SOSC 3993 Lecture Notes - Ecological Fallacy, Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation
28 May 2013
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4 general purposes of social research: exploration. Good for researches you have very little knowledge about. As much knowledge, preliminary knowledge of the topic. Getting a background on the topic: description. Some research is soley to describe things. Usually concerned/ associated with casual connection between variables: evaluation. One of two forms: program evaluation. Looks at policies, if it works the way it was designed to work. Are they operating to prevent this: policy analysis. If it is working and what changes must be made. Units of analysis: people or things researchers are studying, 4 units of analysis. Picking people for a study based on the idea they belong o a group. Ex: teams, classrooms, religious groups: organizations. Ex: different political parties in canada: social artifacts. Draw conclusions made to individuals when they are studying groups: reductionism. Building descriptions of systems out of the descriptions of the subsystems that a system is composed of, and ignoring the relationships between them.
