Midterm Flashcards
Define: Social Research
a process in which people combine a set of principles, outlooks, and ideas (ie methodology) with a collection of specific practices, techniques, and strategies to produce knowledge.
True or false: When you accept something as true because someone in a position of authority says it is true or because it is in an authoritative publication, you are relying on authority as a basis for knowledge.
True
Define: Tradition
Tradition means you accept something as being true because “it’s the way things have always been.”
Some traditional social knowledge begins as simple _______
prejudice
T or F: Common sense is valuable in daily living, but it allows logical fallacies to slip into one’s thinking.
True
Define: Overgneralization
Occurs when some evidence supports your belief, but you falsely assume that it also applies to many other situations.
Define: Selective Observation
Occurs when you take special notice of some people or events and tend to seek out evidence that confirms what you already believe and to ignore contradictory information.
Define: Premature Closure
Occurs when you feel you have the answer and do not need to listen, seek information, or raise questions any longer.
Define: Halo Effect
Occurs when we overgeneralize from what we accept as being highly positive or prestigious and let its favourable impression pr prestige “rub off” onto other areas. (ie we assume a paper from UoT will be excellent and will form an opinion and prejudge the report and may not evaluate it by its own merits alone.)
Define: Data
empirical evidence or information that one gathers carefully according to rules or procedures.
Define: Empirical Evidence
refers to observations that people experience through the senses - touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste.
Define: Scientific Community
a collection of people who practise science and a set or norms, behaviours, and attitudes that bind them together.
Define: Scientific Method
Not one single thing; it refers to the ideas, rules, techniques, and approaches that the scientific community uses.
What are the 7 steps to the research process?
- Select topic
- Focus Question
- Design study
- Collect Data
- Analyze Data
- Interpret Data
- Inform others
_____ research is the source of most of the tools, methods, theories, and ideas used by applied researchers to analyze underlying causes of people’s actions or thinking.
Academic
_______ research is designed to address a specific concern or to offer solutions to a problem identified by an employer, club, agency, social movement, or organization.
Applied social research
In ______ research, someone other than the researcher who conducted the study uses the results.
applied
What are the 3 purposes of research?
Exploration, Description, Explanation
What are some factors of Exploration as a purpose of research?
- Become familiar with the basic facts, setting, and concerns
- Create a general mental picture of conditions
- Formulate and focus questions for future research
- Generate new ideas, conjectures, or hypotheses
- Determine the feasibility of conducting research
- Develop techniques for measuring and locating future data
What are some factors of Description as a purpose of research?
- Provide a detailed, highly accurate picture
- Locate new data that contradict past data
- Create a set of categories or classify types
- Clarify a sequence of steps or stages
- Document a causal process or mechanism
- Report on the background or context of a situation.
What are some factors of Explanation as a purpose of research?
- Test a theory’s predictions
- Elaborate and refine a theory’s explanation
Extend a theory to new issues or topics - Support or refute an explanation or prediction
- Link issues or topics with a general principle
- Determine which of several explanations is best
What happens in exploratory research?
A researchers examines a new area to formulate precise questions that he or she can address in future research. May be the first stage in a sequence of studies.
______ researchers tend to use qualitative data and not be committed to a specific theory or research question.
Exploratory
What happens in descriptive research?
Descriptive research presents a picture of the specific details of a situation, social setting, or relationship. Focuses on how and who questions.
What happens in explanatory research?
Explanatory research identifies the sources of social behaviours, beliefs, conditions, and events; it documents causes, tests theories, and provides reasons.
Define: Cross-sectional research
They examine a single point in time or take a one-tie snapshot approach.
_________ research is usually the simplest and least costly alternative.
Cross-sectional research
What is a disadvantage or cross-sectional research?
It cannot capture social processes or change.
Define: Longitudinal Research
examines features of people or other units at more than one time. It is usually more complex and costly than cross-sectional research, but it is also more powerful and informative.
What are the 3 main types of longitudinal research?
time series, panel, and cohort
Define: Time-series study
gathers the same type of information across two or more periods.Researchers can observe stability or change in the features of the units or can track conditions over time.
Define: Panel Study
a powerful type of longitudinal research in which the researcher observes the same people, group, or organization across multiple time points.
Define: Cohort Study
a special type of panel study that focuses on the same people over time who share a similar life experience in a specific period.
Define: Case-study Research
a researcher examines, in depth, many features of a few cases over a duration of time with very detailed, varied, and extensive data, often in qualitative form. The researcher carefully selects a few key cases to illustrate and study an issue in detail and considers the specific context of each case.
What data collection techniques is quantitative research associated with?
experiments, surveys, and the analysis of existing statistics
What data collection techniques is qualitative research associated with?
qualitative interviews, focus groups, field research, and historical research
_______ research closely follows the logic and principles found in natural science research: Researchers create situations and examine their effects on participants.
Experimental research
_____ research is done by asking people questions using a written questionnaire or during an interview and then recording answers.
Survey
______ analysis is a technique for examining information, or content, in written or symbolic material.
Content analysis
______ research, a researcher locates previously collected information, often in the form of government reports or previously conducted surveys, then reorganizes or combines the information in new ways to address a research question.
existing statistics research
What are four quantitative data collection techniques?
Experiments, surveys, content analysis, existing statistics.
What are four qualitative data collection techniques?
Qualitative interviews, focus groups, field research, and historical research
Why do researchers conduct qualitative interviews?
Researchers conduct qualitative interviews with a selection of people to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning of a social phenomenon to a group of people.
Name this method: Researchers using this technique will get data that are highly detailed and express the unique and comprehensive perspectives of the individuals who participated.
Qualitative Interviews
_____ research beings with a loosely formulated idea or topic, selects a social group or natural setting for study, gains access and adopts a social role in the setting, and observes in detail.
Field research
Define: Explanatory Research
Research that focuses on why events occur or tries to test and build social theory.
Define: Aggregate
Collection of many individuals, cases, or other units
Define: Social Theory
A system of interconnected abstractions or ideas that condenses and organizes knowledge about the social world
Define: Macrosocial Theory
Social theories and explanations about abstract, large-scale, and broad-scope aspects of social reality, such as social change in major institutions (eg. the family, education) in a whole nation across several decades.
Define: Microsocial Theory
Social theories and explanations about the concrete, small-scale and narrow level of reality, such as face-to-face interaction in small groups during a two-month period.
Define: Mesosocial Theory
social theories and explanations about the middle level of social reality between a broad and narrow scope, such as the development and operation of social organizations, communities, or social movements over a five-year period.
Define: Empirical generalization
A quasi-theoretical statement that summarizes findings or regularities in empirical evidence. It uses few, if any, abstract concepts and only makes a statement about a recurring pattern that researchers observe.
Define: Middle-range theory
A theory that focuses on specific aspects of social life and sociological topics that can be tested with empirical hypotheses.
Define: Concept
an idea expressed as a symbol or in words
Define: Assumptions
A part of social theory that is not tested by acts as a starting point or basic belief about the world. These are necessary to make other theoretical statements and to build social theory.
Define: Agency
refers to the individual’s ability to act and make independent choices
Define: Structure
Refers to aspects of the social landscape that appear to limit or influence the choices made by individuals.