Sociology research mehtods
Terms
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- population
- entire group of people to be studied
- sample
- relatively small number of people selected from the larger population
- random sample
- representative sample of the population
- systematic sampling
- process of drawing a random sample systematically rather than haphazardly
- stratified sampling
- the process of drawing a random sample in whihc various categories of people are represented in proportions equal to their presence in the population
- structured interview
- researcher asks standardized questions that require participants to choose from among several standardized answers
- unstructured interview
- open-ended questions are asked and respondents are allowed to answer freely in their own words
- detached observation
- we observe as outsiders from a distance without getting involved
- participant observation
- researchers take part in the activities of the group they are studying
- ethnography
- an analysis of people's lives from their own perspectives (researcher focuses more on what the subjects think than on what they do)
- secondary analysis
- researcher searches for new knowledge in the data collected earlier by another researcher
- content analysis
- searching for specific words or ideas and then turning them into numbers