Sociology 2205A/B Study Guide - Final Guide: Descriptive Statistics, Data Point, Data Set
14 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Describe the limited but crucial role of stats in social research. Distinguish between the 2 general classes of statistical techniques (descriptive and inferential) and identify situations in which each is appropriate. Distinguish between discrete and continuous variables and cite examples of each. Informal definition: the science and art of teasing meaningful patterns out of messy data. Formal: a set of mathematical tools for organizing and analyzing the data. Scientific inquiry in sociology is theory-driven: theory: a (somewhat) general statement about how particular facts or phenomena is related. From a theory we form a hypotheses: hypothesis: a more specific statement or prediction about the relationship between variables based on a theory. To these a hypothesis we must gather data and analyze is =turns stats central. Data point: the information, scores on variables, almost always in numbers. How is data organized: variables: characteristics of data, columns, cases: the units from which data were gathered, rows.
