Researching Deviance: Methods and Ethics in Sociological Research, Lecture notes of Sociology

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Deviance and Social Control:Deviance and Social Control:

Researching Deviance Researching Deviance

Chapter 3 Chapter 3

Researching Deviance

A researcher needs numerous tools What sort of ethical issues need to be considered in relationship to human subjects research? Researchers must consider the approach and methods they will use to get their findings. 2

Ways to Study Deviance

Inderbitzin, Bates, and Gainey, Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological Perspective, 2nd edition © 2016 SAGE Publications Experimental Research – often times considered the “gold standard” for determining causal relationships Characteristics of Experimental Research Random Assignment Examining a causal relationship (cause  effect) Examples – lab experiments observing group interactions and comparing control groups 4

Adapting Experimental Research

Quasi-experimental designs: adaptation to experimental strategies Example: Surveying naturally occurring events and observations 5

Concerns about Survey Research

Issues and concerns encountered during survey research How do you determine the sample size Response rate and getting results Determining the population 7

Field Research

Field Research –takes place in the natural setting, outside the laboratory Type of field research: Participant observation research  observation can be either covert or overt Field research can be dangerous, emotionally and physically draining, time consuming and very hard work 8

Secondary Data Sources

Secondary data sources Data is already collected, readily available UCR, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin., Monitoring the Future Consensus data Pick your data source and analyze to answer your research question. 10

Ethics in Research

Research ethics have not always been set in place. Much has been learned from studies that lacked ethical treatment of participants. Research now requires:

• (^) Informed consent
• (^) Moral integrity Institutional Review Boards (IRB) 11