SOC 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning

• School: Irvine Valley College
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1
• Professor: brown

Document Summary

Conducting and analyzing research quantitatively involves converting aspects of social life into numbers and determining whether a significant relationship exists between sets of numbers. For instance, each answer checked off on a questionnaire can be converted to a numerical form and analyzed. One person"s answers can then be compared with another person"s on a range of variables. The people whose answers can be compared will likely be numerous since quantitative studies tend to have larger samples so that researchers can generalize from their findings. Qualitative approaches do not involve the conversion of social life to numerical form; rather, the focus is on rich detail. Qualitative studies tend to have smaller samples than quantitative studies because they are, generally, more in-depth. Cost is a factor, too, as qualitative studies tend to be more expensive to carry out, especially on a large scale. In qualitative studies, the researchers themselves are the research instruments.