HOW SOCIOLOGISTS CONDUCT RESEARCH ***Before you begin reading, I just want you let to know that all

of this is not from my own experience/research. Everything here is basically a thorough summary of what I learned from a packet my dual enrollment sociology teacher handed out to my classmates and me. If you want to know more about sociology, buy the Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach textbook by sociologist James M. Henslin, published by Pearson Education, Inc.*** Alright, before we begin, let us first get some simple terminology out of the way. Well learn some more terms along the way also, but these are just some simple terms that do not require any examples or further information to truly understand. Population: the whole group, which you are going to study Sample: a part of the population, which you select to do specific studies Operational Definition: the way in which a researcher measures a variable, or, simply put, the definition of a variable after it has gone through certain types of tests, or something of the sort Now, lets move along to the more difficult terms and methods that sociologists use when conducting research. Random Sample: a sample, in which everyone from your population has an equal chance of being included in the study. How this is done is everyone in your population is assigned a number, then, through the use of a computer or some other method/device, you select the sample group that is randomly generated by your computer or other method/device Stratified Random Sample: A random sample created from select subgroups of your population. For example, lets say that you want to study the differing views of love from married college students. So, your population would be college students who are married. Your sample would be a portion of this population. Your random sample would be your sample created from randomly selecting a certain amount of samples from your population. Your stratified random sample would be your random sample created from a certain subgroup such as the freshman and sophomore class, or the junior and senior class. Maybe even simply the junior class or maybe even simply the freshman class. Biased answers are useless; therefore, you want to create questions that are, in essence, neutral. That way, instead of pushing to the respondents what you want them to say, you will give leeway for them to input their own opinions, giving objective answers, rather than the unneeded subjective.

There are two ways for a researcher to administer questionnaires. 1. Filling out questions. An example of this can be a survey. a) However, there is a problem to this. Although it is a low-cost method, and it allows researchers to gain opinions from a vast amount of samples, the researchers do not know under which conditions these questions were answered. For example, some samples could have answered the questions based on what their friends influenced them to say. Others could have, instead of answering it themselves, gotten other people to answer for them. This way, the researchers lose control of the data collection 2. Interview. These can be done face-to-face or through the phone/e-mail. a) The problem with this is that it is very time-consuming. Because it is timeconsuming, the researchers will not be able to get as much feedback as the filling out questions method. However, this method gives a more accurate answer. b) However, this method can create interview bias, that is, the presence of the interviewer and affect what people might say. For example, instead of saying answers they really feel, they might give out socially acceptable answers. Some respondents shape their answers on the way they think the interviewers would want to hear There are two types of interviews: structured and unstructured. 1. Structured interviews are interviews conducted with closed-ended questions, or questions that are followed by a list of answers. Pretty much like a multiplechoice answer question on the SAT. Except, this is an interview, therefore, unlike the SATs, structured interviews can have questions that follow the criteria circle one or circle all that apply. 2. Unstructured interviews are interviews conducted with open-ended questions, which allows a researcher to fully tap into the full range of peoples opinions. The bad thing about this type of interview is that it can be very ambiguous. For example, if you ask the question why do you think men abuse their wives, what can a researcher do if he or she receives answers like, theyre sick. I think they must have had problems with their mother. We oughta string em up! We have talked a lot about interviews and how we can get answers out of our population; however, whenever it comes to sensitive topics such as spouse abuse, will our respondents truly give us honest-to-good answers? Like seriously. Think about it. Wouldnt a researcher receive more accurate and truthful answers if he or she were to establish some sort of trustful bond with his or her subjects? This trustful bond between the researcher and those being researched is called rapport (rah-POUR).

In order to gather data on sensitive topics (just incase a full rapport has not been established), researchers will use what is called Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing, which is pretty much like interviewing face-to-face, except the researcher will hand the subject a laptop, where he or she can answer questions there, while the researcher waits. In some versions of this method, the subject will listen to questions via head/earphones and answer them on the computer. Another research method that researchers use is called participant observation (or fieldwork). In this method of research, the researcher actually participates in the research in a research setting, while observing and gathering data on what is happening. By observing people as they naturally live their lives, participant observation can provide answers to many different types of questions. However, participant researchers meet with two walls: 1. Generalizability, which is the extent to which the findings from one setting apply to other groups. a) Participant observation may give researchers the power to obtain information on subjects, which can be applied in other settings, there is no evidence that the information garnered from participant observation can apply to ANY setting, meaning, we do not know exactly how far the findings can apply beyond the original setting. 2. The extent to which participant observers should get involved in the lives of the people they are observing. We do not know how far they should get involved because, frankly, the setting in which the subjects are being studied may very well had an adverse effect on the researcher him/herself, as seen in Sudhir Venkateshs research on gangs. A particularly unique in-depth analysis that researchers use in their research is something called a case study, which is a intensive analysis on just one person, event, or situation. For example, sociologist Ken Levi wanted to conduct a research on hit men, and he would have loved to have enough connections to conduct interviews on many hit men. Unfortunately, however, he only had connection to one hit man. As such, he interviewed this hit man over and over again, conducing intensive analysis on this one subject. This gave us a good look on how someone can kill others for the sake of money. In the case of spouse abuse, a researcher would focus on a single husband and wife and constantly ask them questions and delve into their history and relationship. The question, how much of this information can apply to other groups, always pops up, causing case study to be another form of study weakened by generalizability. Another research method is secondary analysis, and, as the name implies, it is an analysis of data that have been collected by other researchers. This method was created because sometimes, although researchers want to conduct their own research, researchers fall low on budget or lack on resources. So, you can think of secondary analysis to be a sort of Plan B for researchers. However, this type of research, like many others, hits a wall, and this is due to this question, how can a researcher who did not carry out the

study him/herself be so sure that the research conducted by another researcher be so accurate? Another method of research is to study documents, or, recorded sources. Now, when I say documents, I mean something very broad. Documents can consist of written records such as newspapers, books, and diaries, but they can also consist of videos and audio recordings. Just know that the word documents simply does not refer to written documents, but other types of sources that can shed some light on whatever a researcher is studying. However, even studying documents meets with a wall. Some documents may be very confidential, meaning, a researcher may not be allowed access to certain types of documents; therefore, when it comes to studying documents, one can only do so if he or she receives permission. Experimentation is a very important tool used by researchers. An experiment is the comparison of a control and experimental group through the use of independent and dependent variables. The experimental group is the group of subjects in an experiment who are exposed to the independent variable. The control group is the group of subjects that are not exposed to the independent variable. The independent variable is something that causes a change in a variable. A dependent variable is the variable that is being changed. For example, lets say that you are given the permission to conduct an experiment on a group of men who have been arrested for spouse abuse. You still split the group of men into two groups, the experimental and control group. Then, lets say that you perform some sort of therapy to the men in the experimental group. In this case, the independent variable would be the therapy. The dependent variable would be the mindset of the men. Of course, this is only if the mindset of the men change due to the therapy. If the mindset does not undergo change, then it is not a dependent variable. However, this method would create a sloppy operational definition because the therapy could have completely changed the men, caused some of the men to be re-arrested (meaning, the therapy did not work as well as it was expected to), or all of the men could have been re-arrested (meaning the therapy totally backfired). Simply put, when it comes to this situation, where a researcher uses therapeutic methods, it would be best to, ideally, test out different types of therapy and choose the ones that work best. Some researchers use unobtrusive measures, or ways of observing people so they do not know when they are being studied. Unobtrusive measures are basically going so far as to collect data from subjects while acting like a ninja (in the shadows). For example, when studying spouse abuse, researchers can basically analyze 911 calls. They can also analyze data from Internet forums. However, ethics becomes a big issue when it comes to unobtrusive measures. Secretly recording the behaviors of people in public settings is considered unethical, but recording the behaviors of people in public settings is not. Unobtrusive measures are sort of considered unethical in research, but well get more into the ethics later on.

When choosing all of these methods, sociologists are met with four factors that affect their decisions. 1. Access to resources. Researchers might want to use surveys, but if they are low on money, they might want to resort to using documents. But even then, they will meet walls. It all depends on what a researcher is able to use. 2. Access to subjects. If people life far away, doing face-to-face interviews becomes difficult. Or, they might conduct a survey via e-mail or phone call. They might even have to result in mailing survey forms. 3. Purpose of the research. Each method has its own edge depending on what a researcher decides to study. For example, participant observation is good for recording peoples attitudes, as opposed to experimentation, which is good for recording cause and effect. 4. The researchers background or training. Is the sociologist good enough at this method to utilize it? What about this one? Or how about that? Choosing a method depends on where the sociologists field of expertise lies. Maybe its quantitative research methods. Maybe its qualitative. Again, it all depends on what they specialize in. Sometimes, sociologists end up becoming really unlucky with their research. This is because some researches become controversial, and this is not just this type of research or that. This controversy applies to great range of research. For example, counting the homeless. This is a great example because it is so basic a research that one would normally think that it is okay to research the homeless based on count. However, controversy still rises in research types even as basic as this one. This happened to sociologist Peter Rossi and his associates. The situation involved a fight between those who were for the homeless and the federal officials. The ones who were for the homeless stated that there were at least 3~7 million homeless American, whereas the officials said that were only about 250,000. This huge gap instantly tells us what one thought of the other. The ones who were for the homeless accused the federal officials of not giving out the truth behind the numbers to keep the public from knowing exactly how bad the situation was. The federal officials accused those who were for the homeless for intending to place pressure on Congress. The answer to this problem was as clear as day: find out how many people are homeless. Peter Rossi and the National Opinion Research Center decided to take on the job. It was an immense job. The population was huge, and obtaining the right sample (meaning a sample of people who are actually homeless), finding a good operational definition, and creating consistency so that others can us the information for further research in the future. Furthermore, if the researchers were to gather the wrong sample from the population, then the study would not be reliable. Projecting the findings of this research to the US would yield a national total of about 350,000 homeless people. However, even after knowing this, people still bashed on the federal government and the researchers as well for assuming that the researchers were taking the side of the federal government. Therefore, the controversy still exists today,

with homeless advocates still insisting that there are over 2 million homeless people in America. To boys, do you have a friend who is a girl? To girls, do you have a friend who is a boy? Do you guys argue on something simply because you two do not agree? Just like how gender plays a role in boys and girls arguments, so does sociological research. Even in research, sociologists meet with gender bias, and, therefore, gender can become a significant impediment in research. For example, in spouse abuse, will men be able to do participant observation of the women they abuse? Well, technically, yeah. BUT will they be able to emulate the same victimization their wives have gone through? Probably not. Because of this, women might be better suited for the research. This is caused by gender bias. Alright, now that weve got all these sociological methodologies down, and all the down that go along with them, let us now delve into the world of ethics in sociology! Research ethics require honesty, truth, and openness (meaning freely sharing your findings with the scientific community). Some unethical things a researcher can do in his or her research are: 1. Falsification of results 2. Plagiarism 3. Not informing people that they are being studied 4. Doing harm to people in research 5. Not protecting the anonymity of research subjects 6. Revealing intimate, embarrassing, personal information 7. Although debatable, misrepresenting oneself as a researcher If there is anything you HAVE to know about sociologists, it is that they consider research ethics something to be of very serious concern, especially when it comes to their research subjects (i.e. respondents). For example, let us consider the research that was conducted by Mario Brajuha. Mario Brajuha conducted a participant observation at a restaurant, that is, until the restaurant burned down due to a fire of suspicious origin. Later on, the detectives found out that he had some field notes on him and demanded that he present them. Brajuha refused to hand them over because he promised that the information would stay confidential. Eventually, his field notes became subpoenaed, or became required to be presented to a court of law. Even then, he still refused. He even refused when he was threatened to go to jail for not following orders. Eventually, after two years, the perpetrators died, and the threats to Brajuha and his family finally came to a close. This event shows us just how much sociologists respect and care for their respondents. In order for research to work it needs theory, and vice-versa. Every theory must be tested, which requires research, and every research needs an explanation for findings, which requires theory. As C. Wright Mills once argued:

Research without theory is simply a collection of unrelated facts. But theory without research is abstract and empty it cant represent the way life really is. Although we can list various idealistic situations in research, under real-life conditions, sociologists must settle for something below the ideal. This is what sociologists Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla had to do. Scully and Marolla wanted to conduct research on the topic are rapists sick? This was mainly because they despised the fact that people assumed that rapists are psychologically disturbed or mentally different from other men without any valid proof. Therefore, they decided to conduct the research, despite the fact that they had so little available sources to use. Luckily for them, however, they were able to have the opportunity to interview 3,500 convicted rapists in seven prisons in Virginia. It took about 600 hours to gather all the info and make sure they were valid, but, in the end, the two sociologists found out that the convicted rapists raped not due to being overcome by sexual pleasure but rather due to legitimate reasons. These reasons include wanting to punish women, get even with people, and do it for recreation. Another specific reason was that the rapist felt that raping a woman would give him power; he no longer had to be worried about pleasuring the other party. All he had to do was act the way he wanted during sex when raping a woman. This was yet another discovery that led us to the fact that we need research because common sense (in this condition it would be that rapist men rape women because they have a strong sexual urge or because they are sick) can be wrong. Im going to give the last bit to Dr. Henslin for taking the time to input his experiences onto paper for the world to see. Sociology needs more of this type of research imaginative and sometimes daring investigations conducted under less than ideal conditions. This is really what sociology is all about. Sociologists live to study what people do - whether their behaviors are conforming or deviant, whether they please others or disgust them. No matter what behavior is studied, these research methods and the application of social theory take us beyond common sense. They allow us to penetrate surface realities so we can better understand human behavior - and, in the ideal case, make changes to help improve social life. (Henslin 84)