Research Design

How do we know things

Experiential knowledge (self-experience) and we are told by experts and other people we trust

Two criteria for agreement knowledge

Logical (must make sense) + emperical (observaitions)= agreement knowledge

Personal human inquiry

Observe the world (we process things to create predictability)

What does this inquiry do?

It helps us make decisions and reduce anxiety

What does scientific research do

Uses the scientific process/methodologies to look at the world though others’ experiences

Probabalism

Every relationship is probablistic (when x happens y will usually follow, but not always)

Scientific errors

Inaccurate observations

Overgeneralization

Selective observation

Illogical reasoning

Ideology/politics

Inaccurate obeservation

Human observation is casual, not critical; science specify what we are looking for and how to record it

Overgeneralization

See a few times and assume something is true; science selects a representative sample and replicates the study

Selective observation

Look for stuff that supports what we believe; specify how many observations

Illogical reasoning

Jump to conclusions based on invalid assumptions and lack of evidence; make sure research question is logical

Ideology/polotics

Experiences shape how we see the world; science should try not to allow beliefs to influence research or findings (follow scientific methods and peer review)

Class Summary

• Experiences and being told is how we know things

• Ideology/prior experience change how we view things

• Every relationship is probabalistic

Understanding research

Critical because CJ system is based on research and makes us more informed

Purpose

Exploration (specific problems that can provide info for the future, description (scope), explanation (why something happens), and application (study implications)

Variant

Is there a relationship between two things

Steps of research

1.) Interest

2.) Read

3.) Question

4.) Conceptualize (must be precise)

5.) Method (how to collect data)

6.) Operationalization (how to measure concepts)

7.) Specify (define population)

8.) Collect

9.) Analize

Summary 2

Exploration and description are similar (base line) and explanation is why

Social science

Strategically observing what we see

Corrilation

Does not equal causation (can’t be fact)

Spurious corrilation

Things that are corrilated that make no sense

Logic/theory

They go hand in hand (research built around theory)

Theory

Use research to test (use existing to justify research question) and observation to generate theory (alway exceptions)

Hypothesis

Expectation about relationship between variables (basically research question, but yes/no)

Variables

Concepts in research question (usually more than 2); most are about people and their experiences

Empirical

To say that two things are related we need to have observations that

confirm these two things are relate

Research to test a theory

Find an existing theory that is interesting to you (use new method and stuff)

Hypothesis testing

Variables are made up of attributes (need to be clear otherwise can’t get everything we want to)

Attributes

Characteristics or qualities of something

Expected causality

X variable (independent) causes a change in Y variable (dependent)

Idiographic

Look at few case in detail (open ended questions)

Nomathetic

Examine phenomenon as a whole (less detail)

Deductive

Testing a theory (general to specific)

Inductive

Creating a theory (observing the world to develop theory)

Qualitative

Words

Quantitative

Numbers

Summary 3:

Attributes make up variables and qualitative is words (quantitative is numbers)