Selective coding - Selecting the ‘core category’ or primary theme of the research and relating other categories/themes to it, then coding along that core category.
Semi-variogram - A graphical tool to summarize spatial variation, and also a model of underlying spatial process used for geostatistical estimation at unsampled locations.
Significance levels - The probability (set by the researcher as part of the testing procedure) of incorrectly rejecting a true hypothesis.
Sill variance - Maximum value in a semi-variogram determining the scale of spatial dependence. The steepness of the initial slope of the semi-variogram indicates the intensity of change in a property with distance and the rate of decrease in spatial dependence.
Snowballing - A technique used by researchers whereby one contact, or participant, is used to help to recruit another, who in turn puts the researcher in touch with another. The number of participants soon increases rapidly or ‘snowballs’.
Spatial resolution - The size of features discernible from remotely sensed data.
SPSS - A widely used and very comprehensive statistical package in the social sciences. It stands for Statistical Product and Service Solutions. It contains a data editor to enter and handle data as well as extensive graphic possibilities for the display of data in tables and graphics.
Standard error -The standard deviation of a sampling distribution.
Structured approach - A sequential process to site selection and the subsequent measurement programme designed to yield robust, reproducible and general conclusions from field study.
System - A set of objects, together with the relationships between the objects, and between their attributes.
Transition - May refer to any number of processes of societal change (from dictatorship to democracy, for example) but most often used to refer to the contested and problematic transformation of post-communist societies and economies.
