Week 2 — Sociological Research Methods

Why this matters

A neighborhood group deciding whether a new program helped and a small-business owner reading a customer poll both need to know how the evidence was gathered, whom it speaks for, and whether it shows a cause.

In plain language

Sociologists make claims about whole groups of people, so they need fair ways to check those claims. This week you learn the main ways they gather evidence, from asking thousands of people the same questions to living inside one small group for months. You also learn when a pattern earns the word "cause." A correlation (two things that tend to change together) is a clue about a cause, but it is not proof of one. Finally, you learn the rules that protect the people who agree to be studied.

• Already covered: Week 1, The Sociological Imagination & Doing Sociology, taught you to connect personal troubles to public issues, to run one event through three perspectives, and to ask four questions of any statistic.
• This week: how sociologists gather evidence, what each method can and cannot claim, and the ethics rules that protect the people they study.
• How they connect: Week 1 said sociology tests its claims against evidence instead of trusting common sense; this week shows how that testing works.
• Where we're going next: Week 3, Culture, studies the shared values, norms, and symbols of a group, and you will read every claim about culture with this week's methods in hand.

Focus

How do sociologists know what they claim about groups, and when does a number earn the word cause?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] name a study's variables and match a question to a method
• [ ] tell reliability from validity and a population from a sample
• [ ] separate a correlation from a cause and name a third variable
• [ ] read a survey figure four ways and name the ethics rules

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 2 (about 40 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
3. Do the Sociology in Action Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: read the 91% smartphone figure four ways and report its change from 2011 in percentage points.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor early if you get stuck.

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