Methods for Conducting Sociological Research

• The Enemy → Mindsets

• Mind-sets are patterns of thinking that affect how we respond to new ideas

• Critical thinking

• Actively seeking to understand, analyze, and evaluate information to solve problems

• Steps in Critical Thinking

• Get an understanding of the problem

• Gather information and interpret it

• Develop a solution plan and carry it out

• Evaluate a plan’s effectiveness

• Value ridden research

• Terminology can reflect value based assumptions

• Questions can be selected or phrased in certain ways to elicit certain responses

• Samples can be selected in order to skew the results

  • Values can skew results
  • Data collected without using flashy words/misleading ads

• Never accept facts without questioning where they came from

• What makes a “fact” seem more real to you? Lobbyists understand these motivations and feed them to the general population

  • Can be specific numbers and/or language choices

• Objectivity

• The efforts researchers make to minimize distortions in observations or interpretations due to personal or social values.

• Scientific Method

• A procedure involving the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses based on systematic observation, measurement and/or experiments

• Methodology and Research Methods

• The rules, principles and practices that guide the collection of evidence and the conclusions drawn from it

• Research Design

  • Descriptive Studies
  • Goal is merely to explain a concept
  • Eg: behavior of a gang member, values of older adults
  • Explanatory Studies
  • Goal is to find out why things happen in a certain way
  • Eg: Why white men are more likely than black men to get prostate exams

• Methods

  • Quantitative methods
  • Seek to obtain information about the social world that is in, or can be converted to, numeric form.
  • Qualitative methods
  • Attempt to collect information about the social world that cannot be readily converted to numeric form

• Approaches to research

  • Deductive approach
  • Starts with a theory
  • Develop a hypothesis
  • Make empirical observations
  • Analyze the data collected through observation to confirm, reject or modify the original theory.
    • Might have to re-test
  • Inductive approach
  • starts with empirical observation
  • works to form a theory
  • determines if a correlation exists by noticing if a change is observed in two things simultaneously.

• The Scientific Method

• Theory: a system of orienting ideas

• Hypothesis: A tentative statement, based on research, theory or prior evidence, that asserts a relationship between two factors

• Induction: reasoning from the particular to the general

• Observations: systematic collection of ‘social facts’

• Deduction: reasoning from the general to the specific

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• Causality v Correlation

• Correlation (or association) is when two variables tend to track each other positively or negatively (i.e., they tend to vary together).

• Causality is the idea that a change in one factor results in a corresponding change in another factor.

• Macro-level vs micro-level orientations

• Macro-Level Orientation: The Top-Down View

  • Focuses on large-scale patterns of society

• Micro-Level Orientation: The Bottom-Up View

  • Focuses on small-scale patterns of society

• Concepts and Variables

• Concept: a formal definition of what is being studied

• Operationalization: definition of a concept into a term that varies & can be measured

• Variable: measured concept that changes from case to case or time to time

  • Types
  • Independent
    • A variable believed to cause change in another variable [predictor]
  • Dependent
    • A variable believed to change because of another variable [outcome]
  • Hypothesis about crime
  • An increase in the level of inequality in society will result in an increase in the crime rate in that society. 
    • In this hypothesis, we are claiming that our independent variable,  inequality, impacts our dependent variable, crime.
  • Measurement of variables
  • Reliability: Degree to which a measurement instrument gives the same results each time that it is used, 
    • May not reflect what the researcher is trying to uncover.
  • Validity:  Degree to which the measurement reflects what the researcher is hoping to understand about the social world

• Research Methods

• Surveys

• Interviews

• Ethnographic research

• Experiments

• Historical research

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• Sampling

• Random

  • sampling technique in which each sample has an equal probability of being chosen

• Representative

  • subset of a population that seeks to accurately reflect the characteristics of the larger group

• Access

  • Volunteers

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