Chapter 2: What is Social Science Research? Flashcards
True or false, for the research to get anywhere, the question must be clear, communicable, and acceptable to a community of researchers
True
True or false, the terminology and abstraction used in research papers are there to remind the researcher to maintain a scientific outlook
True
What does being committed to objectivity mean?
be honest about data, whether or not it contradicts values
What is empirical verification?
scientific ideas must be connected to observations
What are the 4 aims of scientific research?
1- be objective
2- empirical verification
3- knowledge is collective, broaden and build it together
4- communicate honestly and clearly
What is skepticism?
value system of research leads researchers to disbelieve any statement that can’t be proved
True or false, if you can clearly describe HOW things are, then you should be able to explain WHY they are that way
True, because the universe is orderly
True or false, theories are the general ideas that give meaning to facts
True
What are hypothesies?
statements that express cause-and-effect relationships in a way that indicates they are not as supported by data as theories
For theory to be useful in guiding research, two things need to happen, what are they?
- break the theory down into a more narrow set of ideas
2. reformulate the ideas into a testable hypothesis
What are variables?
parts or aspects of reality that can change or vary.
What is the difference between independent variables and dependent variables?
indie: changing
dep: depend on the independent variable
What is operationalizing?
setting up systems of measurement or identification of change
laying out the rules for establishing changes in variables
eg. thermometers for temperature
What types of things do we use to operationalize or measure in the social world?
questions designed to establish how religious we are etc
statistical information
True or false, operationalizing the idea of work satisfaction would require a researcher to define it in such a way that the researcher can gather empirical evidence, such as absenteeism
True
What are the 4 major operationalization and measurement issues?
accuracy: are the results accurate or is there a built-in bias?
precision: is the variable operationalized so it can be measured proper?
reliability: are you getting consistent results, can it be repeated?
validity: is it testing what it should be?
True or false, hypotheses in the social sciences are typically less precise than those in the natural sciences
True
How does a researcher pick what they’ll study?
Current events
Controversy or disagreement
Past studies left something out, or they want to know more
Personal experience
What are the two explanations of causal factors?
what do sociologists think about causal information?
- causality is real and its up to you to find evidence of it
- causality is just a way of organizing
What four things need to be met in order to accept a causal interpretation of data?
- temporal order: cause must come before effect
- correlation: 2 variables change together in a consistent way
- elimination of alternatives: could it be something else?
- theoretical consistency: causal linkages must make sense
True or false, scepticism is the negative/critical side of research
True
True or false, with quantitative data, you never prove, you deal with probability
True
True or false, deductive processes are top down reasoning, which move from general to specific
Deductive =
drilling down
moving from theory to testing it
True or false, inductive reasoning is bottom up
True, moves from observations to theories
