Sociology Chapter 2

DISCOVER SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Scientific method

A process of gathering empirical (scientific and specific) data, creating theories, and rigorously testing theories

Deductive reasoning

Starts from broad theories about the social world but proceeds to break them down into more specific and testable hypotheses.

Hypotheses

Ideas about the world, derived from theories, that describe possible relationships between social phenomena.

Inductive reasoning

Starts from specific data, such as interviews, observations, or field notes, that may focus on a single community or event and endeavors to identify larger patterns from which to derive more general theories.

Quantitative research

Research that gathers data that can be quantified and offers insight into broad patterns of social behavior and social attitudes.

Qualitative research

Research that is characterized by data that cannot be quantified (or converted into numbers), focusing instead on generating in-depth knowledge of social life, institutions, and processes.

Scientific theories

Explanations of how and why scientific observations are as they are.

Concepts

Ideas that summarize a set of phenomena.

Operational definition

Describes the concept in such a way that it can be observed and measured.

Variable

A concept or its empirical measure that can take on two or more possible values.

Qualitative variables

Variables that express qualities and do not have numerical values.

Quantitative variables

Factors that can be counted

Correlation

The degree to which two or more variables are associated with one another.

Causal relationship

A relationship between two variables in which one variable is the cause of the other.

Spurious relationship

A correlation between two or more variables caused by another factor that is not being measured rather than a causal link between the variables themselves.

Positive correlation

A relationship showing that as one variable rises or falls, the other does as well.

Negative correlation

A relationship showing that as one variable increases, the other decreases.

Principle of falsification (or falsifiability)

The principle, advanced by philosopher Karl Popper, that to be scientific, a theory must lead to testable hypotheses that can be disproved if they are wrong.

Validity

The degree to which concepts and their measurements accurately represent what they claim to represent.

Reliability

The extent to which researchers’ findings are consistent with the findings of different studies of the same thing or with the findings of the same study over time.

Bias

A characteristic of results that systematically misrepresent the true nature of what is being studied.

Social desirability bias

A response bias based on the tendency of respondents to answer a question in a way that they perceive will be favorably received.

Objectivity

The ability to represent the object of study accurately

Value neutrality

The characteristic of being free of personal beliefs and opinions that would influence the course of research.

Replication

The repetition of a previous study using a different sample or population to verify or refute the original findings.

Research methods

Specific techniques for systematically gathering data.

Survey

A research method that uses a questionnaire or interviews administered to a group of people in-person or by telephone or e-mail to determine their characteristics, opinions, and behaviors.

Sample

A small number of people; a portion of the larger population selected to represent the whole.

Population

The whole group of people studied

Random sampling

Sampling in which everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being chosen for the study

Stratified sampling

Dividing a population into a series of subgroups and taking random samples from within each group.

Fieldwork

A research method that uses in-depth and often extended study to describe and analyze a group or community; also called ethnography

Interview

A detailed conversation designed to obtain in-depth information about a person and their activities.

Leading questions

Questions that tend to elicit particular responses

Experiments

Research techniques for investigating cause and effect under controlled conditions.

Independent or experimental variables:

Variables the researcher changes intentionally

Dependent variables

Variables that change as a result of changes in other variables.

Statistical data

Quantitative information obtained from government agencies, businesses, research studies, and other entities that collect data for their own or others’ use.

Document analysis

The examination of written materials or cultural products: previous studies, newspaper reports, court records, campaign posters, digital reports, films, pamphlets, and other forms of text or images produced by individuals, government agencies, private organizations, or others.

Deductive Research

Research studies what other have done, leads existing theories of whatever phenomenon they are studying, and then test hypotheses that emerge from those theories

Interpretive Research

Research from an experience-near perspective; in that the researcher does not start with concepts determined a prior; but rather seeks to allow these to emerge from encounters in “the field”

Critical Research

Capacity to inquire ‘against the grain’; to question the conceptual and theoretical bases of knowledge, design research that go beyond prevailing assumptions and understandings