Final Exam Flashcards
What are the three components of theory and explain each
- Definitions - explains what the key terms in the theory means
- Descriptions - outline the characteristics of the phenomena of interest
- Relational statements - connects 2 or more variables - the two forms of these are deterministic (the variables always go together) and probabilistic (the variables go together with some degree of regularity)
What are the two types of theories?
Theories of middle range = limited in scope and can be tested directly
Grand theories = general and abstract
What is deductive and inductive reasoning?
Deductive = Start with coming up with a theory, comes up with a hypothesis based on the theory, tests it and the tests either confirm or reject the theory Inductive = data is gathered first then construct a theory based on what you found
What is epistemology and what are the two epistemological positions?
The study of how we know (the how of knowledge production and research methods)
- Positivism = associated with quantitative research - thinks research should be value neutral
- Interpretivism = associated with qualitative research and believes interpretation is the root (so depending on how we understand something has an impact on how we interpret it)
What is ontology and what are the two sides?
The study of what we know
- Objectivist = think social phenomena have a reality independent of our perceptions
- Constructionist
- hard = what passes for reality is a set of mental constructions
- soft = there is an objective social reality but many of our ideas and perceptions are false because they have been constructed to justify some form of domination
What is qualitative research and name the common characteristics of qualitative research
What it is:
- concerned with words and images
- usually inductive
- tends to be interpretivist
- often constructionist
- takes a naturalistic perspective
Characteristics:
- uses adaptable methods of collecting data
- generates data that is detailed, rich, and complex
- a reflective approach where the role and perspective of the researcher is acknowledged
What are the common critiques of qualitative research?
- Too subjective
- Almost impossible to replicate
- Problems of generalization = samples not meant to be representative
- Lack is transparency = responsibility of researcher to be transparent
What are the different types of research designs?
- experimental design = more or less artificial conditions in a controlled environment (usually a lab) - generally not used with qualitative research
- cross-sectional design = observing patterns or collecting data that you hope will help you observe and explain patterns at one moment in time in more than one case
- longitudinal design = tries to capture change over time so you do the survey or interview more than one (you observe at least two point in time)
- case study design = you use the methods of both longitudinal and cross-sectional but you look at an in depth study of one case
What are the criteria for evaluating social research?
- reliability = the result remains the same each time a particular measurement technique is used on the same subject
- replicability = the result is the same when other repeat the study
- validity = there is integrity to the conclusion
- measurement validity = are you measuring what you want to measure?
- internal validity = looks at whether causation has been established by a particular study
- external validity = are your finding applicable to situations outside your research, and can the findings be generalized beyond the people in your study
According to research ethics, what takes priority above all else?
The welfare of the research participants
What is the name of the guide that the ethics boards use for social research?
The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2)
What are the core principles of TCPS2?
- respect for persons = involves adherence to human rights, free informed and ongoing consent (usually has to be in writing), notifies of the risks and benefits of the research
- concern for welfare = involves privacy, confidentiality, and well being of the person/group/community
- justice
What are the 3 strategies of interviews?
- Structured = for quantitative research - all answers are fixed, you just check a box, you can get more results but don’t understand why a participant chose that box, not interested in finding out why only interested in the final answer
- Semi-Structured = for qualitative research, the interviewer has questions in the general form of an interview guide and is able to very the order of questions and is free to ask further questions based on the replies of the research participant’s replies
- Unstructured = for qualitative research, the interviewer is free to explore any topic but an interview guide is usually used, the questions may vary from one interview to another
What are the advantages and disadvantages of structured interviews and questionnaires?
Advantages:
-Organized = everyone is on the same page, answers may be superficial but you get a Snapchat or people’s answers that does not deviate from interview participant to interview participant
- Cost efficiency
- Ease of analysis = all possible answers are known so it’s just a matter of counting - this allows you to work with a Parker sample group
Disadvantages:
-people could read the box incorrectly and give the wrong answer
-layout needs to be easy to navigate so that people don’t make mistakes
What is variability due to error and where does it come from?
What is it?
-it is variation due to the interviewer or interviewing process
Where does it come from?
- intra-interviewer variability = an interviewer is no consistent in asking questions or recording answers with the same respondent
- inter-interviewer variability = lack of consistency in asking questions or recording answers between interviews
What is the interviewer effect?
- reactive effects are part of any research process (reactivity)
- characteristics of interviewers may influence the responses given
- gender, class, and race are key reactive issues
What are the three types of interviews?
- In-person interview = face-to-face interviewing is the preferred methods in academic research
- Telephone interview = cheap, quick and reduces biased from interview effect but excludes people without phones, hard to sustain for long periods of time, cannot read body language
- Online interview = cheap, people have longer to give a more thoughtful answer, no need to transcribe but high dropout rate
What are questionnaires and what are advantages and disadvantages of them?
What are they
- Structured interviews without interviewer
- involve filling out a form which is then returned to the researcher usually by mail
- must be very clear because there is not aid from and interviewer
- mostly closed questions, simple design, short
Advantages
- cheap, quick
- no interviewer effects
- respondent more likely to give genuine answers to sensitive questions
Disadvantages
- researcher can’t explain questions
- difficult to ask a lot of questions
- difficult to ask open questions
- not everyone can answer (those with little literacy)
- some may not complete questionnaires
How do you code open questions?
Post-coding = data are gathered, then themes or categories of behaviour are descerened
Pre-coding = themes are categories are decided before data is gathered (usually done with fixed response items ex. Strong agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree) then each answer is assigned a number
What are the specific rules for designing research questions?
- avoid ambiguous terms
- avoid long questions
- avoid double-barrelled questions
- avoid general questions
- avoid leading questions
- avoid questions that are actually two questions
- avoid questions that include negatives
- minimize technical terms
- do not start with most sensitive questions
What are vignette questions?
- present people with one or more situations and asking them how they would respond
- creates distance between question and respondent
- weakness: how people say they react is not always how they actually would