SSCI 2900U Study Guide - Midterm Guide: External Validity, Structured Interview, Ethnography
3 Jun 2016
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Document Summary
Introduction to research and social science inquiry [chapter 1] What is theory? an explanation of observed regularities or patterns. Components of a theory: definitions: specify what the key terms in the theory mean, descriptions of the phenomena of interest: outline the characteristics of the phenomena of interest, relational statements: Types of theory: connect two or more variables: deterministic: two variables always go together in particular way, probabilistic: two variables go together with some degree of regularity but the relationship is not inevitable. Theories of the middle range: limited in scope and can be tested directly by gathering empirical evidence, i. e. durkheim"s theory of suicide, i. e. attempts to understand and explain a limited aspect of social life. Grand theories: general and abstract, i. e. structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, critical theory, feminism, etc, offer few direct indications of how to collect evidence to test them, but provide ways of looking at the world.
