SOCY 210 Study Guide - Duncan J. Watts, External Validity, Internal Validity

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 210
• Professor: Vincent F Sacco

Document Summary

Why experiment: allows to explore causal relationships, ideal for hypothesis testing, better suited for explanatory than descriptive, involves taking action and noting the consequences that follow that action. Influence of group on individual answers: favor of the majority. George kelly: patrol experiment kansas, people tend to focus on rapid response on police and preventive control, we accept safety on faith, devided city into zones with similar characterisitics, used 3 different kinds of police patrol. One area had several patrol, one area had no patrol , control area had normal policing. Examine crime rates and feeling of safety. Experiments designed effectively when they minimize lack of internal validity and lack of external validity. Internal validity: consequences at end of experiment are a product of the intervention of the experiment, they did not happen for another reason. Process that occur in the lab may not occur in real life.