Reading Primary Research: Sociology Research Lesson 4B

HW:  For HW all you have to do is have an article ready to read (you don't actually have to read it yet)

In Lesson 3 we examined the general ways that Venkatesh attempted to do research.  

Click here to open the Google Form for this lesson.

1.  Do you remember the 2 general ways that Venkatesh mentioned sociologists gather data?  

2.  Can you differentiate between those two general ways?  What is the difference between each?

Open the document from last unit called A Framework for Understanding the Sociological Perspective (available here if you need a new one).  Find this graphic organizer (on the reverse side from the pyramid):

Now, let's add other types of general research.

General Types of Sociological Research

• Longitudinal - a study that examines subjects over an extended period time.  For example, a researcher might interview kids at age 5, then at age 15 and then again at 25.  Some research is conducted over the course of decades by different researchers.
• Cross-sectional - a study that examines a group of people at a single point in time.  For example, like taking a section of cake that has different layers, a researcher might take a sample of people from a group like SHS.  The research might examine 10 students from each grade to get an understanding of the school as a whole. 
• Cross-cultural - a study that compares subjects from two or more cultures.
• Qualitative or Quantitative - qualitative is subjective and descriptive; it examines the qualities about a subject.  Quantitative is objective and involves examining numbers or statistics.

3.  How can Venkatesh's research be considered longitudinal?

4.  How can it be considered cross-sectional? 

5.  Any questions about the general types of research?

Now let's examine the specific ways that sociologists gather their research.  For more info,  Open Stax sociology textbook explains the methods in this chapter.

Methods of sociological research

These are some of the more common methods of research that you will come across in sociology:

Qualitative:

Survey - interviews that are open-ended 

Field work/ethnography - observing subjects by living with them, watching them and taking notes 

Historical analysis - examing changes over time in comparison to present day. 
Content Analysis - examining the content of media or other cultural productions

 Quantitative: 

Survey - questionnaires that are close-ended such as multiple choice or likert scale.

Experiment/Audit study - comparing the responses of two or more different reactions.
Statistical analysis - existing sources (data sets, such as GSS or Census data)

Apply the methods to the Venkatesh article

6.  Which of the methods above does Venkatesh use in the excerpt from Gang Leader? Explain when/how.  (Arguably he does 5 of them!)

7.  What article did you find?  Please list the citation info (author, article title, journal title, date).