SOCI 101 Chapter 5: Soci. notes Ch 5.2
Secondary Analysis
• Secondary Analysis: The analysis of data that have been collected by other researchers
o Poses the question: How can a researcher who did not carry out the initial study
be sure that the data were gathered systematically and recorded accurately?
Analysis of Documents
• Analysis of documents: In its narrow sense, written sources that provide data; in its
extended sense, archival material of any sort, including photographs, movies, CDs, DVDs
and so on
Experiments:
• Experiments: The use of control and experimental groups and dependent and
independent variables to test caution
• Experimental group: The group of subjects in an experiment who are exposed to the
independent variable
• Control group: The subject in an experiment who are not exposed to the independent
variable
• Independent Variable: A factor that causes a change in another variable, called the
dependent variable
• Dependent variable: A factor in an experiment that is changed by an independent
variable
Unobtrusive Measures
• Unobtrusive measures: Ways of observing people so they do not know they are being
studied
Deciding Which Method to Use
• Four primary factors
o Access to resources
o Access subjects
o Purpose of the research
o The researher’s akgroud or traiig
Ethics in Sociological Research
• Ethics clearly forbid the falsification of results, as well as plagiarism
• Another ethical guideline states that, generally, people should be informed that they are
being studied and that they never should be harmed by the research
• Sociologists are also required to protect the anonymity of those who provide
information.
• It is also generally considered unethical for researchers to misrepresent themselves
How Research and Theory Work Together
• Research cannot stand alone, nor can theory.
• C. Wright Mills said: researh without theory is siply a olletio of urelated fats.
But theory with out research is abstract and empty- it a’t represet the way life really
is
• Every theory must be tested, which requires research
The Real World: When the Ideal Meets the Real
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