COMM 3001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Causal Inference, Dependent And Independent Variables, Data Analysis
16 May 2016
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May 4 th lecture the basics and digesting quantitative research. Definition: the word science comes from the latin scientia, which means knowledge. Whether a question can be approached scientifically depends on whether it can be subjected to verifiable observations. The essence of science is neither a body of knowledge nor a method of inquiry: rather, it is a cyclical process involving continuous interplay between theory and research. Designing research that will produce valid inferences about social life. Social science seeks to arrive at valid inferences by the systematic use of well- established procedures of inquiry. It is possible to have some knowledge of the external world even if that knowledge remains uncertain. Even though uncertainty is unattainable, we can improve the reliability and validity of our conclusions by paying attention to the rules of scientific inference. The goal is inference: descriptive or causal inference.
