SOC150H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Dependent And Independent Variables, Big Data, Ethnography
SOC150 – Sociological Inquiries (Lecture 4) Jan. 30, 18
Main Topic: Research Methods
- Last Week:
o Approaches to scientific knowledge helps to understand the relationship between
theory, data collection, and analysis
o Social science falls between positivist and critical traditions, while searching for
probabilistic patterns of social phenomena
Research Methods
- Rules and procedures used to approach a research question
- These rules must be standardized for rigorous and reproducible work
- Standardized practice is not value-free set of strengths and weaknesses for each
method
- Choices are laden with value
o Choices reveal personal experiences, motivations, utility, and meaning
o Affects how you want to study some research (helps to choose which method
suits them for the research provided)
- With research methods:
o Provide templates of techniques for generating knowledge
o Ways of responding to questions about how they arrived at the knowledge
Values Filtering into Research
- The self enters at various stages of sociological research:
o Stage 1 Researchers’ values help them decide which problems are worth
investigating
o Stage 2 Values lead researchers to formulate and adopt theories for
interpreting and explaining or applicable those problems
▪ Previous theories successful from being applied in society
▪ Questions with “how” or “why” qualitative work
▪ Questions with “what”, “when”, “how much” quantitative work
o Stage 3 Researchers’ interpretations are influenced by previous research
▪ Methods also influenced from interpretations
o Stage 4 Methods used to gather data which shape researchers’ perceptions
Document Summary
Last week: approaches to scientific knowledge helps to understand the relationship between theory, data collection, and analysis, social science falls between positivist and critical traditions, while searching for probabilistic patterns of social phenomena. Rules and procedures used to approach a research question. These rules must be standardized for rigorous and reproducible work. Standardized practice is not value-free set of strengths and weaknesses for each method. Choices are laden with value: choices reveal personal experiences, motivations, utility, and meaning, affects how you want to study some research (helps to choose which method suits them for the research provided) With research methods: provide templates of techniques for generating knowledge, ways of responding to questions about how they arrived at the knowledge. Descriptive studies gives details of reality or facts about some groups, practices, or events in society: pilot studies first-look studies done to perform an explanatory study in the future.
