be given to
anyone except the researchers if it can show who the person being interviewed
is. For example, an interviewer
could promise an ex-patient that complaints the ex-patient makes about a doctor
would never reach anyone not working on the study, unless the complaint were
completely separated from the ex-patient who made it.
There are almost always some limits to confidentiality; for example, if
the person being interviewed is thought to be a “danger to self or others,”
then that information could be given after all.
If an interviewer thinks a person is suicidal, the interviewer could tell
a doctor so, even if the interview is confidential.
Constituency-Oriented Research and
Dissemination
– A type of “participatory action research,” developed by
NIDRR to encourage more cooperation in research within their agency.
Construct
– A general idea that
tries to explain something; for example, social status is a construct.
Content analysis
– A kind of study
that picks out themes by noticing the details of books, newspapers, movies,
speeches, etc.; for example, counting the number of times a word or phrase is
used in President Clinton’s speeches.
Continuous quality improvement
–
The use of date from “evaluation research” to make sure that mental
health services and processes keep improving over time.
Continuous variable
– Something that
has an unlimited number of possible values; for example, height, weight, and age
are all continuous because a person’s height, weight, or age could be measured
in smaller and smaller fractions between the numbers of the whole inches,
pounds, or years.
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Control group
– The people being
studied who are not getting the treatment or other “intervention”/change
that the people in the “experimental” group are getting; for example, in a
study testing a medication, the control group would not take the medication.
CORD
– See “constituency-oriented research and dissemination.”
Correlation
– A measure ranging from 0.00 to 1.00,
of how well two or more things (“variables,” values, scores, etc.) change
together. Both things may get higher at the same time, or lower at the
same time, or one may get higher while the other gets lower.
For example, saving money and spending money are correlated (inversely),
because the more money you save, the less you spend.
CP
– See “common protocol.”
CQI
– See “continuous quality
improvement.”
Cronbach’s Alpha
-A number showing whether all the items on a scale or test are related and
pulling in the same direction.
Cross-cultural method (comparative
method)
– A way of studying different cultural groups (for example, Eskimos
and Mennonites) to see how they are the same and how they are different.
Cross-sectional study
– Research
that compares people at one time only. Cause
and effect can’t be seen in this kind of study.
CSP
– See “Community Support
Program.”
Culture
– Shared beliefs, values,
goals, norms, traditions, arts, history, religion, folklore, experience, and
institutions of a group of people. [Adapted from SAMHSA definition.]
Cultural competence
– Skills that
help researchers to understand and appreciate cultural differences among
different groups. Cultural
competence requires that researchers draw on values and customs within the
community they are studying and that they work with people of and from that
community [Adapted from
SAMHSA definition.]
Cultural diversity
– Differences
(for example, in race, language, or religion) in one community, organization, or
nation. [Adapted from SAMHSA
definition.] A city would be called
culturally diverse if African-American, Hispanic, white, Italian, and Asian
groups all lived there.
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