Social Science - Social Research Methods - Lecture Slides, Slides of Sociology

Download Social Science - Social Research Methods - Lecture Slides and more Slides Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Social Science 1. Knowledge. Sources of knowledge. 2. Science 3. Scientific Method Docsity.com Science and Knowledge • How much do we know? • How do we know what we know? • Scientific knowledge vs common sense Docsity.com How do we know what we know? • If you study hard you will get “A” • Females live longer than males • We know all these things because somebody told them to us and we believed what we were told Docsity.com Sources of Knowledge • Tradition • Authority • Common Sense • Media Myths • Personal Experience • Science Docsity.com Tradition • Women have done the laundry for centuries, so it is a continuation of what has happened for a long time Docsity.com Media Myths • Television commercials show women often doing laundry and enjoying it, so they do laundry because they think it is fun Docsity.com Authority • We trust in the judgment of the person who has special training, expertise, and credentials • Movie actors evaluate the performance of automobiles Docsity.com Authority • Popular athletes discuss the nutritional value of breakfast cereal Docsity.com Example • Party with excellent food (one meal is especially zesty) • Your direct experience provided you with this knowledge • You were told that “you have been eating breaded, deep-fried worms” • Your response is dramatic: your stomach rebels, and you throw up all over the living room rug Docsity.com Point of the story • Both your feelings about the meal are real • Initial liking was your own experience • Feeling of disgust was strictly a product of the agreement with those around you that worms aren’t fit to eat • What is wrong with worms? • “How do you know whether worms are really good or really bad to eat?” Docsity.com Agreement • Cultural tendency to agree • “Group thinking” Docsity.com Solomon Asch’s experiment (1951) • Students gave their answers aloud • Only one student in each group was a real subject • All the others have been instructed to give incorrect answers on 12 of the 18 trials • The real subject was the next-to-the-last person in each group to announce his answer so that he would hear most of the confederates incorrect responses before giving his own • Would he go along with the crowd? Docsity.com Findings • 37 of the 50 subjects conformed to the majority at least once • 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the 12 trials • Asch was disturbed by these results: "The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black" Docsity.com Why did the subjects conform so readily? • Interviewed after the experiment • Most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar." • A few of them said that they really did believe the group's answers were correct. Docsity.com Scientific Method • The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments Docsity.com Elements of Scientific Method • Reliance on the senses (empiricism is a core element) • A priori statement of hypothesis • Replicability (repetition of experiments or studies utilizing the same methodology) • Communicability of results • Institutionalized skepticism • Potential to falsify any hypothesis Docsity.com Is sociology science? • Sociology studies people • Human beings are qualitatively different from the objects of study in the natural sciences (rocks, stars, chemical compounds, etc) • Humans think and learn, have an awareness of themselves and their past • These unique human characteristics are the reason for the debate how sociology should look like Docsity.com People react to the same situations differently • Because of who they are, because of what they bring to the situation (past experience, genetic endowment, expectations, preferences, and even mood) • Ask 10 people what they think of a particular restaurant/movie/class • All this makes researchers’ life more difficult Docsity.com Newton's law of gravitation • Determines the strength of the gravitational force between physical objects like galaxies, stars and planets, clouds of dust or light rays • The gravitational force between two bodies of mass m and M is described by Newton's law: F=G mM/R*2 G is Newton’s constant of gravitation G = 6.673 x 10**(-11) m3 /kg s2 Docsity.com Law in social sciences? F = G Height*Weight/GPA+Q Where G=Constant Q= number of friends Docsity.com Ask a Question: • The scientific method starts when you ask a question about something that you observe: How, What, When, Who, Which, Why, or Where? • And, in order for the scientific method to answer the question it must be about something that you can measure with a number Docsity.com How do you develop a usable research question? • Choose an appropriate topic or issue for your research, one that actually can be researched • List all of the questions that you'd like answered yourself • Choose the best question, one that is neither too broad or too narrow Docsity.com Choose the best research question 1) What is the 1994 rate of juvenile delinquency in the U.S.? 2) What can we do to reduce juvenile delinquency in the U.S.? 3) Does education play a role in reducing juvenile delinquents' return to crime? Docsity.com Hypothesis • The hypothesis gives the experimenters a point to aim at • But no matter how reasonable the hypothesis seems, it cannot be accepted until supported by a large number of tests • The research worker must be open-minded enough to change or drop a hypothesis if the evidence does not support it. Docsity.com Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment • Your experiment tests whether your hypothesis is true or false • It is important for your experiment to be a fair test • You conduct a fair test by making sure that you change only one factor at a time while keeping all other conditions the same • You should also repeat your experiments several times to make sure that the first results weren't just an accident. Docsity.com Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion • Once your experiment is complete, you collect your measurements and analyze them to see if your hypothesis is true or false • Scientists often find that their hypothesis was false, and in such cases they will construct a new hypothesis starting the entire process of the scientific method over again • Even if they find that their hypothesis was true, they may want to test it again in a new way. Docsity.com Is this theory falsifiable? • There are no little green men on the moon Docsity.com Examples 1. These green men are designed so that no one can ever see them: not falsifiable theory 2. On the other hand, the theory that there are no little green men on the moon is falsifiable (or ) scientific: you can disprove it by catching one Docsity.com Statement that we cannot falsify • A hypothesis may propose that males who robe banks are motivated by an unconscious impulse to resolve their guilt over their childhood sexual attraction toward their mothers Docsity.com