Unit of analysis

The major entity that you are analyzing in your study. For instance, a unit of analysis in a study could be: individuals, groups, a geographical unit (neighborhood, town, region). A unit of analysis could also be social interactions (arrests, youth seeking help). It is the analysis you do in your study that determines what the unit is (i.e., in one case it might be studying change in individual children and in another case the collective immigrant youth in a city).