COMM 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method, Content Analysis
15 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
3 ways of knowing: tradition accepted knowledge about how the world works, authority accepting the discoveries of experts as fact, science knowledge gained through logic and observation. Social science draws on the scientific method to study social phenomena. The scientific method allows researchers to build upon each other"s work and build a consistent, non-arbitrary representation of the world. How do scientists conduct their work: formulate a hypothesis, conduct a literature review, use an appropriate research method to gather data, test hypothesis by using appropriate statistical procedures, write a research report in an appropriate format. The scientific method is limited because some phenomena cannot be measured, such as the existence of higher powers. Quantitative research methods: use statistics to analyse data, are useful for large quantities of data, can establish relationships among variables, are concerned with groups of people, not individual.
