Chapter 3 - Using Research Methods Flashcards
Research
The systematic process of data collection for the purpose of producing knowledge.
Trying to find out how the world actually is, not make an argument for how we wish the world would be.
Empirical
Statements that could hypothetically be proved true or false.
Normative statements
Statements with which you are expressing an opinion.
These include statements that have words such as should in them, in which you state that the world would be better in certain circumstances, or in which you express a moral, ethical, or religious view.
Sociological Research
Done on groups, societies, and/or social interaction. In general, sociological research addresses patterns, comparisons, relationships, and meanings in social life.
Devoid of normative statements.
Must go beyond what is in people’s head.
Basic Research
Research directed at gaining fundamental knowledge about some issue.
Used to gain knowledge
Lays the foundation for applied research by enabling the development of key ideas necessary for applied research that will be undertaken later.
Applied Research
Research designed to produce results that are immediately useful in relation to some real-world situation.
Is done to help solve real-world problems
Help us solve specific problems.
Survey
The researcher develops a set of prewritten questions and asks respondents to answer these questions. Survey questions are often multiple choice.
Focus groups
Multiple people interviewed at once.
Observation
Researchers watch as spectators
Participant Observation
Observe action and interaction while participating as part of the social context they are studying.
Ethnography
Research that systematically studies how groups of people live and make meaning by understanding the group from its own point of view.
Experiment
In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers have control over the setting and interactions, so they can manipulate the conditions to test the effects of one particular circumstance. This requires an experimental group, which is exposed to some sort of treatment or manipulation, and a control group that does not experience the treatment or manipulation. By comparing the two groups, the researcher can see exactly what the impact of the treatment or manipulation was.
Field Experiments
Most sociologists do. Conducted outside the lab, in the real world.
Content Analysis
One way researchers use documents to collect data. When conducting content analysis, researchers use texts—which may be written or visual—and systematically categorize elements of those texts on the basis of a set of rules.
Institutional review board (IRB)
Any research receiving federal funding, which includes almost all research conducted at colleges and universities must be reviewed by an IRB to ensure that the rights of human subjects are properly protected.
Qualitative coding
Applying descriptive labels to sections of text or images and then classifying them into categories or themes to denote patterns in the data.
Sociologist: Scientific Method Steps
- Defining a research question
- Literature review: find what is already known
- Develop a hypothesis
- Develop a research design and collect data according to design
- Data Collection
- Analyze and interpret
- Submit them to review
- Report and publish
Generalizability
- Findings apply to population
- Refers to whether it is possible to assume that the patterns and relationships observed among the sample in the research study would also hold true for the broader population.
- Participants must have been obtained via the use of a properly constructed random sample.
Nonrandom sample
Used when a random sample is impossible or extremely impractical to obtain. Because you need a list of potential respondents to conduct a random sample, nonrandom samples tend to be used where such a list does not exist.
Representative
The people in their samples have characteristics typical of people in the broader population they seek to analyze.
The results will not be automatically generalizable, if the sample is representative, the researchers can make the case that their findings provide a good representation of the overall population studied.
Reliability
- Refers to the extent to which research results are consistent, and consistency helps us understand whether the form of measurement in the research actually measures what we think it measures.
- Consistency helps us to understand whether the form of measurement in the research actually measures what we think it measures.
- In all techniques, if repeating measurements will produce the same results is the question.
Validity
- Refers to whether the research results are trustworthy.
- In all techniques, if the measures consistently measure the phenomena accurately is the question.
- Many factors can affect validity, such as poorly developed measures or other researcher errors, such as using biased samples.
Causation
Occurs when a change in one variable causes a change in another variable.
Three conditions must be met for causation to be demonstrated:
- The supposed cause has to be associated with the supposed effect.
- The cause must come before the effect.
- Other alternative explanations for the effect must be eliminated.
- Researchers are often unable to definitively show that a relationship is causal.
- Controlled, laboratory experiments are needed to demonstrate causation
Positivist sociology
Study of society based on scientific observation of social behavior
Empirical evidence
- Information we can verify with our senses
- Quantitative data
Science
Logical system that develops knowledge from direct, systematic observation
Interpretive sociology
- Study of society that focuses on discovering the meanings people attach to their social world
- Focus on qualitative data
Visual sociology
- Society is in postmodern state the is characterize by many narratives, in multi-cultural society
- Method is closely linked with interpretive sociology and focus on the collection and analysis of images (photographs and/or videos).
- Collaboration is sought between researcher and the researched. The researcher use visual data and often seek to active involvement the research subjects in the constructing the meaning of those images. Photo elicitation and Photo voices are two key methods
- The researcher is a collaborator with respondents in the creation of knowledge.
- Multiple theory as a post-modernist view.
Critical sociology
- Focuses on the need for social change
- Asks moral and political questions
- Rejects Weber’s goal of value-free sociology
- Emphasizes sociologists social activism in pursuit of greater social equality
Experiment
Research method for investigating cause and effect under highly controlled conditions
Hypothesis
Statement of a possible relationship between two (or more) variables
Theory
- Used to help sociologists notice and understand patterns in society.
- Theories help researchers interpret the findings of their data.
- Research can also be done to test the accuracy of theories.
- Theories can be used to develop research hypotheses.
- Hypotheses must be testable.
- Researchers can collect cross-sectional or longitudinal data to test their hypotheses.
Cross-sectional
data are collected at one point in time
Longitudinal
Data are collected at multiple points in time, such as once a year for several years.
Looking at Documents
- Secondary Data Analysis
- Studying documents can be useful when it is difficult to talk with people or when the subjects of study are the documents themselves.
- Comparative-historical research is done when researchers analyze documents from the past to develop an understanding of events, context, and people.
- Content analysis is a method by which researchers analyze text to answer research questions.
American Sociological Association
Established formal guidelines for conducting research
Guidelines
- Skillful and
- fair-minded
- Disclosure of all research findings
- No risk of harm
- Privacy protection
- Informed consent
- Funding source
- transparency/conflict of interest
Qualitative Data Analysis
- Qualitative data are descriptive in nature. Whether it is using thick description or some form of categorical coding, qualitative data analysis is inherently descriptive in nature.
- Researchers can draw conclusions from these descriptions, help validate theory, and even develop theory from descriptive research (grounded theory).
- Thick description involves detailed narratives
- Qualitative coding is categorical.
Quantitative data analysis
- Data are represented using numbers.
- Spreadsheets and statistical software are used to analyze numerical data.
- Descriptive statistics are used to describe the data (mean), such as the average, middle value (median), most common answer (mode).
- Explanatory statistics are used to see whether relationships exist between elements (variables) of the data
Operationalize
- How to measure concepts that are chosen for a study.
- By measuring concepts, the researcher can create variables or constants.
Variables
Concepts that can have different values for different people, such as age or religious affiliation.
A concept that changes from case to case(example ‘upper class’ ‘Middle class’ lower class’)
Constants
Factors that are the same for everyone. In a study of only women, being “female” would be a constant.
Concept
Measurement
Procedure for determining the value of a variable in a specific case (example a questionnaire the ask interviewee about their household income)
The mode
is the value that occurs most often in a series of numbers
The mean
refers to the arithmetic average of a series of numbers.
The median
is the value that occurs midway in a series of numbers arranged from lowest to highest.
