SOC150H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Content Analysis, Big Data, Operationalization
Document Summary
Sociologists zoom in on one portion at a time. Furnish researchers with a way of responding to questions about how they arrived at the knowledge in their studies. Direct observables: what we can see directly, such as a chair, a car, a colour. Indirect observables: history books, minutes of a meeting--observation via a medium. Constructs or concepts: theoretical creations based on observables. Description is the what of social phenomena (y), while explanatory studies focuses are on explanation (x) Description: the unemployment rate is based on an established meaning of being unemployed. This consists of not working for paid labour, available for work, actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks, temporarily laid off, or had definite arrangements to start work. Explanation would be the why of unemployment rate. How people feel about corruption in government has many dimensions. A variation of what may be dimensions of this general concept:
