Research Methods Textbook Definitions

• Inquiry


  Natural human activity - much of ordinary human inquiry seeks to explain events and predict future events
• Agree-upon knowledge

  2 important sources: tradition and authority
• These useful sources of knowledge can lead us astray
• When we direct experience

  1. Make observations

  2. Seek patterns of regularities in what we observe
• Science


  Seeks to protect against mistakes we make in day-to-day inquiry
• Social scientists


  Interested in explaining human aggregates - not individuals
• Theories


  Written in the language of variables
• Variable


  Logical set of attributes
• Attribute


  Characteristics such as male, female, non-binary
• Gender


  A variable made up of attributes
• Casual explanation


  The presumed cause is the independent variable, the affected variable is the dependent variable
• Idiographic explanations


  Seek to understand specific cases fully
• Nomothetic explanations


  Seek a generalized understanding of many cases
• Inductive theories


  Reason from specific observations to general patterns
• Deductive theories


  Start from general to predict specific observations
• Codes of ethics to guide researchers have increasingly been created by government agencies and professional associations
• TCPS


  Established by 3 major granting agencies as a joint policy concerning ethical standards for research involving humans
• REBs


  In institutions receiving research funding to review and approve studies involving human subjects before they may be conducted
• Anonymity


  Situation in which even the researcher cannot identify specific information with the individuals it describes
• Confidentiality


  Situation in which the researcher promises to keep information about subjects private
• Social researchers have ethical obligations to the community which include reporting results fully and accurately as well as disclosing errors, limitations and other shortcomings in the research
• Exploration


  The attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon
• Description


  The precise reporting and or measurement of the characteristics of some population or phenomenon under study
• Explanation


  The discovery and reporting of relationships among different aspects of the phenomenon under study
• Units of analysis


  The people or things whose characteristics social researchers observe, describe and explain
• Ecological fallacy


  Involves conclusions drawn from the analysis of the attributes of groups that are then assumed to apply to individuals
• Exception fallacy


  Occurs when conclusions are drawn about groups based on individual data
• Idiographic model


  Aims at a complete understanding of a particular phenomenon using all relevant causal factors
• Nomothetic model


  Aims at a general understanding not necessarily complete of a class of phenomena using a smaller number of relevant causal factors
• Criteria for establishing causation in nomothetic analyses

  • The variables must be empirically associated or correlated
  • The causal variable must occur earlier in time than the variable it is said to affect
  • The observation effect cannot be explained as the effect of a different variable
• Cross-sectional studies


  Based on observations made at one time
• Longitudinal studies


  Observations are made at many times
• Types of longitudinal studies

  • Trend studies; observations made of samples drawn from general populations
  • Cohort studies; samples drawn from more specific subpopulations
  • Panel studies; the same sample of people each time
• Concepts


  Mental images we use as summary devices for bringing together observations and experiences that seem to have something in common
• Conceptualization


  Mentally ignoring most attributes of a set of concrete objects or experiences and concentrating on a selected set of attributes
• The meaning of any concept is not intrinsic; it is assigned
• Conceptual definitions


  Provide the meaning of a concept by expressing its linkage to concrete experience
• Precise definitions are important in both descriptive and explanatory studies – the degree of precision needed varies with the type and purpose of a study
• Reliability


  Getting consistent results from the same measure
• Validity


  Getting results that accurately reflect the concept being measured