Chapter 3: Using Research Methods

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

________ developed advanced telescopes and was first able to see a bacterium that researchers were then able to understand how bacteria was related to disease.

Constants

________ are variables that stay the same for everyone in a study.

Data collection

________ involving asking questions can be conducted either through surveys or through interviews.

Longitudinal

________ are studies that are carried out over a longer period of time, with the research collecting more data from the same respondents or different ones at multiple points in time.

Validity

________ is whether the research results accurately reflect the phenomena being studied.

Variables

________ are factors that are likely to change or vary within the context of the study.

Empirical

________ are statements that could hypothetically be proven true or false.

Hypothesis

________ is a prediction about the expected finding of the research, typically about the relationships between specific phenomena under study in the research project.

Surveys

________ are a set of prewritten questions that respondents are asked to answer.

Interviews

________ are research design where the researcher talks to the participant in person, over the phone, or through video chat), using a(n) ________ guide (list of questions or topics to cover.

Theories

________ help sociologists to notice and understand social patterns in society.

Operationalize

________ is turning an abstract concept into a concrete measure.

Experiment

________ is used to find out how people are likely to act in particular and potentially controlled situations.

Generalizability

________ is whether it is possible to assume that the patterns and relationships observed among the sample in the research study would also hold true for the broader population.

Attributes

________ are answer categories.

Reliability

________ is the extent to which research results are consistent.

Qualitative Methods

________ are methods that rely primarily on information that is not numerical, such as words or images.

Control Group

________ is the group that does not experience the treatment or manipulation in a study.

Ethnography

________ is research that systematically studies how groups of people live and make meaning by understanding the group from its own point of view.

Nonrandom samples

________ are only used when random sampling is impossible.

Representative

________ is if the people in the sample have characteristics typical of the people in the broader population.

Data

________ is pieces of information, including facts, statistics, quotes, images, and any other kind of information.

Random

________ is a sample where everyone who meets the criteria for participation in a study had an equal chance of being selected.

Observation

________ is studying a phenomenon as a spectator.

risks of harm

Informed Consent requires that the participants be told the purpose of the research, what they will be asked to do, and any ________ prior to participating.

Interrater Reliability

________ is an assessment of the degree to which different people who are coding or rating the same data do so in the same ways.

Scientific Method

________ is a systematic process of steps that takes researchers from the development of a research question through the collection and analysis of data.

Literature Review

________ is finding out what is already known about a topic by reading prior scholarly literature.

Participation Observation

________ is observing an action and interaction while participating as part of the social connection of being studied.

Data Analysis

________ is the process of reducing the mass of raw data researchers have collected to a set of finding that provides the basis for making conclusions.

Explanatory Statistics

________ are statistics used to measure the relationship between different elements within the data.

Field Experiments

________ are experiments conducted in the real world, not in a laboratory setting.

Basic Research

________ is research directed at gaining fundamental knowledge about some issue.

Descriptive Statistics

________ are measures that are used to characterize the data.

Theory

________ is a set of ideas used to explain how or why certain social patterns occur.