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

  \n

  

• 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

  \n

  

• 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

\