SOCI 2P11 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Content Analysis, Social Impact Assessment, Social Fact
Document Summary
What is social research: philosophical orientations and research strategies. -> the study of human interactions, how society functions, sources of conflicts, inequality, sources of cohesion. Empirical: the knowledge produced is grounded in real world observations i. e. generated from evidence, not relying on information passed down from tradition or authority, this allows it to be verifiable. Systematic: a systematized set of procedures and methods designed to maximize reliability and to minimize bias i. e. certain procedures for selecting populations, variables, ex. Single blind measures-experimental group gets drug and control group gets placebo: double blind measure- when the experimentor does not know which group is given which. Seeks causes: not merely descriptive, interested in cause/effect relationships. Aspires to be value free: aspires to be as subjective as possible, more modern research which aspires to enact social change/activism is more bias than traditional research.
