What is Research?

• Research is the systematic process of data collection for the purpose of producing knowledge

  • When we research we collect data according to a careful plan and use that data to figure out something new about the world

• Empirical are statements that could hypothetically be proven true or false

• Normative is commonly accepted as the appropriate

Using Research Skills Outside the Classroom

• While much of the research you will encounter as you continue your sociological education is conducted by academic researchers, the importance of research is not limited to the academic sphere

  • The ability to conduct and use research is a marketable skill for college grads looking for jobs

• Understanding research makes us better citizens and more effective consumers

Using research

• Basic Research is research directed at gaining fundamental knowledge about some issue

  • Ex. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek developed advanced telescopes and was first able to see a bacterium that researchers were then able to understand how bacteria was related to disease

• Applied Research is research designated to produce results that are immediately useful in relation to some real world-situation

  • Ex. Alexander Fleming discoevering Penicilium  mold, the basis for penicillin

What is Data and Where do We Get Them

• Data is pieces of information, including facts, statistics, quotes, images, and any other kind of information

Asking Questions

• Data collection involving asking questions can be conducted either through surveys or through interviews

  • Surveys are a set of prewritten questions that respondents are asked to answer

  • Interviews are research design where the researcher talks to the participant in person, over the phone, or through video chat), using an interview guide (list of questions or topics to cover

Observing and Interacting

• Not all research can be done by asking questions, sometimes we need to see how individuals behave in the real world

• Observation is studying a phenomenon as a spectator

  • Participation-Observation is observing an action and interaction while participating as part of the social connection of being studied

    • Particularly found in Ethnography

    • Ethnography is research that systematically studies how groups of people live and make meaning by understanding the group from its own point of view

• Experiment is used to find out how people are likely to act in particular and potentially controlled situations

  • Control Group is the group that does not experience the treatment or manipulation in a study

  • Field Experiments are experiments conducted in the real world, not in a laboratory setting

Looking at Documents

• Sometimes researchers use documents or other existing materials as the basis for their research

  • Most advantageous when researchers are interested in a topic for which it could be difficult to talk to people, like questions about the past, or when researchers are interested in the documents themselves, as studies of media

• Comparative-historical Research  is when researchers look at documents from the past

• Content Analysis is when researchers use texts and systematically categorize elements of those texts based on a set of rules

Research Ethics

• Some ethical responsibilities researchers have

  • Don’t make up data

  • Don’t plagiarize others’ work

  • Have informed consent of participants involved in a study

    • Informed Consent requires that the participants be told the purpose of the research, what they will be asked to do, and any risks of harm prior to participating. They must be given the chance to withdraw their participation at any time

• Any research receiving federal funding, almost all research done by colleges/universities, and most other research involving human subjects are reviewed by the institutions review board

  • Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews experiments and was established to protect human subjects

What do we do with Data

• Data Analysis is the process of reducing the mass of raw data researchers have collected to a set of finding that provides the basis for making conclusions

• Qualitative Methods are methods that rely primarily on information that is not numerical, such as words or images

  • Coding is description labels that are applied to sections of text or images so they can be classified into categories

• Quantitative Methods are methods that rely on numerical information

Quantitative Data Analysis

• Data represented using numbers

• This research is typical for survey data

• Qualitative data is often organized with spreadsheet software, like Microsoft Word or Google Sheets

• Descriptive Statistics are measures that are used to characterize the data

• Explanatory Statistics are statistics used to measure the relationship between different elements within the data

Getting Started Doing Research

• Sociological research is like scientific research in that it is according to the scientific method

  • Scientific Method is a systematic process of steps that takes researchers from the development of a research question through the collection and analysis of data

• They start with a research question and then find out what is already known about their question through a process called a literature review

  • Literature Review is finding out what is already known about a topic by reading prior scholarly literature

• Next is the hypothesis

  • Hypothesis is a prediction about the expected finding of the research, typically about the relationships between specific phenomena under study in the research project

Deductive and Inductive Research

• Deductive Research is research where researchers begin with a general idea or prediction and then gather data to test this idea

• Inductive Research is research where the data is gathered first to then be used to generate new ideas and understandings

  • Starts with a much broader question

• Research Questions is what it is that the researcher plans to study

Researching Theories

• Theory is a set of ideas used to explain how or why certain social patterns occur

  • Theories help sociologists to notice and understand social patterns in society

• Once researchers have defined their research question(s) and/or hypotheses, they begin to develop the specific details they will go about carrying out their study

• Researchers will then decide between a cross-sectional or longitudinal design

  • Cross-Sectional are studies carried out at one particular point in time and designed to explore and explain what is going on at what point in time

  • Longitudinal are studies that are carried out over a longer period of time, with the research collecting more data from the same respondents or different ones at multiple points in time

Sampling and Measurement

• Sampling is the process of selecting respondents for inclusion in the research project

  • Random vs nonrandom samples

    • Random is a sample where everyone who meets the criteria for participation in a study had an equal chance of being selected

    • Nonrandom samples are only used when random sampling is impossible

  • Operationalize is turning an abstract concept into a concrete measure

    • Variables are factors that are likely to change or vary within the context of the study

    • Constants are variables that stay the same for everyone in a study

• Attributes are answer categories

What Makes Research Good?

• When researchers carry out research projects they strive to develop accurate and useful answers to their research questions

  • The decisions researchers make about research design can have important impacts on whether their projects ultimately meet these goals.

• Generalizability is whether it is possible to assume that the patterns and relationships observed among the sample in the research study would also hold true for the broader population

  • Representative is if the people in the sample have characteristics typical of the people in the broader population

• Reliability is the extent to which research results are consistent

  • Interrater Reliability is an assessment of the degree to which different people who are coding or rating the same data do so in the same ways

• Validity is whether the research results accurately reflect the phenomena being studied

Causation

• Causation is whether a change in one variable causes a change in another variable

Correlation doesn’t equal causation

Demonstrating causation requires researchers to meet three specific conditions

• One: must demonstrate that the supposed cause is associated with the supposed effect

• Two: must demonstrate that the cause comes before the effect

• Three: must be able to eliminate all other possible alternative explanations for the effect