SOC 12050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dependent And Independent Variables, Participant Observation, Blind Experiment

• School: Kent State University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 12050
• Professor: Allen Lowery

Document Summary

Activities comprising the research process: define the problem, review previous research, develop hypotheses, determine the research design, define the sample and collect data, analyze the data, prepare the report. Research methods is the term used to refer to a series of activities that allow the researcher to draw conclusions about the world with reasonable certainty and accuracy. The activities involved are also referred to collectively as the research process. The first step in defining the problem is identifying the general question you want to answer: for example, you might want to know if drugs are responsible for the decline of morality in this country. The second step involves stating your question so that it can be measured empirically: you might then phrase your question, does drug use cause one to commit crime? . The third step typically involves operationalizing the concepts you are using: this will involve specifying what you mean by drug use and crime .