Foundations Key Words Beginnings Theoretical 09 06 2011 o More abstract what you think might be the reason for phenomena o Social research is theoretical meaning that much of it is concerned with developing exploring or testing the theories or ideas that social researchers have about how the world o What is actually there and able to test o Social research is also based on observations and measurements of reality on what we perceive of the world operates Empirical around us Nomothetic o Laws or rules pertaining to a general case o Contrasted with the term idiographic which refers to laws or rules that relate to individuals o In any event the point here is that most social research is concerned with the nomothetic the general case rather than the individual We often study individuals but usually we are interested in generalizing to more than just the individual o Based on probabilities always a gray area that may not be Probabilistic right Key Words Types of Studies Causal o When a study is designed to determine whether one or more variables e g a program or treatment variable causes or affects one or more outcome variables If we did a public opinion poll to try to determine whether a recent political advertising campaign changed voter preferences we would essentially be studying whether the campaign cause changed the proportion of voters who would vote Democratic or Republican effect o Most social research is interested at some point in looking at cause effect relationships This doesn t mean that most studies actually study cause effect relationships There are some studies that simply observe for instance surveys that seek to describe the percent of people holding a particular opinion And there are many studies that explore relationships for example studies that attempt to see whether there is a relationship between gender and salary o If we want to change the world especially if we want to do this in an organized scientific way we are automatically interested in causal relationships ones that tell us how our causes e g programs treatments affect the outcomes of interest o Most demanding between Descriptive and Relational o Purpose If one variable causes something else o Look for words like leads to caused by outcomes predicts Descriptive o When a study is designed primarily to describe what is going on or what exists Public opinion polls that seek only to describe the proportion of people who hold various opinions are primarily descriptive in nature For instance if we want to know what percent of the population would vote for a Democratic or a Republican in the next presidential election we are simply interested in describing something o Purpose surveys interviews to put out information about a particular topic such as an opinion poll in the newspaper or television like who is satisfied with the economy o When a study is designed to look at the relationships between two or more variables A public opinion poll that compares what proportion of males and females say they would vote for a Democratic or a Republican candidate in the next presidential election is essentially studying the relationship between gender and voting preference o Example Risky behavior Facebook study Relational Cross sectional o Takes place at a single point in time In effect we are taking a slice or cross section of whatever it is we re observing or measuring o A bunch of kids in different ages Longitudinal o Takes place over time we have at least two and often more waves of measurement in a longitudinal design o Following same group of kids at different ages Types of Studies A survey assessing the attitudes students have towards housing on campus Descriptive because it is asking for percentages on the attitudes A study determines whether a specific preschool curriculum leads to good outcomes in kindergarten Causal leads to shows it could be causal A study wishes to determine whether there is a relationship between children s number of friends and empathy correlational relational A study considers development of empathy in 5 7 and 9 year olds by interviewing children in the three age groups cross sectional A study considers the development of empathy 5 7 and 9 year olds at different ages over time Longitudinal Key Words Variables Variable o Any entity that can take on different values OK so what does that mean Anything that can vary can be considered a variable For instance age can be considered a variable because age can take different values for different people or for the same person at different times Similarly country can be considered a variable because a person s country can be assigned a value o Something that can change Correlational relationship o A correlational relationship simply says that two things perform in a synchronized manner For instance there has often been talk of a relationship between ability in math and proficiency in music In general people who are good in one may have a greater tendency to be good in the other those who are poor in one may also tend to be poor in the other If this relationship is true then we can say that the two variables are correlated But knowing that two variables are correlated does not tell us whether one causes the other Causal relationship Third problem variable Attribute o A third variable could be causing both other variables o A specific value on a variable For instance the variable sex or gender has two attributes male and female Or the variable agreement might be defined as having five attributes o 1 strongly disagree o 2 disagree o 3 neutral o 4 agree o 5 strongly agree Independent Dependent o the independent variable is what you or nature manipulates a treatment or program or cause o dependent variable is what is affected by the independent variable your effects or outcomes For example if you are studying the effects of a new educational program on student achievement the program is the independent variable and your measures of achievement are the dependent ones Exhaustive o Should include all possible answerable responses For instance if the variable is religion and the only options are Protestant Jewish and Muslim there are quite a few religions I can think of that haven t been included The list does not exhaust all possibilities On the other hand if you exhaust all the possibilities with some variables religion being one of them you would simply have too many responses The way to deal with this is to explicitly list the most common attributes