SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Nomothetic

• School: Tunxis Community College
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 101
• Professor: Clucas

Document Summary

Data collection: researchers usually don"t gather their statistics, bu researchers almost always gather their qualitative data. Type of data: statistics numerical, qualitative description. Insight: statistics pursue generalizable insight (nomothetic); qualitative methods pursue more particular insight (idiographic) Methods: statistics are formalized method of analyzing data, qualitative more on getting data and less formalized about analysis. Goal: statistics pursues causal explanation, qualitative focused more on understanding. Exploratory: very good at providing initial insight, building theory. Measurement and concepts: able to measure complex concepts b/c of the qualitative aspects of the data. Agency and subjectivity: able to analyze individual actions more closely, explore psychological states. Lack formalization on how to actually analyze data. People could possibly look at same data and arrive at different conclusions. Results are not meant to be generalizable. Poor at testing alternatives, estimating causal effect. Can be very difficult to get data. Still, usually easier than gathering new dataset.