SOCY 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Participant Observation, Content Analysis, Simple Random Sample
Document Summary
Casual investigation: we all engage in casual investigation, and cannot live among others and not wonder about their behaviors, mini theory. Not only do we make observations and then wonder about others" behaviors, but we usually attempt to explain those behaviors. Attempts to explain the behaviors we have just observed: these observations and mini-theories are flawed because we have conducted casual investigation. Have not conducted our investigation in any systematic or scientific way that allows us to eliminate the errors found in casual investigation. The value of social research: it can be counterintuitive and dispel myths, it can explain why people behave the way they do. It is one thing to describe what behaviors people engage in, but perhaps more important is understanding why people do these things: it creates new knowledge about the social world, it creates new knowledge about the social world. Knowledge comes from many sources: knowledge from tradition.
