SOC-1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Scientific Control
Document Summary
A method is nothing more than a strategy: experiments, highly controlled conditions, surveys, questionnaires, and interviews. *the only reason we can infer a casual relationship is that all other possibilities have been ruled out. Scientific control involves both logic and physics: in general, a researcher cannot mess around with people"s lives, people react to being studied, social experiments cannot be replicated in any meaningful way. Natural or field experiments usually involve the replication of existing social research after some event has taken place. Any method where subjects (respondents) respond to a sense of questions about their attitudes or behavior. Survey research is the most widely used of all methods in social sciences. Any situation where the researcher joins in the activities of those being studied while making systematic observations. 2 types: participant as observer- the researcher is involved in all phases of the groups behavior without the group being aware they are being observed.
