Chapter 2(Sociological Methods) Flashcards
Doing Sociological research is a what?
Explain this
Process
How you approach youre topic will influence decisions about how you collect and present data.
This procees includes, defining your research question, doing literature review, forming a hypothesis. testing it and etc.
Positivist Approach
Research Orientation
Scientific approach to studying society. Stresses objectivity in research and the ultimate goals are truth and causation
believes that society should be studied in a scientific manner
Ideally, society can be studied by defining dependent and independent variable that influence each other in clear pattern through quantitative research
Example of Positivism Methods
Indepedent Variable-> Dependent variable
Education-> Income
Qualitative research
involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data to understand concepts, opinions or experiences.
What is interpretative methods?
Interpretive approaches rely on questioning and observation in order to discover or generate a rich and deep understanding of the phenomenon being investigated.
Relatively small sample through qualitative data
Field notes as data
participant Observation, case studies
In sociological experiments, you have to follow which mandates
Do No Harm(physical , mental, emotional)
Examples of Harm
Obedience study(Milgram Experimental)
Stanford Prison Study
Driving while white/black/latino
Ethinc resume study
Questionaries
short response, self reported by participant, usually with goal of obtaining large sample with many variables
This is a survey
Interview
Interviewer and participants interaction; may be large sample or small sample; short response or open ended, less structed interview schedule
This is a survey
Participant Observation
Researcher takes on- to varying degrees a role of group member to study group behavior in a natural setting
Regardless of the method chosen for youre research, you must address what?
You must address issues of validity and reliabilty
Validity
the extent to which your measure actually measures what you say it does
Reliabitly
The extent to which your measure will yield consistent results if repeated
