SOCIOL 2Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Cluster Analysis, Face Validity, Level Of Measurement
18 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
The main goals of quantitative research: measurement, data is used to understand or quantify social phenomena, concepts, and their interrelations, because we want to learn more about something, for example: how many part-time or full-time student in mcmaster. It is the goal of quantitative research to provide a better sense of causal direction, and various techniques such as statistical controls or longitudinal research help to improve causal interpretation: confidence. If the findings are not the same as those of the original study, replication provides reasons to re-evaluate the methods and findings of the original findings. It is deductive because we testing the theory. We can identify whether there is a change and then work to understand what underlies such change. By establishing consistent measuring tools we are comparing apples to apples. This also relates directly to reliability issues discussed in chapter 2: measurement allows us to estimate the relationship between concepts and the strength of the relationship.
