Tuesday February 3, 2009
Research Methods (cont’d)

IV. Specific Research Methodologies
A. Surveys
1. Definition
2. Types a. Face-to-face interview b. Questionnaire c. Telephone interview
3. Strengths a. Can assess attitudes b. Relatively inexpensive c. Document social change

4. Limitations a. “Recall” problems b. Social pressure in interview setting
5. Evaluating the quality of a survey a. Reliability b. Validity c. Quality of questions d. Quality of sample

B. Field Studies and Naturalistic
Observation
1. Definition
2. Types a. Participant observation b. Non-participant observation
3. Strengths a. “Real world” settings b. Can focus on subcultures c. Captures unique perceptions of actors
4. Weaknesses a. Not generalizable b. Subject to researcher’s interpretation c. May raise many ethical issues

Examples of urban ethnographers in sociology

1. Characteristics a. Experimenter manipulates independent variable b. At least two levels of independent variable c. Random assignment
2. Settings a. Laboratory b. Field experiment

Conceptual model of an experimental design
Randomly assigned to
“violent” video clip group
Randomly assigned to
“neutral” or control video clip group
+
Ref.
Number of shocks delivered to “learning partner” in experimental task

Effect of witnessing violence on children’s play (Bandura)
25
20
15
10
5
0
Live Video Cartoon Control

3. Strengths a. High internal validity
4. Weaknesses a. Unnatural setting b. Demand characteristics c. Experimenter effects d. Low external validity

A. Sources of harm
1. Physical harm a. EXAMPLE: Zimbardo prison study b. EXAMPLE: Venkatesh, “rogue sociologist”
2. Psychological harm a. EXAMPLE: Milgram obedience studies b. EXAMPLE: Iowa stuttering studies
3. Breach of confidentiality a. EXAMPLE: Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade study
B. Strategies to protect subjects
1. Informed consent
2. Debriefing

Physical and emotional harm
A scene from the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Slight though very strong shock (0-240 volts)
Intense shock
(255-300 volts)
Extreme intensity Shock
(315-360 volts)
Danger: severe shock
(375-420 volts)
“XXX”
(435-450 volts)
100%
88%
68%
65%
65%

What if you knew your research subject was planning a drive-by-shooting?