Exam 1 Flashcards
What is the research process?
-Formulate Research Question
-Prepare research design
-Collect data
-Analyze and interpret data
Four basic approaches to research
-Experiments
-Field Research
-Surveys
-Existing Data Analysis Rsearch
Experiment?
A specific methodological approach with 2 key features: manipulation and control
Norm-breaking experiment?
Where you observe people’s behavior before and after breaking a social norm
What are some limitations to experiments?
-May not always reflect reality
-Usually performed on a specific group of people at a certain time and location
-Unable to manipulate everything of interest to social scientists
-Brings up questions of ethics
What can help us understand the causes of human behavior?
Well- conducted experiments
Survey?
A basic approach to social research that involves asking a relatively large sample of people direct questions through interviews and questionnaires
What do surveys help researchers do?
Understand patterns and relationships that may be generalizable to a larger group of people
What are some drawbacks to surveys?
-What people say might not always be true or predictive of what they’d actually do
-Difficult to assign cause and effect
-May not adequately represent the group they’re studying
What is the best way to ensure a good representative sample?
Taking a random sample
Field Research
Observing people in their natural settings then often asking questions
In-depth Interviews
A type of formal interview intended to yield deep responses through open0ended questions and a flexible format
Qualitative Research & what produces it?
-Non-numeric data
-Field research and in-depth interviews yield qualitative data
Catch Lacking
Confronting a person associated with a gang who is going about their non-gang related daily business
How is field research different from surveys and experiments?
-Does not intend to intentionally change people’s behavior
-Researchers are less interested in the percentage of people who provide a certain response than the social meanings and processes behind those responses
Existing data analysis
Analysis of data from sources that were not produced directly by the researcher who uses them
Content analysis
Using a specific type of existing data
What is a limitation of existing content analysis?
Finding data that is appropriate to answer the research question and figuring out how to analyze it
What are the elements of science?
-Theory
-Systematic data collection and analysis
-Logical Reasoning
-Verifiable data
Scientific studies use principles of…
Logical reasoning
Scientific studies are based on…
Verifiable data that has been collected systematically
What are the two forms of reasons that science uses?
-Deductive logic
-Inductive logic
Deductive Logic of Inquiry
-Moves from theory to hypothesis to data
-Top Down approach
What is the disadvantage of deductive logic?
May overlook other theoretical approaches
Inductive Logic of Inquiry
-Moves from data to empirical patterns to theory
-Bottom Up approach
Empirical pattern
A relationship between phenomena inferred from data
What is a disadvantage of empirical patterns?
May have multiple theoretical interpretations
In what ways is science imperfect?
-Tentative
-Can not be proven beyond a doubt
-Can always have alternative explanations
-Knowledge depends on social-historical context
Initial Research Process Steps
-Select Research Topic
-Review Literature/Consider theory
-Formulate Research Question
-Prepare Research Design
Researchers select topics based on…
-Strong personal interests
-Ongoing research and theory
What is the purpose of literature review?
-Helps to identify researchable questions
-Establishes a connection
-Provides information on how previous studies were conducted
-Helps to grasp the current state of knowledge on that topic
What are the purposes of a research question?
-Descriptive
-Explanatory (how & why)
What makes a good research question?
-Interesting
-Seeks to expand knowledge
-Focused by being concrete and specific
-Manageable & Feasible
Quantitative research questions ask about…
Relationships between variables
Qualitative research questions ask about…
The meaning and cultural significance of the phenomena
Survey example
Scarborough et al
Existing data analysis example
Caudillo and Villareal
Other quantitative data collection projects
Olzak
Units of analysis
Cases or entities that researchers study
Variable
A measured concept that varies over time
Extraneous variables
-Confounders(Antecedent)
-Mediators(Intervening)
-Controlled or Uncontrolled
What do tests of statistical significance determine?
-Whether an association would have occurred by chance
What is the direction of influence usually determined by?
Temporal order
Spurious associations are caused by
Confounders or antecedent variables
A central challenge regarding confounders is…
They are often unobserved
What do intervening(mediator) variables do?
-Strengthens inferences about non-spuriousness and causality
Conceptualization
-The objective is to clarify the meaning of concepts embedded in the research question, to make abstraction more specific
-Language shifts from concepts to variables
Clarification may occur by…
-Defining the theoretical meaning
-Distinguishing the concept
-Identifying dimensions
Operationalization
-Identify empirical
-Spell out procedures for applying indicators in collecting
data
-Multiple measures of the same
concept is better than one
Manipulation operations
-Involves changing categories or values of a variable
-Applies to the independent variable
Measure operations
Estimate existing values or or categories
Sources of measurable operational definitions
-Verbal self-reports: based on answers to questions
-Observation: direct observation of behavior or use of technology
-Archival records: use of existing recorded information
Types of Measurement
-Nominal
-Ordinal
-Ratio
Nominal
-Merely labels variable categories
-Cases placed in the same category must be equivalent
-Categories should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive
-Categories don’t have an intrinsic order
-We cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide values
Ordinal
-Numbers indicate rank order
-We cannot add, subtract, multiply, or divide values, but we can rank them
Ratio
-Intervals between numbers represent equal distances in the variable being measured
-Uses a standard measurement unit or metric
-A zero value means there is “none”
-When a zero value does not mean an absence of the property being
measured, we call it an interval measurement
How do you select operational definitions?
-Use the theory in which the concept is embedded as a guide
-Depends on the approach: experiment, survey, qualitative research, existing data analysis
-Create an operational definition that fits the conceptual definition
-Create a set of categories or values that will produce as much information as possible
Reliability
-Stability or consistency of an operational definition
Measurement validity
-Goodness of fit between an operational definition and the concept it is intended to measure
What is the relationship between reliability and validity?
-A reliable measure may or may not be valid
-An unreliable measure cannot be valid
-Reliability is a necessary condition for validity
Test-retest
-Measure the same units or persons on two separate occasions
-Correlation should be high, at least .80
Internal consistency
-Measure the consistency of “scores” across a set of items
-Applies only to composite measures
-Based on the correlation among variables that are expected to measure the same concept
Reliability Assessment
-Inter-rater: measure consistency across different observers or coders
-Applies when observers are coding behavior
-Applies when raters or coders are coding documents
Validity Assessment
-Convergent validation: determine the extent to which independent measures of the same concept are associated
-Construct validation: determine the extent to which an operational definition is related to other variables as theoretically expected
-Based on an accumulation of research evidence, not a single association
-May involve checking relationships with theoretically related and unrelated
variables
