SOCI 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Big Data, Natural Experiment
14 Sep 2018
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Can use supplementary readings for supporting citations in response paper. Design and execute research design that can falsify hypothesis. Excludes worthwhile knowledge that does not fit into framework of hypothesis testing. Forbids updating theories and hypotheses after data collection has started, very often unrealistic for social research. False assumptions about the categories being studied can be built into the question and hypothesis. Sociologists are in the business of interrogating the social world and human experience. Empirical topics being studied exist only in human experience. Treating the empirical social world as "out there" severely limits our ability to understand human behaviour, institutions and culture. Social scientists must take seriously the social construction of the objects we study. Random sampling (commonly quantitative) (a)typical cases (commonly qualitative) Existing theory (is this inquiry a special case of a larger theoretical class?) Big data or small data (every comment made on facebook since 2000 vs. studying the people in this class)
