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Summary Academic Skills 2
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Summary of Academic Skills 2, Designing Social Research: A guide for the Bewildered by Ian Greener
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Academic Skills 2: Designing Social Research - (Video)Lectures Notes, ISBN: 9781849201902 (2020/2021)
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Academic Skills 2 - Summary 'Designing Social Research - A Guide for the Bewildered' , ISBN:9781849201902
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Academic Skills 2 samenvattingChapter 1
Primary data: Research based on the collecting of new data (experiment)
Secondary data: Research based on already existing data (reviewing research papers)
Quantitative: Research based on analyzing numbers (calculating averages, probabilities)
Qualitative: Research based on non-numeric data (made up of words, images)
Mixed-methods: Using both quantitative and qualitative research
Inductive research: Bottom up approach, try to work from data (usually primary) to build theory
(qualitative) Pure inductive research doesn’t exist, you can’t avoid using existing theory, since researchers
aren’t blank pages that don’t know anything
Deductive research: Testing theory through the use of (usually) quantitative data (mostly uses secondary
data)
Epistemology: Theory of knowledge, concerned with what knowledge is and what counts as good
knowledge Hypothetico-deductive
Method: Methods are the tools and techniques that are used in social research practice (e.g. interviews)
Methodology: Studying of methods to work out what we can usefully say about them and explores their
philosophy application and usage Idealist perspective
Ontology: the branch of philosophy that studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and
reality. It includes the questions of how entities are grouped into basic categories and which of these
entities exist on the most fundamental level (So not what we know, but what is, e.g. experiment) Realist
perspective
Alternative (directional) hypothesis: Suggests that there is a relationship between the variables under
question
Null hypothesis: Suggests that there is no relationship between the variables under question
“What” questions are usually quantitative, “How” questions are usually qualitative, “Why” questions can
be answered with both quantitative tools (surveys) and qualitative (open ended questions in surveys)
methods
Experiments: Method that involves putting forward a hypothesis and null hypothesis of what the
experiment is designed to test, involves 3 stages (1: working out what it is what you are going to test,
forming a hypothesis and null hypothesis, 2: Designing
the specific test of the hypotheses, 3: Carrying out the
experiment)
Chapter 3
, Differences between surveys and questionnaires:
Hypothetico-deductive perspective: an experimental method, testing existing theory, with the view that
social research is about testing hypotheses using deductive (quantitative) research methods
Realist perspective: Shares hypothetico-deductive view that the point of research is to find out about
the external world, but suggests that our ability to gain access to the world is limited by our perceptions
of it (mixed methods mostly)
Idealist perspective: Suggests that speculation about some kind of real world is largely pointless because
we can never gain access to it except through our own senses and ideas, so the point of social research
is to understand our subjectivities and interpretations of the world (qualitative mostly)
Reasons for open-ended questions: You wish to gather information about a topic where it is impractical
to give all of the possible options in the questionnaire (e.g. names). Secondly, to avoid imposing the
researcher’s ideas and concepts upon the respondent
Reasons for closed-ended questions: Reduce ambiguity and allowing greater precision in question-
asking. Secondly, can be answered quickly, so respondents are more likely to answer several of them
Leading questions: There are two categories of leading questions – questions that attempt to impose a
view upon the respondent and get them to agree or disagree, and questions that less obviously lead
respondents down a particular path of reasoning and so influence the answers that they give
Anchoring: Base your current answer on the answer you gave a few moments ago, happens especially in
closed-ended questionnaires about the same topic (tackle this by section breaks, introducing new topics,
checks to validate answers, mixing open- and closed-response questions)
Avoid asking two (or more) questions in one, e.g. ‘Do you agree that the government is doing enough to
raise awareness of environmental problems, and should refuse collection be better geared to aid
recycling?’ could be two questions
Rating scale: Strongly disagree-Strongly agree
Ask the most important questions first, put relatively straightforward questions towards the end
Filter questions: If you answered yes for question 1, skip to question 5
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