SOCIOL 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: General Social Survey, Random Assignment, Spurious Relationship
12 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Sociological research: based on empiricism - evidence obtained through direct experience or observation. Research methods: approaches that social scientists use for investigation the answer to questions by, describing phenomenon, generating theories (inductive, testing hypotheses (deductive) about a casual relationship between social phenomena. Empirical observations: methods: methods of data collection- systematic plan for obtaining empirical observations. Three basic types: ethnography (includes participant observation, survey, experiment. Ex: alice goffman - on the run: researcher has very little to no control. Interpretive framework: not focused on hypothesis testing, but in-depth understanding of a phenomenon. Empirical but qualitative and inductive: can be descriptive or theoretical (inductive) Symbolic interactionist perspective with a focus on understanding how meaning is constructed in micro level interactions and processes: how?, advantages: high validity, way to study groups that are often overlooked by other research methods. Limitations: time consuming, not generalizable, only used for small groups (inductive); questions about replicability. How to establish causality - 3 steps: establish correlation.
