Research Methods- Fully answer questions

Use your text or materials posted on Canvas for this exam; it is recommended that you not use outside sources. Documents will be double-spaced, 12 point font, 1”margins. Save your document as a (x), , or .rtf – no google docs or .pages files!

For Part I, you will write 1-2 pages per question and be sure to include an introduction and conclusion for each essay. Clearly indicate which question that you are answering. Please use examples to illustrate your answer – but do not use the same examples from the textbook – put it in your own words.

For Part II, you will answer one question fully using examples to illustrate and describe your process. Please do not use the same examples from the textbook – put it in your own words. You may create tables for your answer.

Midterm Exam – Research Methods (75 points)

Due Sunday, February 4 before 11:59 p.m.

Use your text or materials posted on Canvas for this exam; it is recommended that you not use outside sources. Documents will be double-spaced, 12 point font, 1” margins. Save your document as a (x), , or .rtf. Please note: I cannot open google docs or .pages files, so make sure that you convert the file before uploading or you can cut and paste into the text box.

For Part I, you will write 1-2 pages per question and be sure to include an introduction and conclusion for each essay. Clearly indicate which question that you are answering. Please use examples to illustrate your answer – do not use the same examples from the textbook, put it in your own words.

Part I: Choose 3 questions (20 points each)

1. Describe how scientific inquiry differs from nonscientific inquiry.

2. How are theory and research linked? Give examples.

3. Illustrate how ethics and politics affect social research.

4. Discuss the three purposes for doing research. Describe a study that illustrates each purpose.

For Part II, you will answer one question fully using examples to illustrate and be sure to describe your thinking process on how to measure each of the variables (remember, it connects back to how you conceptualize them). Please do not use the same examples from the textbook – you are expected to put it in your own words. You may create tables for your answer.

Part II: Choose 1 question (15 points)

5. How would you measure each of the following variables using two different levels of measurement?

a. age

b. income

c. family size

6. Using a Likert Scale, show how you would measure each of the following:

a. performance of the university president

b. satisfaction with life

c. difficulty of an exam

Chapter 1 –

Human Inquiry and Science

SOC 363

Methods of Social Research

Chapter Outline
Looking for Reality
The Foundations of Social Science
The Purposes of Social Research
Some Dialectics of Social Research
The Research Proposal
2

Looking for Reality
Knowledge from Agreement Reality
How do we know what is real?
A scientific assertion must have both logical and empirical support.
Epistemology – the science of knowing; systems of knowledge.
Methodology – the science of finding out; procedures for scientific investigation

Looking for Reality
Ordinary Human Inquiry
Humans want to predict the future. Why?
We recognize that the future is caused in part by the present.
Cause and effect patterns are probabilistic in nature.
Prediction versus Understanding
Agreement Reality – those things we “know” as part of the culture we share with those around us.
Tradition – knowledge based on shared cultural understandings.
Authority – knowledge based on the status of the discoverer.

Looking for Reality
Errors in Inquiry, and Some Solutions
Inaccurate Observations
Measurement devises offer accuracy.
Overgeneralizations
Large and representative samples are a safeguard against overgeneralization.
Replication – repeating a research study to test and either confirm or question the findings of an earlier study.
Selective Observations
Avoid looking for “deviant” cases

Looking for Reality
Errors in Inquiry, and Some Solutions
Illogical Reasoning
“Gambler’s fallacy”
Use systems of logic consciously and explicitly.
Half-Life of Facts
How long today’s scientific facts survive reconceptualization, retesting, and new discoveries.
The fact that scientific knowledge is constantly changing points to a strength of scientific scholarship.
6

Looking for Reality
A Review Question…
Your friend notices that after two coworkers take a sick day, their work hours are cut in the following weeks. Your friend concludes that management punishes all workers who take sick days.
What error in inquiry has your friend committed?
How would you correct for this error?
7

Looking for Reality
Answers to the Review Question:
Your friend has committed an error of overgeneralization, because your friend had only observed the cases of two coworkers, but extended this observation to all coworkers.
If your friend really wanted to investigate this issue further, a relatively large and representative sample of all workers should be gathered…
8

The Foundations of Social Science
The foundations of social science are logic and observation.
Theory – A systematic explanation for the observations that relate to a particular aspect of life.
Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief
Social theory has to do with what should be, not with what is.
Science cannot be used to settle value debates.
Social science can help know what is and why.
9

The Foundations of Social Science
Social Regularities
Social research aims to find patterns of regularity in social life.
The Charge of Triviality
Documenting the obvious is a valuable function of any science.
The obvious all to often turns out to be wrong.
What About Exceptions?
Just because there are exceptions to a social regularity does not mean the regularity is unreal or unimportant.
People Could Interfere
The conscious will of social actors to upset social regularities does not pose a serious challenge to social science.

The Foundations of Social Science
Aggregates, Not Individuals
The collective actions and situations of many individuals.
Focus of social science is to explain why aggregated patterns of behavior are regular even when individuals change over time.
Concepts and Variables
Variables – Logical groupings of attributes.
Attributes – Characteristics of people or things
11

The Foundations of Social Science
Variables and Attributes:
In social research and theory, both variables and attributes represent social concepts.
Variables are sets of related attributes (categories, values).
12

The Foundations of Social Science
Variable 1: Education, with the attributes of “educated” and “uneducated.”
Variable 2: Prejudice, with the attributes of “prejudiced” and “unprejudiced.”

The Foundations of Social Science
Concepts and Variables
Independent Variable – A variable with values that are not problematical in an analysis, but are taken as simply given.
Presumed to cause or determine a dependent variable.
Dependent Variable – A variable assumed to depend on or be caused by another (the independent variable).
14

The Foundations of Social Science
Review Question:
What are the independent and dependent variables in this example?
What attributes do each have?
15

The Foundations of Social Science
Answer to Review Question:
The independent variable is the Characteristics of the date.
The attributes of the independent variable are variable, depending on how “Date Characteristics” is being measured. It could include attractiveness, punctuality, etc.
The dependent variable is the Quality of the date.
The attributes of the dependent variable are also variable, depending on how “Date Quality” is being measured. It could include excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, awful.
16

The Purposes of Social Research
Exploratory:
Investigative, such as looking into a new political or religious group
methods vary greatly
conclusions are usually suggestive rather than definitive.
17

The Purposes of Social Research
Descriptive: done for the purpose of describing the state of social affairs:
Examples: What is the unemployment rate? What is the racial composition of a particular city?
Careful empirical description takes the place of speculation and impressions.
18

The Purposes of Social Research
Explanatory: providing reasons for phenomena in the form of causal relationships
Examples: Why do some cities have higher unemployment rates
Explanatory social research provides more trustworthy explanations.
19

The Purposes of Social Research
Review Question:
For each of these research projects described below, determine if the research is exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory:
A researcher wants to examine what percentage of the U.S. adult population supports same-sex marriage.
A researcher wants to examine the influence of religious affiliation on same-sex marriage attitudes.
20

The Purposes of Social Research
Answers to Review Question:
A researcher wants to examine what percentage of the U.S. adult population supports same-sex marriage.
This project would be considered descriptive because it is trying to characterize the level of national approval.
A researcher wants to examine the influence of religious affiliation on same-sex marriage attitudes.
This project would be considered explanatory because it is seeking to determine whether (and how) religion influences same-sex marriage attitudes.
21

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation
Idiographic – An approach to explanation in which we seek to exhaust the idiosyncratic causes of a particular condition of event.
Nomothetic – An approach to explanation in which we seek to identify a few causal factors that generally impact a class of conditions of event.
Inductive and Deductive Theory
Induction – The logical mode in which general principles are developed from specific observations.
Deduction – The logical model in which specific expectations of hypotheses are developed on the basis of general principles.
22

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
The Wheel of Science
23

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
Determinism versus Agency
Determinism – The influence of particular social environments and conditions.
Agency – The influence of individual “choice” or “free will.
Tolerance for ambiguity – The ability to hold conflicting ideas in your mind simultaneously.
24

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
Qualitative and Quantitative Data
Qualitative Data – non-numerical data
Quantitative Data – numerical data
Pure and Applied Research
Pure Research – Gaining “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”
Applied Research – Putting research into practice.
25

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
Review Question
A researcher conducts a national survey, collecting information on religious affiliation and same-sex marriage attitudes. Based on this data, the researcher theorizes on the influence of religion on attitudes. This is an example of what kind of research?
Qualitative
Inductive
Deductive
Idiographic
26

Some Dialectics of
Social Research
Answer to Review Question:
This project would be inductive because the researcher is trying to develop general principles from specific observations.
27

The Research Proposal
Introduction (Chapter 1)
Review of the Literature (Chapters 2, 17, Appdx A)
Specify the Problem (Chapters 5, 6, 12)
Research Design (Chapter 4)
Data Collection (Chapters 4, 8-11)
Selection of Subjects (Chapter 7)
Ethical Issues (Chapter 3)
Data Analysis (Chapters 13-16)
Bibliography (Chapter 17, Appdx A)
28

The Research Proposal
Review Question
True or False: Research proposals are summaries of research projects, prepared after the project has been completed.
This statement is false. Research proposals often mark the start of or preparation for a new research project.

This is our task for the quarter – to help you create your own research proposal…

Chapter 2

Paradigms, Theory,

and Social Research

Chapter Outline
Some Social Science Paradigms
Elements of Social Theory
Two Logical Systems Revisited
Deductive Theory Construction
Inductive Theory Construction
The Links between Theory and Research
Research Ethics and Theory
2

Social Science Paradigms
Paradigms – a model or frame of reference through which to observe and understand.
“Patterns happen.”
Logical explanations are what theories seek to provide.
Theories prevent our being taken in by flukes.
Theories makes sense of observed patterns.
Theories shape and direct research efforts.
3

Social Science Paradigms
When we recognize that we are operating within a paradigm, two benefits accrue.
We can better understand seemingly bizarre views and actions of others who are operating under different paradigms.
We can profit from stepping outside of our paradigm.
Paradigms play a fundamental role in science.
Paradigms are neither true nor false.
4

Social Science Paradigms
Macrotheory – a theory aimed at understanding the “big picture” of institutions, whole societies, and the interactions among societies.
Examples: class struggles, international relations, and interrelations between social institutions
Microtheory – a theory aimed at understanding social life at the intimate level of individuals and their interactions.
Examples: dating behavior, jury deliberations, student-faculty interactions
Mesotheory – referencing an intermediate level between macro and micro.
Examples: studying organizations, communities, and social categories
5

Social Science Paradigms
Early Positivism
Auguste Comte (1798-1857): Society is a phenomenon that can be studied scientifically.
Positivism – A philosophical system grounded on the rational proof/disproof of scientific assertions.
Assumes a knowable objective reality.
“Positive Philosophy”
Theological Stage
Metaphysical Stage
Positivist Stage
6

Social Science Paradigms
Social Darwinism
Charles Darwin (1809-1882): evolution through natural selection
“On the Origin of the Species” (1859)
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903): Translation of Darwin’s theory into societies: over time, societies are improving.
7

Social Science Paradigms
Conflict Paradigm
A paradigm that views human behavior as attempts to dominate others and to avoid being dominated.
Karl Marx (1818-1883): social behavior is best explained as the process of conflict.
Georg Simmel (1858-1918): focused on small-scale conflict.
Michel Chossudovsky: international and global competition (1997).
8

Social Science Paradigms
Symbolic Interactionism
A paradigm that views human behavior as the creation of meaning through social interactions, with those meanings conditioning subsequent interaction.
Georg Simmel (1858-1918): interested in how individuals interacted with one another, a micro approach.
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931): “taking the role of the other.”
Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929): “looking-glass self,” primary groups.
9

Social Science Paradigms
Ethnomethodology
Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011): People are continually creating social structure through their actions and interactions, creating their realities.
Ethnomethodology – “methodology of the people.”
10

Social Science Paradigms
Structural Functionalism
A paradigm that divides social phenomena into parts, each of which serves a function for the operation of the whole.
A social entity can be viewed as an organism.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917): crimes and their punishment provide an opportunity to reaffirm society’s values.
11

Social Science Paradigms
Feminist Paradigms
Paradigms that (1) view and understand society through the experiences of women and/or (2) examine the generally deprived status of women in society.
Feminists call attention to aspects of social life that other paradigms do not reveal.
Concerned with the treatment of women and the experience of oppression.
12

Social Science Paradigms
Feminist Paradigms
Feminist Standpoint Theory
Nancy Hartsock (1983): women have knowledge about their status and experience that is not available to men.
Third wave feminism (1990s)
13

Social Science Paradigms
Critical Race Theory
A paradigm grounded in race awareness and an intention to achieve racial justice.
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963): roots in the civil rights movement.
African Americans lived their lives through a “dual consciousness:” as Americans and as Black people.
“The Souls of Black Folk” (1903)
14

Social Science Paradigms
Critical Race Theory
Derrick Bell
Interest Convergence – majority group members will only support the interests of minorities when those actions also support the interests of the majority group (1980).
15

Social Science Paradigms
Rational Objectivity Reconsidered
Auguste Comte (1798-1857): society can be studied rationally and objectively.
With the growth of science and technology and the decline of superstition, rationality has more and more become the center of social life.
16
Asch Experiment (1958)
A group of subjects is present with a set of lines on a screen and asked to identify the two lines that are equal in length.
Others in the group identify A or C as the correct answer, while you know that B is the correct answer.

A more sophisticated positivism would assert that we can rationally understand and predict even nonrational behavior. An example is the famous Asch experiment (Asch 1958). In this experiment, a group of subjects is presented with a set of lines on a screen and asked to identify the two lines that are equal in length.
Imagine yourself a subject in such an experiment. You are sitting in the front row of a classroom in a group of six subjects. A set of lines is projected on the wall in front of you (see Figure 2-1). The experimenter asks each of you, one at a time, to identify the line to the right (A, B, or C) that matches the length of line X. The correct answer (B) is pretty obvious to you. To your surprise, however, you ﬁnd that all the other subjects agree on a different answer!
The experimenter announces that all but one of the group has gotten the correct answer. Because you are the only one who chose B, this amounts to saying that you’ve gotten it wrong. Then a new set of lines is presented, and you have the same experience. What seems to be the obviously correct answer is said by everyone else to be wrong.
As it turns out, of course, you are the only real subject in this experiment—all the others are working with the experimenter. The purpose of the experiment is to see whether you will be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. In his initial experiments, all of which involved young men, Asch found that a little over one-third of his subjects did just that.
Choosing an obviously wrong answer in a simple experiment is an example of nonrational behavior. But as Asch went on to show, experimenters can examine the circumstances that lead more or fewer subjects to go along with the incorrect answer. For example, in subsequent studies, Asch varied the size of one group and the number of “dissenters” who chose the “wrong” (that is, the correct) answer. Thus, it is possible to study nonrational behavior rationally and scientiﬁcally.
More radically, we can question whether social life abides by rational principles at all. In the physical sciences, developments such as chaos theory, fuzzy logic, and complexity have suggested that we may need to rethink fundamentally the orderliness of events in the physical world. Certainly the social world might be no tidier than the world of physics.
The contemporary challenge to positivism, however, goes beyond the question of whether people behave rationally. In part, the criticism of positivism challenges the idea that scientists can be as objective as the positivistic ideal assumes. Most scientists would agree that personal feelings can and do inﬂuence the problems scientists choose to study, what they choose to observe, and the conclusions they draw from their observations.
There is an even more radical critique of the ideal of objectivity. As we glimpsed in the discussions of feminism and ethnomethodology, some contemporary researchers suggest that subjectivity might actually be preferable in some situations. Let’s take a moment to return to the dialectic of subjectivity and objectivity.
To begin, all our experiences are inescapably subjective. There is no way out. We can see only through our own eyes, and anything peculiar to our eyes will shape what we see. We can hear things only the way our particular ears and brain transmit and interpret sound waves. You and I, to some extent, hear and see different realities. And both of us experience quite different physical “realities” than, say, do bats. In what to us is total darkness, a bat “sees” things such as ﬂying insects by emitting a sound we humans can’t hear. The reﬂection of the bat’s sound creates a “sound picture” precise enough for the bat to home in on the moving insect and snatch it up in its teeth. In a similar vein, scientists on the planet Xandu might develop theories of the physical world based on a sensory apparatus that we humans can’t even imagine. Maybe they see X-rays or hear colors.
Despite the inescapable subjectivity of our experience, we humans seem to be wired to seek an agreement on what is really real, what is objectively so. Objectivity is a conceptual attempt to get beyond our individual views. It is ultimately a matter of communication, as you and I attempt to ﬁnd a common ground in our subjective experiences. Whenever we succeed in our search, we say we are dealing with objective reality. This is the agreement reality discussed in Chapter 1.
To this point, perhaps the most signiﬁcant studies in the history of social science were conducted in the 1930s by a Turkish American social psychologist, Muzafer Sherif (1935), who slyly said he wanted to study “auto-kinetic effects.” To do this, he put small groups in totally darkened rooms, save for a single point of light in the center of the wall in front of the participants. Sherif explained that the light would soon begin to move about, and the subjects were to determine how far it was moving—a difﬁcult task with nothing else visible as a gauge of length or distance.
Amazingly, each of the groups was able to agree as to the distance the point of light moved about. Oddly, however, the different groups of subjects arrived at very different conclusions. Strangest of all—as you may have guessed—the point of light had remained stationary. If you stare at a ﬁxed point of light long enough it will seem to move about (Sherif’s “auto-kinetic effect”). Notice, however, that each of the groups agreed on a speciﬁc delusion. The movement of the light was real to them, but it was a reality created out of nothing: a socially constructed reality.
Whereas our subjectivity is individual, then, our search for objectivity is social. This is true in all aspects of life, not just in science. While you and I prefer different foods, we must agree to some extent on what is ﬁt to eat and what is not, or else there could be no restaurants or grocery stores. The same argument could be made regarding every other form of consumption. Without agreement reality, there could be no movies or television, no sports.
Social scientists as well have found beneﬁts in the concept of a socially agreed-on objective reality. As people seek to impose order on their experience of life, they ﬁnd it useful to pursue this goal as a collective venture. What are the causes and cures of prejudice? Working together, social researchers have uncovered some answers that hold up to intersubjective scrutiny. Whatever your subjective experience of things, for example, you can discover for yourself that as education increases, prejudice generally tends to decrease. Because each of us can discover this independently, we say that it is objectively true.
From the seventeenth century through the middle of the twentieth, however, the belief in an objective reality that was independent of individual perceptions predominated in science. For the most part, it was not simply held as a useful paradigm but as The Truth. The term positivism has generally represented the belief in a logically ordered, objective reality that we can come to know better and better through science. This is the view challenged today by postmodernists and others.
Some say that the ideal of objectivity conceals as much as it reveals. As we saw earlier, in years past much of what was regarded as objectivity in Western social science was actually an agreement primarily among white, middle-class European men. Equally real experiences common to women, to ethnic minorities, to non-Western cultures, or to the poor were not necessarily represented in that reality.
Thus, early anthropologists are now criticized for often making modern, Westernized “sense” out of the beliefs and practices of nonliterate tribes around the world, sometimes by portraying their subjects as superstitious savages. We often call orally transmitted beliefs about the distant past “creation myth,” whereas we speak of our own beliefs as “history.” Increasingly today, there is a demand to ﬁnd the native logic by which various peoples make sense out of life and to understand it on its own terms.
Ultimately, we’ll never be able to distinguish completely between an objective reality and our subjective experience. We can’t know whether our concepts correspond to an objective reality or are simply useful in allowing us to predict and control our environment. So desperate is our need to know what is really real, however, that both positivists and postmodernists are sometimes drawn into the belief that their own view is real and true. There is a dual irony in this. On the one hand, the positivist’s belief that science precisely mirrors the objective world must ultimately be based on faith; it cannot be proved by “objective” science, because that’s precisely what’s at issue. And the postmodernists, who say nothing is objectively so and everything is ultimately subjective, do at least feel that that is really the way things are.
Postmodernism is often portrayed as a denial of the possibility of social science. Because this book has already expressed sympathy for some postmodern views and concerns, a word of explanation may be in order. This textbook makes no assumption about the existence or absence of an objective reality. At the same time, human beings demonstrate an extensive and robust ability to establish agreements as to what’s “real.” This appears in regard to rocks and trees, as well as ghosts and gods, and even more elusive ideas such as loyalty and treason. Whether something like “prejudice” really exists, research into its nature can take place, because enough people agree that prejudice does exist, and researchers can use agreed-on techniques of inquiry to study it.
Another social science paradigm, critical realism, suggests that we define “reality” as that which can be seen to have an effect. Since prejudice clearly has an observable effect in our lives, it must be judged “real” in terms of this point of view. This paradigm fits together interestingly with the statement attributed to early American sociologist, W. I. Thomas: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
**[DEF BOX: critical realism: a paradigm that holds things are real in they produce effects ]**
This book will not require or even encourage you to choose among positivism, postmodernism, or any of the other paradigms discussed in this chapter. In fact, I invite you to look for value in any and all as you seek to understand the world that may or may not exist around you.
Similarly, as social researchers, we are not forced to align ourselves entirely with either of these approaches. Instead, we can treat them as two distinct arrows in our quiver. Each approach compensates for the weaknesses of the other by suggesting complementary perspectives that can produce useful lines of inquiry.
For example, the renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking has elegantly described the appealing simplicity of the positivistic model but tempers his remarks with a recognition of the way science is practiced.
According to this way of thinking, a scientiﬁc theory is a mathematical model that describes and codiﬁes the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make deﬁnite predictions that can be tested. If the predictions agree with the observations, the theory survives that test, though it can never be proved to be correct. On the other hand, if the observations disagree with the predictions, one has to discard or modify the theory. (At least, that is what is supposed to happen. In practice, people often question the accuracy of the observations and the reliability and moral character of those making the observations.)
(2001: 31)
In summary, a rich variety of theoretical paradigms can be brought to bear on the study of social life. With each of these fundamental frames of reference, useful theories can be constructed. We turn now to some of the issues involved in theory construction, which are of interest and use to all social researchers, from positivists to postmodernists—and all those in between.
16

Social Science Paradigms
Criticisms of Positivism
Postmodernism – A paradigm that questions the assumptions of positivism and theories describing an “objective reality.”
Critical Realism – A paradigm that holds things are real insofar as they produce effects.
17

Social Science Paradigms
Review Question
A researcher studying prejudice seeks to determine how racial prejudices are used by some groups to dominate other groups. What paradigm is this researcher using?
Answer: Because this researcher is examining how prejudice operates in systems of social domination, the Conflict paradigm is being used.
18

Elements of Social Theory
Observation – seeing, hearing, touching.
Fact – a phenomenon that has been observed.
Laws – universal generalization about classes of facts.
Theory – a systematic explanation for observations that relate to a particular aspect of life.
Concepts – abstract elements representing classes of phenomena within the field of study.
Variable – a set of attributes.
19

Elements of Social Theory
Axioms or Postulates – fundamental assertions on which a theory is grounded.
Propositions – specific conclusions, derived from the axiomatic groundwork, about the relationships among concepts.
Hypothesis – a specified, testable expectation about the empirical reality that follows from a more general proposition.
20

Two Logical Systems Revisited
The Traditional Model of Science
Theory
Operationalization – the process of developing operational definitions, or specifying the exact operations involved in measuring a variable.
Operational Definition – the concrete and specific definition of something in terms of the operations by which observations are to be categorized.
Observation – specifying the exact operations involved in measuring a variable.
21

Two Logical Systems Revisited
The Traditional Image of Science
The deductive model of scientific inquiry begins with a sometimes vague or general question, which is subjected to a process of specification, resulting in hypotheses that can be tested through empirical observations.
22

Two Logical Systems Revisited
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Deductive = Traditional Model of Science
A Case Illustration (Glock, Ringer, and Babbie, 1967)
Comfort Hypothesis
Null Hypothesis – In hypothesis testing and tests of statistical significance, the hypothesis that suggests there is no relationship among the variables under study.
23

Two Logical Systems Revisited
A Graphic Contrast of Deductive and Inductive Methods
24

Two Logical Systems Revisited
Big Data
Extremely large data sets generated through the automatic monitoring of ongoing processes.
Amazon purchases
Phone and internet communications
25

Two Logical Systems Revisited
Review Question
A hypothesis is a basic statement tested in research which typically states a relationship between two variables. Generate a hypothesis connecting education to income.
Answer: One hypothesis for the relationship between education and income would be:
The greater the level of education, the greater the income.
26

Deductive Theory Construction
Specify the topic.
Specify the range of phenomena your theory addresses.
Identify and specify your major concepts and variables.
Find out what is known about the relationships among those variables.
Reason logically from those propositions to the specific topic you are examining.
27

Deductive Theory Construction
Review Question
How would you approach studying the relationship between education and income deductively?
Answer: A deductive approach to the study of the relationship between education and income would begin with theory, propositions, and hypotheses. You would then collect observations and compare that data to your theoretical expectations.
28

Inductive Theory Construction
Observe aspects of social life and seek to discover patterns that may point to relatively universal principles.
Grounded Theory
Field Research
29

Inductive Theory Construction
Review Question
How would you approach studying the relationship between education and income inductively?
Answer: A inductive approach to the study of the relationship between education and income would begin with your observations. You would then examine those observations to generate descriptions and explanations of the patterns you observe.
30

The Links Between Theory and Research
Deductive Model – research is used to test theories.
Inductive Model – theories are developed from analysis of data – to discover patterns.
31

Research Ethics and Theory
Researchers should not use paradigm and theory selection as a means of achieving desired research results.
The collective nature of social research offers protection against biased research findings.
32

Chapter 3

The Ethics and Politics of Social Research

Chapter Outline
Ethical Issues in Social Research
Two Ethical Controversies
The Politics of Social Research
2

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Ethical (Webster’s New World Dictionary):
“Conforming to the standards of conduct of a given profession or group.”
Voluntary Participation
No one should be forced to participate.
Balance of science and ethics?
Possible?
3

Ethical Issues in Social Research
No Harm to the Participants
People being researched should never be injured (physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, psychologically).
Examples: Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Stanford Prison Experiment
Informed Consent – a norm in which subjects base their voluntary participation in research projects on a full understanding of the possible risk involved.
4

Ethical Issues in Social Research
No Harm to the Participants
Three Principles from The Belmont Report
1. Respect for persons
Participation must be completely voluntary and based on full understanding of what is involved.
2. Beneficience
Subjects must not be harmed by the research.
3. Justice
The burdens and benefits of research should be shared fairly.
5

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Anonymity and Confidentiality
Anonymity – guaranteed in a research project when neither the researchers nor the readers of the findings can identify a given response with a given respondent.
Confidentiality – guaranteed when the research can identify a given person’s responses but promises not to do so publicly.
6

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Deception
Deception within social research needs to be justified by scientific or administrative concerns.
Debriefing – interviewing subjects to learn about their experience of participation in the project.
Analysis and Reporting
Ethical obligation to colleagues in the scientific community.
All results must be reported (positive and negative).
All limitations must be admitted.
7

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Institutional Review Boards (IRB) – a panel of faculty who review all research proposals involving human subjects so that they can guarantee that the subjects’ rights and interests will be protected.
Exceptions?
8
Professional and research organizations often have professional codes of ethics

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Review Question
A researcher interviews college students about their experiences with plagiarism. Although the researcher has collected email addresses, a promise has been made to never reveal those to anyone.
Has the researcher promised confidentiality or anonymity to the students?
How might the project be changed to fulfill both confidentiality an anonymity?
9

Ethical Issues in Social Research
Answer:
The researcher has collected students’ email addresses, and therefore does have a way to identify the research participants. This would then qualify as an example of confidentiality.
If the researcher wanted to be able to promise anonymity as well, the researcher would have to stop collecting identifying information (such as the email addresses) to identify the participants.
10

Two Ethical Controversies
Trouble in the Tearoom: Laud Humphreys (1930-1988)
Studied homosexual activities in public restrooms in parks
Researcher became interested in the lives of participants
Researcher volunteered to become “watchqueen”
Researcher collected personal information about the participants (license numbers of cars)
Which ethical issues are in question?
11

Two Ethical Controversies
Observing Human Obedience: Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)
Participants imitated a laboratory-based World War II controversy
Participants were assigned job of “teacher” – to teach a list of works to the “pupil.” If the pupil got the word wrong, the teacher would administer increasing levels of shocks to the pupil.
Which ethical issues are in question?
12

The Politics of Social Research
The ethics of social research deals mostly with the methods employed.
Political issues tend to center on the substance and use of research.
There are no formal codes of acceptable political conduct, while there are formal codes of conduct for social research.
13

The Politics of Social Research
Objectivity and Ideology
Science achieves objectivity through inter-subjectivity.
Max Weber (1864-1920): sociology needs to be unencumbered by personal values if it is to make a special contribution to society (1925).
Social Research and Race
The Politics of Sexual Research
Politics and the Census
Politics with a Little “p”
Social research in relation to contested social issues cannot remain antiseptically objective.

The Politics of Social Research
Politics in Perspective
Science is not untouched by politics.
Science does proceed in the midst of political controversy and hostility.
An awareness of ideological considerations enriches the study and practice of social research methods.
Whereas researchers should not let their own values interfere with the quality and honesty of the research, this does not mean that researchers cannot or should not participate in public debates.
15

The Politics of Social Research
Review Question
True or False: Researchers should refrain from participating in public debates because their personal opinions can interfere with their research.
False: Researchers do not have to refrain from engaging in public debates. But they should be aware of how their values and opinions may interfere with their research.
16

Chapter 4 –

Research Design

SOC 363

Social Research Methods

Chapter Outline
Three Purposes of Research
Idiographic Explanation
Nomothetic Explanation
Necessary and Sufficient Causes
Units of Analysis
The Time Dimension
Mixed Models
How to Design a Research Project
The Research Proposal
Quick Quiz

Three Purposes of Research
Exploration
To satisfy the researcher’s curiosity and desire for better understanding
To test the feasibility of undertaking a more extensive study
To develop the methods to be employed in any subsequent study
Description
Describe situations and events through scientific observation
Explanation
Descriptive studies answer questions of what, where, when, and how
Explanatory studies answer questions of why

Three Purposes of Research
Review Question: A researcher wants to determine why people of differing political orientations have different opinions on environmental regulations. What purpose does this research project fulfill?
This research topic is attempting to address a “why” question, that is, why and how does political orientation influence attitudes toward environmental regulations. Therefore this research is explanatory.

Idiographic Explanation
Goal: to find an exhaustive understanding of the causes producing events and situations in a single or limited number of cases.
Review Question: What would a project seeking an idiographic explanation of support for environmental regulations look like?
A researcher interested in an idiographic explanation of attitudes toward environmental regulations would seek out one or just a few individuals to study. The researcher would then try to develop a deep understanding of the reasons this person provides for their views

Nomothetic Explanation
Goal: to find a few factors that can account for many of the variations in a given phenomenon
Example: Legalization of Marijuana
Idiographic Approach
Information from parents, teachers, clergy
Previous experiences
Nomothetic Approach
Political orientation

Nomothetic Explanation
Criteria for Nomothetic Causality
The variables must be correlated
Correlation – an empirical relationship between two variables such that changes in one are associated with changes in the other, or particular attributes in one are associated with particular attributes in the other.
The cause takes place before the effect
The variables are nonspurious
Spurious Relationship – a coincidental statistical correlation between two variables shown to be caused by some third variable

Nomothetic Explanation
Nomothetic Causal Analysis and Hypothesis Testing
Hypotheses are not required in nomothetic research.
To test a hypothesis:
Specify variables you think are related
Specify measurement of variables
Hypothesize correlation, strength of relationship, statistical significance
Specify tests for spuriousness

Nomothetic Explanation

Nomothetic Explanation
False Criteria for Nomothetic Causality
Complete Causation
Exceptional Cases
Majority of Cases
Review Question: What would a project seeking an nomothetic explanation of support for environmental regulations look like?
A researcher interested in an nomothetic explanation of attitudes toward environmental regulations would seek many individuals to study. The researcher would then try to develop an understanding of how some particular factors (such as age, gender, and political affiliation) influence views.

Necessary and Sufficient Causes
A necessary cause represents a condition that must be present for the effect to follow.
A sufficient cause represents a condition that, if it is present, guarantees the effect in question.
Most satisfying outcome in research includes both necessary and sufficient causes.

Necessary and Sufficient Causes
Necessary Cause. Being female is a necessary cause of pregnancy; that is, you can’t get pregnant unless you are female.

Necessary and Sufficient Causes
Sufficient Cause. Not taking the exam is a sufficient cause of failing it, even though there are other ways of failing (such as answering randomly).

Units of Analysis
Units of Analysis – the what or whom being studied (most often individuals in social science research).
Individuals versus Aggregates
Individuals
Most common unit of analysis for social research.
Groups
Organizations
Social Interactions
Social Artifacts
Any product of social beings or their behavior.

Units of Analysis

Examples of Units of Analysis
Individuals
Students, voters, parents, children, Catholics
Groups
Gang members, families, married couples, friendship groups
Organizations
Corporations, social organizations, colleges
Social Interactions
Telephone calls, dances, online chat rooms, fights
Social Artifacts
Books, poems, paintings, jokes, songs

Units of Analysis
Faulty Reasoning about Units of Analysis
The Ecological Fallacy – erroneously drawing conclusions about individuals solely from the observations of groups.
Reductionism – a strict limitation (reduction) of the kinds of concepts to be considered relevant to the phenomenon under study.
Sociobiology – a paradigm based on the view that social behavior can be explained solely in terms of genetic characteristics and behavior.

The Time Dimension
Cross-Sectional Study – a study based on observations representing a single point in time, a cross section of a population.
Longitudinal Study – a study design involving the collection of data at different points in time.
Mixed Modes – Researchers often use more than one approach (experiments, surveys, field research, etc.) to understanding a social phenomenon.

The Time Dimension
Longitudinal Studies
Trend Study – a study in which a given characteristic of some population is monitored over time.
Cohort Study – a study in which some specific subpopulation, or cohort, is studied over time.
Panel Study – a study in which data are collected from the same set of people at several points in time.
Panel mortality – The failure of some panel subjects to continue participating in the study.

The Time Dimension
Comparing Types of Longitudinal Studies – example: Religious Affiliation
Trend Study – looks at shifts in religious affiliation over time.
Cohort Study – follows shifts in religious affiliation among those born during the Depression.
Panel Study – follows the shifts in religious affiliation among a specific group of people over time.

The Time Dimension
Approximating Longitudinal Studies
Researchers can draw approximate conclusions about longitudinal processes even when cross-sectional data is not available.
Imply processes over time
Make logical inferences
Ask individuals to recall past behavior
Cohort analysis

The Time Dimension
Examples of Research Strategies
Exploration, Description, or Explanation?
Sources of data?
Unit of analysis?
Dimensions of time relevant?

The Time Dimension
Review Question: A researcher is studying racial and gender inequality in employment using a national sample of persons who graduated high school in 2000.What kind of study is this?
This project would be a cohort study, because the researcher is interested in a particular cohort or group (people who graduated high school in 1990) and what happens to that group over time. If the researcher was interviewing the exact same people each and every time, then it would be a panel study.

How to Design a Research Project
Define the purpose of your project – exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory?
Specify the meanings of each concept you want to study – conceptualization.
Select a research method.
Determine how you will measure the results – operationalization.
Determine whom or what to study – population and sampling.
Collect empirical data – observations.
Process the data.
Analyze the data.
Report your findings – application

How to Design a Research Project

How to Design a Research Project
Review Question
True or False: Operationalization occurs before conceptualization.
False: Conceptualization (specifying the concepts you intend to study) must occur before operationalization (specifying how you will measure those concepts).

The Research Proposal
Elements of a Research Proposal
Problem or Objective
Literature Review
Subjects for Study
Measurement
Data Collection Methods
Analysis
Schedule
Budget

Chapter 5 –

Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement

SOC 363

Research Methods

Chapter Outline
Measuring Anything That Exists
Conceptualization
Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
Operationalization Choices
Criteria of Measurement Quality
The Ethics of Measurement
2

Measuring Anything that Exists
Measurement is careful, deliberate observations of the real world for the purpose of describing objects and events in terms of the attributes composing the variable.
Measurement – Practice
Political Party Affiliation
Age
Grade Point Average
Satisfaction with College
Religious Affiliation
3

Measuring Anything that Exists
Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality
Conceptualization – the mental process whereby fuzzy and imprecise notions (concepts) are made more specific and precise.
Concepts as Constructs
Concepts are constructs derived by mutual agreement from mental images.
Conceptions summarize collections of seemingly related observations and experiences.
4

Measuring Anything that Exists
5

Measuring Anything that Exists
Review Question: According to Abraham Kaplan’s list of the three kinds of things social researchers measure (direct observables, indirect observables, constructs), what is a person’s religious affiliation? And what is a person’s views towards national security?
A person’s religious affiliation would be an indirect observable; we could ask a person on a survey to indicate their religious affiliation (e.g., Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.).
A person’s views towards national security would be a construct, which we could measure with a set of survey questions.
6

Conceptualization
The process through which we specify what we mean when we use particular terms in research.
We cannot meaningfully answer a question without a working agreement about the meaning of the outcome.
Conceptualization produces a specific, agreed-upon meaning for a concept for the purposes of research.
7

Conceptualization
Indicators and Dimensions
Indicator – an observation that we choose to consider as a reflection of a variable we wish to study.
Dimension – a specifiable aspect of a concept.
Indicators and Dimensions – Practice
Religious Affiliation
College Success
Political Activity
Poverty
Binge Drinking
Fear of Crime
The Interchangeability of Indicators – If several different indicators all represent the same concept, all of them will behave the same way the concept would behave if it were real and could be observed.

Conceptualization
Real, Nominal, and Operational Definitions
Specification – the process through which concepts are made more specific.
A nominal definition is one that is simply assigned to a term without any claim that the definition represents a “real” entity.
An operational definition specifies precisely how a concept will be measured – that is, the operations we will perform.
9

Conceptualization
Creating Conceptual Order
Conceptualization
Nominal Definition
Operational Definition
Real World Measurement
10

Conceptualization
Review Question: In the first measurement stage we focus on the different meanings and dimensions of our concept, for example political conservatism. What are the next two steps?
After conceptualizing our concept, political conservatism, we would next develop a nominal definition. For example, we could define “political conservatism” as representing personal identification with conservatives, conservatism, and conservative causes.
Once our nominal definition is set, we would develop an operational definition. For example, we could ask respondents the following survey question, “Do you consider yourself politically liberal, moderate, or conservative?
11

Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
Definitions are more problematic for descriptive research than for explanatory research.
The degree of precision needed varies with the type and purpose of a study.
12

Operationalization Choices
Conceptualization is the refinement and specification of abstract concepts.
Operationalization is the development of specific research procedures that will result in empirical observations representing those concepts in the real world.
Range of Variation
To what extent is the research willing to combine attributes in fairly gross categories?
Variation between the Extremes
To what degree is the operationalization of variables precise?
A Note on Dimensions
Which specific dimensions of the variables are of interest?

Operationalization Choices
Defining Variables and Attributes
An attribute is a characteristic or quality of something (ex: female, old, student).
A variable is a logical set of attributes (ex: gender, age).
Every variable must have two important qualities.
Attributes must be exhaustive.
Attributes must be mutually exclusive.
14

Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement
Nominal – Variables whose attributes are merely different; they have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutually exclusiveness.
Examples: gender, religious affiliation, college major, hair color, birthplace, nationality
Ordinal – Variables with attributes we can logically rank in order.
Examples: socioeconomic status, level of conflict, prejudice, conservativeness, alienation
Interval – Variables whose attributes are rank-ordered and have equal distances between adjacent attributes.
Examples: temperature (Fahrenheit), IQ score
Ratio – Variables whose attributes meet the requirements of an interval measure and have a true zero point.
Examples: temperature (Kelvin), age, length of time, number of organizations, number of groups, number of As received in college
15

Operationalization Choices
16

Operationalization Choices
Implications of Levels of Measurement
Analyses require minimum levels of measurement.
Some variables can be treated as multiple levels of measurement.
Determines the arithmetic operations that can be applied to a variable
17

Operationalization Choices
Single or Multiple Indicators
Many social research variables have fairly obvious, straightforward measures.
Some social research variables have no single indicator.
Example: College Performance

Operationalization Goes On and On
Although conceptualization and operationalization precede data collection and analysis, these two processes continue throughout the research project.
18

Operationalization Choices
Some Illustrations of Operationalization Choices
Are women more compassionate than men?
Are sociology students or accounting students better informed about world affairs?
Who are the most popular instructors on your campus, those in the social sciences, the natural sciences, or the humanities?
19

Criteria of Measurement Quality
Precision and Accuracy
Precise measures are superior to imprecise ones.
Precision is not the same as accuracy.
Reliability
Reliability is the quality of measurement method that suggests the same data would have been collected each time in repeated observations of the same phenomenon.
Reliability is not the same as accuracy.
Validity
a term describing a measure that accurately reflects the concept it is intended to measure.
20

Criteria of Measurement Quality
Reliability:
Test-Retest Method
To make the same measurement more than once.
Split-Half Method
Multiple sets of randomly assigned variables should produce the same classifications
Established Measures
Use measures previously shown to be reliable.
Reliability of Research Workers
Clarity, specificity, training, and practice can prevent much unreliability
21

Criteria of Measurement Quality
Validity –
Face Validity – the quality of an indicator that makes it a reasonable measure of some variable.
Criterion-Related Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to some external criterion.
Construct Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to other variables as expected within a system of theoretical relationships.
Content Validity – the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within a concept.
22

Criteria of Measurement Quality
23

An Analogy to Validity and Reliability. A good measurement technique should be both valid (measuring what it is intended to measure) and reliable (yielding a given measurement dependably).

Criteria of Measurement Quality
Who Decides What’s Valid?
Social researchers should look both to their colleagues and to their subjects as sources of agreement on the most useful meanings and measurements of the concepts they study.
Tension between Reliability and Validity
Measures should be both reliable and valid.
But sometimes research requires a trade-off.
24

Criteria of Measurement Quality
Review Question: A researcher wants to measure religiosity. A common measure is the frequency of attendance at religious services. What kind of validity does this measure have?
As a measure of religiosity, frequency of attendance at religious services has face validity.
25

The Ethics of Measurement
Conceptualization and measurement must never be guided by bias or preferences for particular research outcomes.
26

Conceptualization

In an earlier discussion, you were provided with the basic ingredients necessary to construct a research question. Two of these ingredients were an independent variable and a dependent variable. Once you have decided on an independent variable and a dependent variable, you are far on your way toward constructing a research question.

But, in research, when we speak of variables, we need to be careful about what we mean. We can’t use our words casually as we often do in conversation. Concepts can be defined in different ways by different people. If we aren’t careful in specifying exactly how we are defining something, we may end up thinking we are talking about the same thing when in reality we’re talking about different things.

When we refer to a particular variable, whatever that variable might be, we need to spend time defining it very precisely so everyone will know exactly what we mean.

Conceptualization is the process by which researchers define what they are attempting to study as precisely as possible.

Say our research question is a descriptive one: are religious people less likely to commit crime? Before pursuing this question, we need to define what we mean by religious. What does it mean that a person is religious rather than non-religious? The answer isn’t obvious, but we need to settle on a definition in order to move forward. Sometimes our definition of a concept is influenced by considerations of how we might measure it. Considerations of measurement are referred to as
operationalization
.

Operationalization

In the process of defining a term, we also need to think about how we’re going to measure the concept. Operationalization refers to the process of figuring out how to measure the concepts that interest us. When we operationalize something, we figure out how we are going to measure it. Many of the most common concepts are not tangible. We cannot really point to them directly. Instead, we have to find a way to measure them, often indirectly.

Consider again the concept of religiosity. This is not something we can directly observe. We can’t look in someone’s brain and see how much time they spend thinking about God. We can’t tell for sure how much considerations of the supernatural govern the decisions they make in life. Instead, we can only make indirect measurements of religiosity. For example, we can infer that someone is religious when they report attending religious services every week. In addition, we might infer that someone is religious if they pray on a daily basis or report to us that religion is very important in their lives.

Consider again the concept of religiosity. This is not something we can observe directly. We can’t look in someone’s brain and see how much time they spend thinking about God. We can’t tell for sure how much considerations of the supernatural govern the decisions they make in life. Instead, we can only make indirect measurements of religiosity. For example, we can infer that someone is religious when they report attending religious services every week. In addition, we might infer that someone is religious if they pray on a daily basis or report to us that religion is very important in their lives.

The diagram below illustrates what I’m talking about. The concept I’m trying to measure – religiosity – is enclosed in a circle. We can’t measure what’s in the circle directly. What we can observe – through survey questions – is enclosed in the squares. Through surveys, we can query how often people attend religious services, how often they pray, and whether they tell us that religion is important to them. People’s answers to these questions can then be used to help define whether someone is religious or not.

Self-defined as religious or not

Reported frequency of prayer

Reported frequency of religious service attendance

Religiosity (how religious is a person?)

Often, for convenience, we rely on operational definitions of concepts. An operational definition of a concept is a definition of the concept terms of how it is measured. So an operational definition of religiousness here would be whether a person reports high levels of religious service attendance, prayer and/or religious importance.

Note that the survey questions referenced in the diagram above aren’t purely hypothetical. Instead, these types of questions have been asked frequently on nationally representative surveys. For example, such questions are included in a nationally representative survey called the General Social Survey (GSS):

How often do you attend religious services?

· About how often do you pray?

To what extent do you consider yourself a religious person

Chapter 17

Reading and Writing Social Research

SOC 363

Research Methods

Chapter Outline
Reading Social Research
Using the Internet Wisely
Writing Social Research
The Ethics of Reading and Writing Social Research

Reading Social Research
Organizing a Review of the Literature
Determine keywords (a key concept or population)
E.g. Identify keywords if you were interested in criminal behavior among female college students.
E.g.: Identify keywords if you were interested in cohabitation among gay and lesbian couples.

Reading Social Research
Organizing a Review of the Literature
Conduct a search
Library of Congress
school library
online search engine
Snowball Search

Reading Social Research
Reading Journals versus Books
Reading a Journal Article
Read the Abstract – a summary of a research article. The abstract usually begins the article and states the purpose of the research, the methods used, and the major findings.
Skim the article, noting section headings and tables and graphs
Read the article in its entirety
Review the article

Reading Social Research
Reading Journals versus Books
Reading a Book
Research Monograph – a book-length research report, either published or unpublished.
Read the preface or introduction
Read the book in its entirety

Reading Social Research
Evaluating Research Reports
Theoretical Orientations
Research Design
Measurement
Sampling
Experiments
Survey Questions
Field Research
Content Analysis
Analyzing Existing Statistics
Comparative and Historical Research
Evaluation Research
Data Analysis
Reporting

Using the Internet Wisely
Some Useful Websites
General Social Survey
U.S. Bureau of the Census
USA Statistics in Brief
Statistical Resources on the Web, University of Michigan
Social Sciences Virtual Library
Yahoo Social Sciences
QUALPAGE: Resources for Qualitative Research
Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software, University of Surrey, England

Using the Internet Wisely
Evaluating the Quality of Internet Materials
Who/what is the author of the website?
Is the site advocating a particular point of view?
Does the website give accurate and complete references?
Are the data up-to-date?
Are the data official?
Is it a university research site?
Do the data seem consistent with data from other sites?

Using the Internet Wisely
Citing Internet Materials
Elements of a Proper Citation
URL – web address (uniform/universal resources locator)
Date and time when site was accessed
Author and title, if available
Publishing information, if available
Location in print form, if available

Writing Social Research
General Guidelines
Use proper grammar and spelling
Use a style guide (such as The Elements of Style)
Understand functions of scientific reporting
A report should communicate a body of specific data and ideas.
A report should contribute to the general body of scientific knowledge.
A report should stimulate and direct further inquiry

Writing Social Research
Some Basic Considerations
Audience
Form and Length of Report
Aim of Report
Organization of the Report
Purpose and Overview
Provide a brief statement of the purpose of the study and the main findings (in a journal article, this is the abstract)
Review of the Literature
Fit your research into the context of existing scientific knowledge

Writing Social Research
Organization of the Report
Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s words or thoughts as though they were your own, constituting intellectual theft.
Ground rules for avoiding plagiarism:
1. Do not use another writer’s exact words without using quotation marks and giving a complete citation.
2. Do not edit or paraphrase another’s words and present the revised version as your own.
3. Do not present another’s ideas as your own, even if you use totally different words to express those ideas.

Writing Social Research
Study Design and Execution
Include the population, the sampling frame, the sampling method, the sample size, the data collection method, the completion rate, and the methods of data processing and analysis.
Analysis and Interpretation
The presentation, manipulation and interpretation of data should be integrated together
Summary and Conclusions
Review significant findings in the context of the larger project and existing scientific research, review shortcomings and make suggesting for future research

Writing Social Research
Guidelines for Reporting Analyses
Provide maximum data without being cluttered
For quantitative data, presenting data such that the reader can re-compute them
Describe all aspects of quantitative analysis
Provide details
Integrate supporting materials
Draw explicit conclusions
Point out qualifications
Write clearly

Writing Social Research
Going Public
Presenting at state, regional, and national association meetings
Publication in scholarly journals
Peer-review process
The Ethics of Reading and Writing Social Research
A review of the literature should not be biased toward supporting a particular point of view.
Research ethics is a fundamental component of social science, not a nice afterthought.

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