SOC200H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Confidence Interval, Statistic, Statistical Parameter
Document Summary
What is a survey: data collection method, respondents receive a uniform questionnaire (not your subjects, most common source of quantitative data in sociology, use probability sampling methods to allow for clearer conclusions from quantitative, surveys are not experiments. Imagine that at u of t, the average student is taking 3. 5 courses: since you cant usually observe the population, we"ll take a random population of 1000 students. In the sample, the average student is taking 3. 342 courses: now imagine, in another sample taken, the average student is not taking 3. 517 courses. Standard errors (review slides to see the graph of sampling distribution and standard errors) Measurement: survey questions: write or find survey questions to measure all the concepts you need measured look at questions that will identify screening variables, independent variables, dependent variables, possible sources of spuriousness or interactions, controls. Writing questions allows you to define your concepts exactly as you need allows you to customize questions for your population.
