Quantitative Approach Flashcards
In what two ways can quantitative research be used in the sociological research
In the study of data, especially numerical data like each income clothes size such are quantitative and a statistical approach will be required
Secondly, necessary in situations where the data would have to be translated into more numerical aspects, for example , the level of enjoyment from getting drunk the research of me as college students at a party to reach the level of alcohol usage on the scale of one to five.
Although drinking is not naturally quantitative, but a researcher can frame the question to give a quantitative answer
What are the two steps of quantitative method sociology?
Data collection and analysis
The most traditional method to collect quantitative data analysis is by
survey
How does the quantitative methods measure the social world and that measurement, What does it mean?
It is done by variables
Variables how we try to understand a specific phenomenon which usually has different values and changes. It is something that is everywhere it is present it is common It is different depending on the situation and how we want to study.
For example, study of not income itself but the difference in income between doctors and teachers
Variable s not the thing itself but something about it a characteristic that is measurable
What is operationalization
This involves specifying, how a researcher would approach a larger concepts, specifying it into a specific aspect, to which he wants to study
For example, study of iPhone usage in teens between the ages of 12 to 18. iPhone use is a broad topic but the researcher may specify, type use of the social media app, on the iPhone of teens between 12-18
The researcher has restricted this research to only studying social media, so if a survey comparing game app to so avail media is 2 to 10, yes more teens use social but the researcher does not know if its tik tok or instagram used more. Restricted how the research would be translated
What is the independent and dependent variable?
The independent variable is usually what influences the dependent variable it has an effect
While dependent variable is affected by the independent variable, it’s changes because of the independent variable
What does it mean for variables to be spurious in research
This means that the two variables share a relationship, because of the third variable connects in them. They are not related to each other without taking into account the third variable.
To determine the type of sampling procedure to be used is based of what?
Research question
What’s the difference between population on sample and how does that relate to generalizability
Population is the entire group number of people that don’t research is relevant to
Sample is a particular group from that population that is to be investigated
Generalizability is necessary when picking a sample because the sample should produce results that can be used to assume that result also applies to the entire population.
Why is generalizability important
It is important, because the subsets of individuals studied should be able to give the researcher an inference that to apply to the entire public
Quantitative methods best in this aspect, because inference from a small sample can be applied to the population as well
A large sample and a good something method can give a reason to move result that can be generalizable to the public.
What 2 qualities of generalizability makes the sample a good guess of what the population is and how do they actually help
Large sample size- with a larger size there is a better estimate of what the population is based off the sample
Quality of sampling procedure- random, representative, convening and snowball sampling
Why is random sampling procedure the best method of proffering generalization
This is because when each indivisible is picked they have an equal chance of being selected like anyone else
For example, when the are. 4 people to be surveyed all of they have an equal 25% chance of being picked
What issue might a researcher have with selecting a sample randomly
The issue is that people can choose to answer or ignore you, the less people answer you the higher the chances of the other people being picked causing it to not be random anymore
How does representative sample differ from random, give an example
A representative sample is one that cannot be taken randomly because of a specific a characteristic that forces the sample to be taken as a specific group
For examplestudying a subset of population with a rare allergy
Why is connivence sample bias
Because the people picked are based of the ease of access to researcher, picking your friends as people to use in your study
Why is snowballing an advantage to qualitative but a disadvantage to quantitative
Snowballing occurs when the people being sample, introduce the researcher to other people they could sample
This is a poor sampling choice for quantitative because, the sample is limited to a specific group of people that are related without giving on equal opportunity to others outside that people group
While the positive part is that this type of method is required to study select groups of people that are difficult to access, for example a gang, class of elites. Without being part of such people it’ll be difficult to survey them, but by gaining access and building rapport you get introduced to others within their group
Secondary analysis, data scraping and quantitative content analysis, all have what in common
They are quantitative methods
Thomas decides to research the population of Canadians with children with multiple schlorosis, he realizes to do this he needs, the funds to access those homes around Canada, a massive sample size as it covers the whole Canada and he would need to ensure that somehow those families are interested in being in such a study, what quantitive sampling method would be best to use and what is a disadvantage to this method
Secondary analysis, he can use the data collected by the Canadian health government already, but the disadvantage is hell not be able to modify that study depending on his research question
If he wanted to study the percentage of immigrants families which have children with ms, I’df the Canadian government idt survey that, then he can’t know
What procedure originated in marketing and involves using computer software to generate data about people behavior on the internet, give an example
Data scraping
The percentage of people who snooze their alarms in the morning depending on the day of the week
What kind of variable is not quantitative, give an example
Nominal or categorical
Numbers can not be used to rank or evaluate the data
Race, status, marital status,
Being black or white or Asian does not make you more or less a better human, or being married, single or dating does not signify you have a better relationship with people
When precise values of the variable can be ranked but cannot be used to measure precise differences between ranks we call that
Ordinal
What is a likert scale and it’s relationship to quantitative analysis
A ranking system where the precise relationship between each rank cannot be identified clearly
Income, number of siblings has a measurable quantitative difference between them why and what quantitative analysis is this
Ratio
For example,e siblings we can rank them based on the ages they were born and we can say there are certain amount of years between each sibling
What gives a quick picture of the content of a variable and how does that relate to descriptive statistics
CentrL tendency a descriptive statistic ( information about the distribution of a single variable
Using a mode is only applicable in what descriptive statistic
Nominal ( most occurring)
What measure of central tendency can be used for ordinal, nominal and ratio
Mode
The percentage that represents the. Variable is the mode not the value it self, true or false
True
What central tendency separate the value into 2 equal halves
Median
Median is only applicable to what variable type
Ratio and ordinal
Can the median and mean of nominal be found
No
Can the mode and median of ordinal data be found
Yes
Can the mean of ordinal data be found
No
Can the mode of ordinal, ratio and nominal be found
Yes
Can the mode, Median and Mean be found of ratio variable
Yes
What descriptive statistic has values between 0 and 1
Proportion
When the median, mode and mean are the same, we have a
Normal curve
What is kurtosis
The extent to how thin or fat a distribution is
Explain each with an example:
Platykurtic
Mesokurtic
Lepokurtic
Flatter distribution- for example a lot of peoples in the class’s failed the course, so the grades are more spread out
Normal distribution
A peak- a lot of people passed the course, so the average score is very high with a peak greater than the normal distribution but of course a bunch of people at the ends did better or worse
Give an example of a positive and negative skew
When there is a higher concentration of people at a negative or positive end, causing a deviation form symmetry
Mean follows the squew
Mode dosent follow squew
For example a researcher does a survey to to find out what age people usually retire, it was mostly at 60’s to mid 70s- positive skew
For ex,all’s a research on when kids get a phone since 2018, you’ll find out that a lot of kids have phones as early as 5 years or younger, a negative skew — less people who get their first phone now at ages like 50 or 30
What over influences the median and the mean
Outlier
Extreme cases that differ from the other distribution of the points
What central tendencies apply to bimodal distributions
Mode- median and mean irrelevant
What statistic measures the relationship between 2 or more variables, by knowing one we know the other
Inferential
Relationship between values in the population can be found using the inferential statistic from a sample using what Method
Quantitative methods
What is used to access the bivarate relationship between variable when at-least one of them is nominal or catgorival
Cross- tab
What does it mean that research question deals with concepts
A general idea or topic is what we are trying to understand, from our observations of that general thing we create a question
Study of how the earth revolves the sun, that is a concept , then we can ask how long does it take for it to happen, and use a method like analyzing NASA documents for the past century or interviewing experts about space we have operationalized a concept into a measurable variable that answers our question
What is content analysis and explain with an example
Study of what people make not people themselves
A football match is an example of what type of skew compared to a basketball match
Football positiveskew, most of the scores are in the range of 1-10
But basketball have goals that are more scoring at high values and less scoring at 0-5 scores
In the answers to an interview 5000 people picked the use of Cars , 10 chose walking and 2000 people picked bicycle. Wha is walking
An outlier
The measure of a relationship between 2 ratio values with either being close to -1/+1 mean greater the relationship and the closer to 0 worker the relationship
Correlation
Give an example of negative correlation
As the temperature of the weather increase, the sake of winter boot decreases
Example of positive correlation
As the hours of time spent studying increases, the grade of the student increases
What describes the effect of several independent variable in a dependent variable
Give an example
Mulitvariate
What causes bad skin
Hygiene, genetics, weather, pillow case p, eating unhealthy, skin care routine,
Many independent variables can be used to test which of them actually causes bad skin, the dependent variable
Why do we need multivariate statistics
Because we do not use experimentations, in real I’ve many things could explain the reason for a specific phenomenon k
