FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE METHODS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH Advantages of Secondary Data a Cost b Time c Quality d Longitudinal analysis Data over time e Sub group analysis f Cross cultural analysis Merge county level data or regional level Cross tabulation Chi square Gamma Quantitative Data displays distribution of one variable within each category of another variable statistics used to test hypotheses about relationships between 2 or more variables the cut off point is 05 value that ranges from 1 to 1 the closer to 1 or 1 the stronger the relationship between two variables gamma of 0 indicates no relationship Qualitative Research Qualitative Methods 1 Participant Observation 2 Intensive Interviewing 3 Focus Groups Processes are a collection of actions that occur in interactions Becoming a college student Othering a person or group Controlling emotions Distinguishing Features of Qualitative Research 1 Begin with an exploratory research question about what people s thoughts and actions 2 Focus on previously unstudied phenomena 3 Has a social context interconnections with the social world rather than a discrete 4 Focus on human subjectivity meanings participants attach to events and that people in a social setting context give to their lives Field Research research in which natural social processes are studied as they happen and left relatively undisturbed Netnography Ethnography Using ethnographic methods to study online communities From an anthropological tradition who studied cultures tribes and communities Refers to participant observation by a single observer immersing in the group for a long period of time Types of Participant Observation 1 Complete Observation researcher a Researcher does not participate in group activities and is publicly defined as a b Researchers must take into account ways their presence alters social situations being observed Reactive effects 2 Complete Participation a Researcher is engaged in the activities of the group i Can be covert Different Roles that Help Observers 1 Gatekeeper a A person in the field setting who can grant researcher access to the setting a Insider who is willing and able to provide a field researcher with information and credibility within the group 2 Key Informant Snowball Sampling Respondents are selected as successive informants or interviewees identify them In depth interviews are good for 1 Giving Voice Interviewing a Help people understand the world of a particular group 2 Advance new theories or adding to existing theories a Involves reading between the lines of what people do and say Saturation point Focus Groups point at which subject selection ends because new interviews seem to yield little additional info Used by marketing researchers political consultants Led in group discussion researcher asks specific questions and guides the discussion Emphasis on discovering unanticipated findings and exploring hidden meanings Techniques used to search and code data that can be read heard and seen to explore Qualitative Data Analysis relationships among resulting categories 2 Approaches to Qualitative Data Analysis a Use text as a way to see what people really thought or felt about some topic or 1 Giving Voice situation 2 Hermeneutic a Viewing respondents interpretations as never totally true or false Used in qualitative research Not actually a theory rather an approach to generating theory from data Grounded Theory Narrative Analysis Conversational Analysis Coding reasoning Content Analysis Focuses on how respondents impose order on the flow of experience in their lives and so make sense of events and actions in which they have anticipated Focuses on the sequence and details of conversational interaction rather than on the stories A process of discovering patterns or themes in qualitative data through inductive Categorizing segments of data with a short name or phrase that simultaneously summarizes and accounts for each piece of data selects separates and sorts data to begin the analytic interpretation Involves at least two phases open and focused coding Set of methods for analyzing the symbolic content of any communication Recording units are the units of analysis for content analysis System of Enumeration for Content Analysis a Measuring how many column inches a certain issue takes up within a certain 1 Time space Measures period of time 2 Appearance 3 Frequency 4 Intensity b Measuring the number of hours a certain topic receives in the news a Measuring whether or not a category appears in a recording unit a The most common method of measuring content how many times a given category appears in the contextual unit a Used when attitudes and values are the object of research 1979 Belmont Established 3 Basic Ethical Principles a Treating persons as autonomous agents and protecting those with diminished 1 Respect for Persons autonomy 2 Beneficence 3 Justice a Minimizing possible harms and maximizing benefits a Distributing benefits and risks of research fairly Protecting Research Subjects 1 Avoid Harm 2 Obtain Informed Consent a Debriefing informing subjects after an experiment about the experiment s purpose and methods and evaluating subjects personal reactions to the experiment a Respondent must be competent to consent consent voluntarily and fully informed about the research and have comprehended what they have been told 3 Avoid Deception Except in Limited Circumstances 4 Maintain Privacy Confidentiality Past Experiments Violating Ethics a Participants were led to believe that they were shocking someone but they 1 Milgram s Obedience Experiment weren t 2 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment a Withheld medical treatment without respondents knowledge to study natural progression of the disease for over 30 years 3 Zimbardo Prison Experiment a Within 2 days prisoners started to be passive and guards became sadistic b The study was stopped after 6 days because prisoners started experiencing depression rage 4 Tearoom trade a 1970s study Humphrey studied men who engaged in homosexual acts in public park bathrooms b He wrote down the license plate tags on the men s cars and several months later showed up at their homes to interview them c The people he studied did not know they were being researched at the bathrooms nor did they know the real reason why they were selected for a home interview