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