Week 3: Methods of Sociological Research Flashcards
Research Methods
a set of standard approaches that we follow in investigating our questions. They’re the tools we use to describe, explore, and explain various social phenomena in an ethical fashion. There are two main types.
Quantitative Methods
seek to obtain information about the social world that is already in or can be converted to numeric form. This methodology uses statistical analysis to describe the social world that those data represent.
Qualitative Methods
there are many, attempt to collect information about the social world that cannot be readily converted to numeric form. The info gathered with this approach is often used to document the meanings that actions engender in social participants or to describe the mechanisms by which social processes occur
Deductive approach
starts with a theory, forms a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, and the analyzes the data to confirm, reject, or modify the original theory (De-ductive deducts what w know to be also after we form an original theory or hypothesis.
Inductive Approach
starts with empirical observations and then works to for a theory (IN-ductive means you bring IN a theory).
Causality
changes in one factor cause a change in another. To determine causality, three things are needed: time order, correlation, and ruling out alternative explanations.
Correlation (association):
simultaneous variation in two variables. We notice variations in nutrition across countries and simultaneously observe different average heights across the same countries that tend to correspond statistically to those differences in nutrition.
Time order
have people in country A always been taller than those in country B?
Reverse causality
just what it sounds like. You think A is causing B, when B is causing A. E.g. Analyze the relationship between health and income. Does low income mean you’re sick more or does bad health cause low income?
Dependent variable
the outcome that the researcher is trying to explain.
Independent variable
measured factors that you believe have a causal impact on the dependent variable.
Hypothesis
educated giess. In science, it refers to a proposed relationship between two variables, usually wit a stated direction. The direction of the relationship refers to whether your variables move in the sam direction (positive) or in opposite directions (negative).
Operationalization
the process of assigning a precise method for measuring a term being examined. E.g Assigning an OPERATION for the operation.
Moderating variables
affect the relationship between my independent and dependent variables.
Validity
means that it measures what you intend it to. E.g.: if you step on a scale and it measures your height, it’s not valid.
Reliability
refers to how likely you are to obtain the same result using the same measure the next time.
Generalizability
is the extent to which we can claim that our findings inform us about a group larger than the one we studied. Can we generalize our findings to a larger population? And how do we determine whether we can? E.g. Do athletes in college all kick ass academically or is just the athletes I studied in Wells East?
Placebo
a treatment given to a control group in an experimental study to distinguish between the effect of being in an experiment from the effect of the actual treatment under consideration. E.g. A man told an interviewer that he would play pro ball for ten years and then he would have a heart attack at 45. He did.
Double-blind study
an experimental study where neither the subjects nor the researchers know who is in the treatment group and who is in the control (placebo) group.
Reflexivity
analyzing and critically considering the white coat effects you may be inspiring with your research process. E.g. Researchers might have more money, more education, or more resources in general. How does this shape the interactions between researcher and subject, and ultimately, the findings?
White-coat effect
the effects that researchers have on the very processes and relationships they are studying by virtue of being there.
Feminist methodology
a set of systems or methods that treat women’s experiences as legitimate empirical and theoretical resources, that promote social science for women, and that take into account researcher as much as the over subject matter.
Population
an entire group of individual persons, objects, or items from which samples may be drawn.
Sample
the subset of the population from which you are actually collecting data.
