SOCI 313 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Class Conflict, Convergent Validity, Criterion Validity
21 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
Quantitative research: concepts and measures: quantitative research entails, the collection of numerical data, a deductive relationship between theory and research, a preference for the natural science approach to research (positivism, an objectivist conception of social reality (ontology) Data is used to understand or quantify social phenomena, concepts, and their interrelations in general: establishing causality. Researchers want to know what causes social phenomena (e. g. , prejudice, crime, class conflict, etc. : generalization of findings to those not studied. Having a representative sample is essential for generalization. Representative only of the population from which it was taken (e. g. , a sample from a town only really applies to that specific town: probability sampling. The use of a random sample drawn from a given population - does not guarantee representativeness of a sample group, but it does improve the chances: replication. Provides a check for biases and routine errors: concepts. The ideas or mental representations of things. For example, crime, gender, alienation, love, life satisfaction, etc.
