Methods of Social Research

Family Sociology

Methods of Social Research

Social Science Research

How do we know what we know?

Most of us understand the world around us through our personal experience -- the people and situations we have been in or have seen

This personal experience leads to your conclusions about the world

Social Science Research

While there is nothing wrong with these ways of knowing -- social scientists are skeptical about relying ONLY on these sources because:

An individual’s experience of those around them is not representative of the broader society

Sociological Theories

Marriage and Family Relationships

Social science theories explain or help us make sense of patterns in social life

Theories shape and direct research – they point us in a direction

That direction influences what we look for, what we find, and how we explain it

Social Science Research

How do we know what we know?Social scientists use a systematic and more

scientific mode of investigationSocial scientists rely on:

Observations of the social world based on representative samples

Example: If we wanted to study why people in the U.S. get married, we should not just survey college students

We avoid the error of overgeneralization: i.e. using what we know about a small group of people to conclude something about all people

Theory > Method

Once we have a theory to oriented our research…

We choose an appropriate METHOD of research

A research method: How will we collect the data for our study?

What data might we use and how would we collect it?

Most Frequently used Methods of Social Research

Demographic Studies

Survey Research

Participant Observation (Field Observation)

Social Experiments

Demographic Studies

Demography is a subfield of sociology that is concerned with how social conditions are distributed in the human population and how these populations are changing.

Core interests are trends in: Fertility Mortality Migration Marriage and divorce

How are demographic data collected?

Most data are collected at the state level and compiled by the National Center of Health Statistics (NCHS)

NCHS is a department of the Center for Disease control (CDC) in Atlanta GE

Demographic Studies

Examples of Demographic Studies in Fertility

What is the fertility rate by race/ethnicity in the US?

How has it changed over the past ten years? Go to the National Center for Health

Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/

nvsr55_01.pdf

Fertility Rate

Fertility rate is the number of women age 15 - 44 who gave birth per 1000 women

For example the rate for Non-Hispanic Black women is 89 births per 1000

Survey Research

Collect information from a subgroup of people, known as a sample

Samples are chosen to represent the larger population from which they are selected.

Data is collected through in-person or phone interviews, or by questionnaires sent through the mail or though the internet (web-based)

Example of a U.S. Survey:Pew Research Center

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/301/are-we-happy-yet

Field Research

Used to understand processes among people by directly observing them as the behaviors take place

Researcher participates directly in the social life of individuals of groups in question

Participant Observation

Complete Observation:

Arlie Hochschild observed the division of household labor by visiting wives and husbands in their homes

Observation takes place in the real worldResearcher attempts to fade into the

background

Participant Observation

Complete Participation: Researcher tries to become a part of the group they are studying

Howard Becker hung around with Jazz musicians to understand how people learned to smoke pot - but he WAS also a Jazz musician

Field Research

Intensive interviewing Questions are open ended Designed to be very in depth, with a small sample Provide rich description of personal experience

Focus Groups Designed to obtain information from a small group of

people Encourage open discussions of topics Used by market researchers and political pollsters

Social Experiments

Marriage and Family Relationships

Family Studies and Sociology do not use a lot of these but

In a social experiment you randomly assign subjects to a control group and a treatment group

Recent study on the effect of TV on childrenChildren were randomly assigned to 1) Watch Sponge Bob Square Pants2) Watch PBS Children show Sprout3) Or drawWhat differences do you think they found for 3

groups?

Ethics in Social Research

Today, before you can even begin a research project – you must go through an extensive process to receive an okay to move forward

Researchers must prove that the individuals (subjects/respondents) who take part in a study will not be mentally or physically injured by theory participation

Much of the ethical review process came out of the Millgram experiements

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=274wQJmdRQg

Summary

When doing research on families, we always have to think of an answerable question?

Then we decide do we want to study the family at the micro or macro level?

Then we choose a theory to guide our research project.

Next we decide what method will we use to collect data?

How many people will be in our study? We apply the scientific method to the study of

families and relationships