How To Do Sociology Flashcards
What are the 5 ways people learn about their world?
Personal experience, tradition, expertise (or authority), religion, and science.
Define theory
A set of claims about what exists in our social world; the interconnections amongst phenomena
Define ideology
A set of beliefs and interconnections one holds despite evidence to the contrary (extra: akin to bias)
What are the 4 systematic tests done in the scientific approach?
Inductive, deductive, quantitative, and qualitative
Explain the 4 systematic tests
Inductive: observations lead to generalizations = theory
Deductive: theories create hypothesis, observations are examined, conclusion drawn on theory
Quantitative: the data
Qualitative: prioritize “gold” information over large amounts
What are the requisites of causality?
Correlation, temporal sequence, non-spurious relationship, and use of theory
Explain the 4 requisites of causality
Correlation: property of being connected
Temporal sequence: “causal chain”, proper order of things, one before the other
Non-spurious relationship: must have a recognizable variable as the cause, “causal variable”
Use of theory: accessing the accumulation of knowledge to generate questions
Which is the hardest requisite to prove?
Non-spurious relationships
Outline the pros of the classical experiment
“Hallmark of scientific research”, isolates experimental effect, experimental and a control group, random assignment
Outline the cons of the classical experiment
Raises ethical issues (not informed participants), has external validity problems (applicability to real life)
Outline pros of survey research
“Extract a sample from a specific population”, very intentional questions
Outline cons of survey research
Not a poll, relatively few people can be asked, faces questions of validity and reliability
Outline the pros of field research
Research goes into the field, studies what is difficult to study (confidential and anonymity)
Outline the cons of field research
Faces questions of reliability and validity, ethical concerns about informed people
Define anonymity
Researcher doesn’t know identities of the sources
