CH 11 Flashcards
what is an unobtrusive method?
it does not influence the data being gathered (low reactivity)
what is the primary unobtrusive method being used?
content analysis
what is content analysis?
descriptive and answers the question, “who says what, to whom, how, and with what effect?”
how does a content analysis begin?
with the identification of the unit of analysis
what is used in content analysis?
traditional sampling methods (simple random, systematic)
what can content analysis focus on?
latent or manifest content
what does conceptualization in content analysis involve?
identifying the variables that need to be coded and the categories that make up each variable code)
what are the two ways that categories can be created
- inductive means
2. deductive means
coding operations must be?
amenable to data processing (aka categories need to be represented in numerical form)
what does content analysis is safe mean?
errors can be corrected by going back to the original content that was coded
who collects statistical data?
many agencies and organizations
-which are in the public domain and can be analyzed by everyone
what is the data in these databases?
often summaries of finding for aggregates of people (ex: data reported by race, gender, state, income level, etc)
the aggregate nature of existing statistics sometimes presents problems, what is the most significant one?
trying to make inferences about individuals from group-level statistics (the ecological fallacy)
what does historical/comparative research trace?
it traces the developmental of social forms over time and compares such developments across cultures.
what does historical/comparative research rely on?
it relies on primary sources of data, such as diaries and other documents produced by the people being studied
