SOCIOL 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Spurious Relationship, Thomas Kuhn, Paradigm Shift
Document Summary
Research can lead to what thomas kuhn called a paradigm shift. Change in the way we think about some aspect of life. Can help to determine and distinguish between correlation, causation, and spurious causation. Causation: a relationship in which one variable causes another variable to change. Spurious correlation: a relationship that seems to exist between two variables, but is actually caused by some external, or extraneous, variable. Causation means correlation, but correlation does not mean causation. There are different ways to collect information about a topic, but each method has benefits and limitations. It is important to consider which method will work best. Ethnography: studying people in their own environments in order to understand the meanings they give to their activities. Participant observation: researcher both observes and becomes a member in a social setting. The researcher participates and observes in a study. Then the researcher makes a written account (field notes) of what goes on there.
