SSH 301 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Cohort Study, Longitudinal Study, External Validity
4 Sep 2016
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Research design: broad structure that guides collection and analysis of data. Important consideration of choosing a research design=kind of explanation you would like to develop. Nomothetic explanation has to satisfy 3 criteria of causation: Correlation: proposed cause and effect have to vary together. Time order: proposed cause must precede the effect in time. Non-spuriousness: alternative explanations for the correlation observed have to be ruled out, spurious=false or illegitimate. Quantitative researchers choose research designs to help satisfy these. 3 criteria, qualitative aim to produce a rich description of a person or group based on perceptions and feelings of people studied. Qualitative researchers will choose research designs that will produce idiographic explanations. Gather data: self-completion questionnaire, structured interview schedule, less formalized method like participant observation. Variable: characteristic or attribute that varies such as gender, income, fondness for mathematics of athletic ability. 3 most prominent criteria: reliability, replicability and validity. Quantitative researchers concerned with whether measures of social science concepts are reliable.
