NUR 80A/B Lecture 2: Fall Week 2 - Key Concepts, Reading Research Reports
13 Dec 2011
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Fall week 2 - key concepts, reading research reports. 11:01 pm: gain familiarity with research terminology. Naturalistic settings - in the field, fieldwork (especially qualitative); Abstractions (abstract rather than tangible phenomena), also known as concepts or phenomena (qualitative); Construct: similar to a concept, a mental representation of some phenomenon. Abstractions that are deliberately invented (constructed) by the researcher for a specific purpose. Theory: a systematic, abstract explanation of some aspect of reality. Concepts are knitted together into a system to explain some aspect of the world. Quantitative: researchers make a hypothesis to test the theory, results reject, modify or support theory. Qualitative: theory is a product of the research. In quantitative study, concepts are referred to as variables. A variable is any quality of a person, group, or situation that takes on different values (e. g. weight, anxiety level, temperature), something that varies. Constants are things that do not vary from person to person.
