SOC200H1 Study Guide - Longitudinal Study, Protestant Work Ethic, Ethnography
Document Summary
Recall the dreaded hawthorne effect: when the people being studied are aware of this and act differently. Unobtrusive measures = ways of studying social behaviour without affecting it in the process. (observation without interference) Surveys, interviews, and ethnography take a lot of time to plan and sometimes money to complete other kinds of data collection require human subjects review. Some kinds of unobtrusive data collection do not. Secondary data analysis and depending on the exact research design possible: content analysis, trace analysis. Some questions can"t be answered by survey, interview, experiment or ethnography. People are dead: thus you can"t really ask questions to further your research you may only work with what you have. Because you can"t collect data the data you need to figure out what data you will collect and what it means. Trace data = indicators left behind by the concept/behaviour of interest (kind of like evidence)
