SOAN 3070 Chapter Notes - Chapter week 3: Sampling Fraction, Systematic Sampling, Simple Random Sample

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 3070
• Professor: Anna Borisenkova

Document Summary

In an applied context, theories can be understood as interrelated ideas about various patterns, concepts, processes, relationships, or events. In a formal sense, social scientists usually define theory as a system of logical statements or propositions that explain the relationship between two or more objects, concepts, phenomena, or characteristics of humans what are sometimes called variables. Concepts, then, are symbolic or abstract elements representing objects, properties, or features of objects, processes, or phenomenon. Concepts may communicate ideas or introduce particular perspectives, or they may be a means for explaining a broad generalization. Since concepts are abstract representations, of course, they contain a much broader range of possibilities than what any individual case is likely to contain. Concepts used in social scientific research similarly may seem obvious at first, but they must always be clearly defined. Typically concepts have two distinct parts: a symbolic element (a word, symbol, term, etc. ) and an associated definitional element.