CRM 2303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: British Association For Immediate Care, Postpositivism, Nomothetic

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Criminology
• Course: CRM 2303
• Professor: Holly Johnson

Document Summary

Basics of quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Dismissed for pretending to know the unknowable with assumptions of certainty. Refer to their data as rich in detail . Sometimes criticized for being non-scientific and thus invalid. The world consists of phenomena that are real, certain, precise. There is a reality out there that awaits our discovery. An objective/neutral approach requires a depersonalized research situation. The quantitative researcher investigates a mechanistic world from the aloof stance of the knowledgeable social scientist . There is an independent reality but humans have different subjectivities; observation is imperfect. Compile responses from many respondents to find general trends or patterns and make comparisons. Aggregations are believed to give true indications of social effects unaffected by the idiosyncrasies of any single case. Explanation involves investigating which variables (social facts) affect human existence. If you can predict it, you can understand it. Unemployment, education, connection to school, divorce, gender, age, drug use.