Sociology 2266A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Campus Police, Drug Harmfulness, Exhibitionism
25 Apr 2018
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Participation in and observation of the community or social group. Advantages: direct access to information about events, validity: how accurate is your data. Used because a study on things like shoplifting, drug use, prostitution, etc. may lead subjects to only see possible ramifications of coming forward. But a study participant can let someone else in their situation know the benefits of the study and assure confidentiality. Conditions necessary for observation are created rather than natural. Advantages: efficiency; control, setting up an experiment in the natural world, so you create the conditions instead of waiting for the conditions to happen, you can manipulate some variables. Ethnography: studies where the researcher attempts to directly observe and interact with the people being studied in a naturally occurring context: aka, participant observation. It is hard to gain access to offender groups through conventional means.
