Week 2 · Readings & resources

Week 2 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Sociology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 2 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 73–85 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more practice, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–21 min total)

① How does a question become a study? Methods and their jobs

Chapter 2, Section “Match the question to a method” · Session 1, Segment 1, “The research cycle and the four methods” · Remember: a survey buys breadth, an experiment buys cause, field research buys depth, and existing data buys reach.

Sociology & the Scientific Method: Crash Course Sociology #3 — CrashCourse — how sociologists turn a question into a testable hypothesis and why defining a variable precisely matters. This builds on Week 1's work with the sociological imagination and the three perspectives. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Sociology Research Methods: Crash Course Sociology #4 — CrashCourse — a quick tour of surveys, experiments, fieldwork, and existing data, with what each method is good for. Use it while working through the Week-2 module overview. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Field Research and Ethnography in Social Research — David Russell — a longer walk through what researchers do when they join a group in its own setting, and what that depth costs in time and reach. Stop here before culture and socialization; next week takes those up. (video, 12 min) (captions: automatic)
About the General Social Survey — General Social Survey — read the overview of a long-running national survey that sociologists reuse for their own questions, which is secondary data analysis in practice; the staff and board listings are optional. (reading, 5–8 min)

② Whom does a sample speak for? Random versus self-selected

Chapter 2, Section “Decide whom you can speak for: population and sample” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Population, sample, and sampling bias” · Remember: how a sample was chosen matters more than how big it is.

3.2.3 Non-probability sampling — Statistics Canada — read the part on volunteer sampling to see why people who choose to respond, like callers to a radio show, cannot stand in for a whole population. (reading, 8–10 min)
Methods 101: Random Sampling — Pew Research Center — a short look at how a survey team gives every member of a population a fair chance to be picked. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)

③ Pattern or cause? Correlation and the third variable

Chapter 2, Section “Earn the word cause: correlation versus causation” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Correlation, causation, and the third variable” · Remember: a correlation is a pattern, and only random assignment or a design built to find a cause earns the word cause.

Correlation and causation — Australian Bureau of Statistics — a short government page on why two things that move together need not cause each other, and what it takes to show a cause. (reading, 4–6 min)
Correlation vs Causation Explained: Why Patterns Can Mislead Us — Sprouts — an animated explainer on how a hidden third factor can make two unrelated things rise and fall together. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

④ How are the people studied protected? Consent and the history behind it

Chapter 2, Section “Protect the people you study: research ethics” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Research ethics” · Remember: consent comes first, privacy lasts through the write-up, and a review board approves the plan before it starts.

About The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee — U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the public-health agency's own account of the study, the missing consent, and the reforms that followed. (reading, 4–6 min)
Informed Consent for Research: What to Expect — U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — what a volunteer should be told before agreeing to join a study, and the questions worth asking. (video, 8 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

3.2.2 Probability sampling — Statistics Canada — read the opening and the simple random sampling part for how a random sample is drawn; the later designs, such as stratified and cluster sampling, go beyond this course. (reading, 5–8 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com