week 1
what is social research?
"the use of systematic methods—the scientific method—to investigate the social world"
how does a research question vary from other types of questions?
can be answered through empirical study and data, specific enough, not opinions based
what are ethics?
moral principles governing people's behavior
conceptualization -> defining abstract ideas
operationalization -> determining how to measure abstract ideas
what is the difference between a sample and a population?
population is the entire group, sample is the portion of the population being studied
what is the difference between validity and reliability?
reliability is the consistency of a measure, validity is the accuracy of a measure
what kind of research is a hypothesis used for?
deductive research
describe the tuskegee experiment and why it was unethical
exploited and harmed low-income African American men because it failed to provide them with available medical care
no informed consent -> they thought they were being treated
give an example of a closed-ended and open-ended question?
closed-ended -> rate x out of 10
open-ended -> why do you prefer x over y?
what is a representative sample?
accurate representation of the larger population
what is the difference between an observing error and generalizing error? (confirmation bias vs. over generalization)
confirmation bias is only paying attention to what confirms what you already believe, over generalization is assuming what you observe applies to all subjects
give an example of an experiment and identify the independent and dependent variable.
independent -> what is manipulated/what is the cause
dependent -> what is the effect
how was deception used in stanley milgram's experiment?
participants were unaware that the harm they thought they were inflicting wasn't real, they thought they severely injured/killed the person on the other side
what is triangulation?
utilizing two or more measures of the same variable
what are the two types of generalizability?
sample generalizability -> do results represent larger population
cross-population generalizability -> do results represent other populations as well?
how can we avoid observing, generalizing, reasoning, and reevaluating errors?
using a systematic scientific method for our research!
what is generalizability?
can these results be applied to a broader population?
why was the stanford prison experiment ended after 6 days?
for the safety of the participants, psychological mostly
what are the four levels of measurement? give an example of each
What is your favorite sport? → nominal
What is your highest level of education → ordinal
What year were you born? → interval
What is your income? → ratio
what are the four main probability sampling techniques?
Simple random → choosing from an entire population at random
Systematic → choosing every 10th from a class roster
Stratified → random sampling from different groups within a population
Cluster → choosing random “clusters” to sample from (choosing 5 Californian high schools)
what are the four types of social research? give an example for each
Descriptive: defining and describing social phenomena
Exploratory: used to explore “new” social phenomena → about figuring out what questions to ask, what hypotheses to test → “what is going on here?”
Explanatory: identifying the causes and effects of social phenomena, predict change in phenomena
Evaluation: identifying the effects of programs, policies, etc to assess their effectiveness/consequences
what is the difference between inductive and deductive research?
Inductive: data → empirical generalizations → theory
Deductive: theory → hypothesis → data
what are the five ethical standards concerning the treatment of human subjects?
Research should cause no harm to subjects
Participation should be voluntary
Researchers should avoid deception
what are the four ways of assessing measurement validity?
Face validation → does the measure appear to be appropriate?
Content validation → does the measure cover the range of the concept’s meaning?
Criterion validation → does the measure hold up to an already validated measure?
Construct validation → does the measure hold up to validated theory?
what are the four common non probability sampling methods?
Quota →meeting quotas for specific groups for the sample (10 women, 10 men), but uses convenience sampling, not random sampling
Availability →selecting participants based on convenience, closeness
Purposive →selecting participants based on their knowledge/identity
Snowball → chain-referral technique