SOCL 2001 Chapter : Research Methods January 26 2012
Document Summary
January 26, 2012: standard rules to find a causal relationship between social elements. (causal. Quantitative research: data in numeric form, surveys, statistical analysis. Qualitative research: data communicate meaning in text, graphic, or other media form. Data collection: survey research, questionnaire, phone, mail, door-to-door, internet, the cellular effect, participant observation, seeks to observe social actions in practice, content analysis, performed on media: books, documents, video, paintings. Interviews: can be very structured or conversational, experimentation, common in social psychology, highly controlled environment. Causation: when a change in one factor causes a change in another factor. Establishing causation: correlation (has to have some sort of relationship, time order (the cause has to come before the effect, nonspurious (reasonable) explanation, spurious explanations are false assumptions about correlation. Public sociology: using sociology to influence social change, social research mostly read by sociologists, but can benefit public. Laud humphreys: book : tearoom trade: impersonal sex in public places , tearoom = restroom, participant observation.
