1. Research Methods in Sociology A great start to your great projects!

2. Who are we researching? Population= High school seniors Representative Sample : Just female high school seniors Random Sample : You can choose whoever you like

3. Two Different Types of Research Quantitative Data Research that deals with numerical data *Remember the “n” in quantitative stands for number. One Example: Surveys- people asked to answer a series of questions Qualitative Data Research that deals with narrative and descriptive details *Think qualities in qualitative such as green, male etc. One Example: Field research- research the takes place in its natural setting. Let’s Practice!

4. Quantitative / Surveys Questionnaire Written set of questions completed by participant Benefits: low cost, info on large amounts of people Negatives: researcher loses control, careless You will be creating a questionnaire for your research project! Interview Trained interviewer asks questions while recording the answers Benefits: accurate data Negatives: expensive, time consuming, respondent might lie Interviews are too time consuming for you!

5. Types of Questions Closed-ended Limited, predetermined responses Yes or No questions Numbers Give them choices Benefits: easy to categorizeNegatives: don’t include respondent’s opinionYou will include at least 8 of these on your questionnaire!

6. Types of Questions Open-ended Participant answers in his/her own words Describe your feelings on the senior privilege. Why do you believe… Benefits: can include opinionNegatives: hard to categorizeYou will include at least 2 of these on your questionnaire!

7. Qualitative / Field Research Case Study Investigation of a single group, incident or community Participant Observation Researcher becomes a member of the group being studied An anthropologist playing among native Tibetans. The Amish community is an example of a case study.

8. Secondary Analysis Data already collected by someone else previously. You will be conducting secondary analysis of your chosen topic – What does research already say about your social issue? What does this research lead you to believe is a viable hypothesis? In the end, how do your findings compare / contrast with your secondary analysis?

9. Data Overload: What to do! The Three M’s: Mean, Median and Mode Mean= average - add all the numbers, divide by the amount of numbers Median= middle - arrange in order from lowest to highest (when an even number, the median is the mean of the two middle numbers) Mode= number occurring most frequently Give it a try… 8 5 8 3 6 2 6 8 9 0 9 8 2

10. Answers? Mean = 5.36 Median = 6 Mode = 8 How did you do?