Introducing Social Research Methods E-Book

Janet M. Ruane

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 686

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Introducing Social Research Methods: Essentials for Getting the Edge is a concise and student-friendly introduction to research methods that uses examples from around the world to illustrate the centrality of social science research in our everyday lives.

• Explains complex, multi-faceted concepts and methodologies in straightforward prose
• Designed for students who are new to or skeptical of social science research methods as useful tools for approaching real-world challenges
• Persuasively argues that social scientific proficiency unlocks an array of personal and professional opportunities beyond the realms of academia
• A supplementary website features a glossary, test bank, Power Point presentations, a comprehensive list of web resources, a guide to relevant TED lectures and much more

Leseprobe

About the Website

The companion website for Introducing Social Research Methods: Essentials for Getting the Edge includes a number of resources created by the author that you will find helpful.

Please go to:

www.wiley.com\go\ruane\researchmethods

For students:

An annotated list of TED talks on topics covered in the text

Links to further resources available on the web

For instructors:

A test bank with chapter-by-chapter multiple choice questions

Introducing Social Research Methods

Essentials for Getting the Edge

Janet M. Ruane

This edition first published 2016 © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ruane, Janet M. Introducing social research methods : essentials for getting the edge / Janet M. Ruane. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-118-87425-7 (cloth) — ISBN 978-1-118-87424-0 (pbk.) 1. Social sciences--Methodology. I. Title. H61.R72 2016 300.72'1—dc23 2015023643

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: © Pete Turner / Getty Images

Contents

About the Website

Chapter 1: How Do We Know What We Know? Science as a Superior Way of Knowing

The Competition: Non-Scientific Ways of Knowing

Time-Based Knowing – Traditional Knowledge

Credential-Based Knowing – Authoritative Knowledge

More Risky Knowledge Sources – Common Sense and Intuition

More Reasonable and Tangible Ways of Knowing: Rationalism and Empiricism

Science – Providing an Accuracy Edge

Using Research Methods to Become Critical Consumers of Information

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 2: The Language of Science and Research: Learning to Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk

Units of Analysis

Variables

Data

Correlations

The Causal Relationship

Styles of Research

Goals of Research

Some Perfectly Valid Points

Talking the Talk

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 3: Ethics: It’s the Right Thing To Do

Putting Ethics in Historical Context

Research Should Not Cause Harm to Subjects

Researchers Should Obtain the Informed Consent of Subjects

Researchers Should Respect Subjects’ Privacy

Researchers Should Avoid Conflicts of Interest

Reinforcing the Ethical Route: Institutional Review Boards

Ethical Fusion

Sharpening the Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 4: Designing Ideas: What Do We Want to Know and How Can We Get There?

The Research Plan

The Placement of Theory in the Research Process

The Levels of Theory Guiding or Resulting from Research

What’s the Question? Causal vs. Non-Causal Questions

Timing is Everything

Cross-Sectional Research Designs

Longitudinal Research Designs

Questions About the Process

And Still More Planning

Conclusions

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 5: Measure by Measure: Developing Measures – Making the Abstract Concrete

Concepts and The Research Process

Bringing Theory Down to Earth

Conceptualization

Operationalization

Some Key Guidelines for the Operationalization Process

Levels of Measurement

Operational Definitions

Good Operational Definitions Aid Replication

Conclusion

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 6: All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Assessing the Validity and Reliability of Measures

Measurement Validity

Reliability Checks

Testing for Reliability

Noise and Bias

Measuring Up and Out

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 7: One Thing Leads to Another … or Does it? Tackling Causal Analysis

Causal Models – Nomothetic and Idiographic

Nomothetic Approach: Causal Requirements

Causal Analysis and Research Design

Experimental Design and Internal Validity

Limits of the Experimental Design

Causal Analysis via Non-experimental Survey Research

Causality and Field Research

Conclusions

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 8: The Questionnaire: Would You Mind Taking the Time to Answer a Few Questions?

The Way We Word

The Rules

The Structure of Questions: Closed and Open-Ended Questions

Putting It Together

Pre-Testing

Return to Sender: The Special Challenge of the Mailed Questionnaire

Delivering Questions Electronically

Ask and You Shall Receive

Sharpening the Edge: More Readings and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 9: Having the Talk: Person to Person Information Exchange

Conversational Exchange

Developing an Unstructured Guide

The Interview Schedule

Covering Sensitive Topics

Phone Home

The More the Merrier – Focus Groups

Training Issues

Tools of the Trade

The Final Word

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 10: Field Research: Welcome to My World

Location, Location, Location … and More

Levels of Involvement

Field Research Tasks

Informal Interviews

Notes

Files

The Ethics of Fieldwork

Sampling Issues in Field Research

The Validity of Field Research

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 11: Sample This! How Can So Few Tell Us About So Many?

Obstacles to Representative Samples

A Representative Sample – Take A Chance

Non-Probability Techniques

Estimating Sampling Error

Just a Sampling of the Issues

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Exercises

Notes

References

Chapter 12: Show Me the Numbers: Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics

How Did We Get to This Point?

Getting Organized

Summarizing Descriptions

It Takes Two to Tango … and to Correlate

Picture This

Graphing 101

SPSS

Moving Beyond Description: The Logic of Inferential Statistics

The Normal Curve

Repeat After Me

The Sampling Distribution

Putting it Together

SE – The Standard Error

Z Values

A Concrete Example

Bringing it Home

Sharpening The Edge: More Reading and Searching

Inferential Statistics

Exercises

References

Chapter 13: Pulling it Together: A Final Synthesis

Providing Background For and Justifying the Research Project

Sharing the Specifics of our Project Planning

Sharing the Specifics and Results of Analysis

Offer a Discussion of the Significance of our Findings

Offer Some Concluding Remarks/Observations

Seeing the Big Picture

Glossary

Index

EULA

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1.1

Chapter 2

Table 2.1

Table 2.2

Table 2.3

Table 2.4

Chapter 5

Table 5.1

Table 5.2

Chapter 7

Table 7.1

Chapter 12

Table 12.1

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1

The “face on Mars” and a “smiling” Mazda 3. Source: (1.1a) NASA/JPL; (1.1b) By S 400 HYBRID (Self-photographed) [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1

Involvement in new craze and boredom level

Figure 2.2

Inductive and Deductive Styles: It all Turns on the Placement of Theory

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1

Theory’s Place in Research

Figure 4.2

The Fixed-Sample Panel Design

Figure 4.3

Strengthening Your Research Vision: Trend Design

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1

“Visualizing” Content Validity

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1

Two Approaches to Studying Causality

Figure 7.2a

Strengthening Your Research Vision: The Case of the Spurious Relationship Spurious relationship exists because both A and B are

each

connected to the same “lurking” background variable C.

Figure 7.2b

Strengthening Your Research Vision: Testing for a Spurious Relationship Controlling the “C” Variable

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1

The Butterfly Ballot of 2000.

Source:

Anthony at en.wikipedia (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1

Levels of Field Involvement

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1

Ungrouped Scores

Figure 12.2

Frequency Distribution, Grouped Scores

Figure 12.3

Basic Line Graph

Figure 12.4

Bar Chart, Marital Status of Class of Students

Figure 12.5

Histogram of Methods Grade from Figure 12.1

Figure 12.6

(a) Histogram of Student Ages (b) Polygon of Student Ages

Figure 12.7

Pictures of Variation

Figure 12.8

Scatterplot of a Perfect (Hypothetical)* Correlation

Figure 12.9

Less than Perfect Correlations

Figure 12.10

Area Under the Normal Curve – Set Proportions

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

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Chapter 1How Do We Know What We Know? Science as a Superior Way of Knowing

FIRST TAKES

Be sure to take note of the following:

Scientific vs. Non-Scientific Knowledge

Competing

non-scientific

ways of knowing

Tradition

Authority

Common sense

Intuition

Rationalism

Strict empiricism

Science – a superior (less error prone) way of knowing

A distinctive way of knowing

- The defining traits of science

How do we know what we know? This is both a rather simple but also a rather complex philosophical question. Those who seek the path of least resistance are often willing to forgo the consideration of this question altogether. But in order to achieve a deeper appreciation of science and its distinctive edge in the production of knowledge, we need to take a moment and ponder this basic question. We need to explicitly acknowledge the common tendency of many to rely on competing non-scientific ways of knowing. These non-scientific ways of knowing are well established “go to” practices for many of us that help us cope with the dynamic nature of the social world and the flood of information we all must process every day.

To be sure, we live in an information-dominated world. Every day, like it or not, we are bombarded by facts, figures, news items, opinions, tweets, and blogs; we are connected to countless information sources about our local community, our society and our world. On any given day, Yahoo will present us with 100 or so “headlines” prompting us to click for more information. Many now go to bed with their electronic devices tucked under their pillows so as not to miss the latest tweets or news flashes. (Indeed sleep specialists worry that dependency on smartphones is creating vamps – i.e. youth who forgo sleep and stay connected all night long.) Those same devices travel with us throughout our days so we can stay connected 24/7. If you are old-fashioned enough to get your news from a TV screen, you nonetheless understand it is not your “father’s” news broadcast. As any one story is being aired, texts of other headlines are continuously scrolling across the bottom of the screen. If you rely on the Internet for your daily news, you will experience countless links that can quickly bring you more in-depth or totally different information.

In recent years, our information age has taken an alluring, perhaps compelling, “personal” turn. To a large extent, the personal computer and the Internet allow us (even encourage us) to customize the information that comes our way. Web browsers allow us to set up personal weather forecasts, stock quote pages, or alerts for news items of special interest. We can arrange for daily emails about our favorite sports teams, current topics and celebrities. And as we all know, today’s “search” on the Internet will deliver unsolicited ads and feeds courtesy of sites watching our every move or click.

Given all the ways of knowing that are available to us, and given our growing ability to get exactly the information that we want via cellphones and computers, students of research methods may wonder why we need to learn the methodical and labor-intensive procedures of science and research methods? Isn’t all the information we need readily at our fingertips? Given the wealth of information available on the Internet, can’t we be satisfied to just sit and click?

Perhaps a recent Internet banner ad for the New York Times offers the best answer to the question: “What’s the point of an information age without the right information?” Information is only useful if it is accurate. And if there is one hallmark of science, it is its penchant for accuracy.

The incredible amount of information that confronts us (and the relative ease of accessing it) makes us all the more vulnerable to misinformation. Indeed, Internet inaccuracies are so common there are several webpages devoted to detecting and debunking falsehoods and myths: Consider four “claims” that recently circulated on the Internet: