Poll in which researchers gather facts

That way, they illuminate social patterns that are often unrecognized. Because information gathered during participant observation is mostly qualitative, rather than quantitative, the end results are often descriptive or interpretive.

The researcher might present findings in an article or book and describe what he or she witnessed and experienced. This type of research is what journalist Barbara Ehrenreich conducted for her book Nickel and Dimed. One day over lunch with her editor, as the story goes, Ehrenreich mentioned an idea. How can people exist on minimum-wage work?

How do low-income workers get by? Someone should do a study. For several months, she left her comfortable home and lived and worked among people who lacked, for the most part, higher education and marketable job skills. Undercover, she applied for and worked minimum wage jobs as a waitress, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a retail chain employee. During her participant observation, she used only her income from those jobs to pay for food, clothing, transportation, and shelter.

She also experienced and observed attitudes many middle and upper-class people never think about. She witnessed firsthand the treatment of working class employees. She saw the extreme measures people take to make ends meet and to survive. She described fellow employees who held two or three jobs, worked seven days a week, lived in cars, could not pay to treat chronic health conditions, got randomly fired, submitted to drug tests, and moved in and out of homeless shelters.

She brought aspects of that life to light, describing difficult working conditions and the poor treatment that low-wage workers suffer. Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America , the book she wrote upon her return to her real life as a well-paid writer, has been widely read and used in many college classrooms.

Field research happens in real locations. What type of environment do work spaces foster? What would a sociologist discover after blending in? Ethnography is the extended observation of the social perspective and cultural values of an entire social setting.

Ethnographies involve objective observation of an entire community. The heart of an ethnographic study focuses on how subjects view their own social standing and how they understand themselves in relation to a community.

An ethnographic study might observe, for example, a small U. These places all have borders. People live, work, study, or vacation within those borders.

People are there for a certain reason and therefore behave in certain ways and respect certain cultural norms. An ethnographer would commit to spending a determined amount of time studying every aspect of the chosen place, taking in as much as possible. A sociologist studying a tribe in the Amazon might watch the way villagers go about their daily lives and then write a paper about it. To observe a spiritual retreat center, an ethnographer might sign up for a retreat and attend as a guest for an extended stay, observe and record data, and collate the material into results.

Institutional ethnography is an extension of basic ethnographic research principles that focuses intentionally on everyday concrete social relationships. Developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Historically, social science research tended to objectify women and ignore their experiences except as viewed from the male perspective.

Modern feminists note that describing women, and other marginalized groups, as subordinates helps those in authority maintain their own dominant positions Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, n.

In , a young married couple named Robert and Helen Lynd undertook an unprecedented ethnography: to apply sociological methods to the study of one U. Choosing Muncie, Indiana population about 30, , as their subject, they moved to the small town and lived there for eighteen months. Ethnographers had been examining other cultures for decades—groups considered minority or outsider—like gangs, immigrants, and the poor.

But no one had studied the so-called average American. Recording interviews and using surveys to gather data, the Lynds did not sugarcoat or idealize U. They objectively stated what they observed. Researching existing sources, they compared Muncie in to the Muncie they observed in Most Muncie adults, they found, had grown up on farms but now lived in homes inside the city.

From that discovery, the Lynds focused their study on the impact of industrialization and urbanization. They observed that Muncie was divided into business class and working class groups. They defined business class as dealing with abstract concepts and symbols, while working class people used tools to create concrete objects.

The two classes led different lives with different goals and hopes. However, the Lynds observed, mass production offered both classes the same amenities. Like wealthy families, the working class was now able to own radios, cars, washing machines, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators.

This was an emerging material new reality of the s. When the study was completed, the Lynds encountered a big problem. The Rockefeller Foundation, which had commissioned the book, claimed it was useless and refused to publish it.

The Lynds asked if they could seek a publisher themselves. Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture was not only published in but also became an instant bestseller, a status unheard of for a sociological study.

The book sold out six printings in its first year of publication, and has never gone out of print PBS. Nothing like it had ever been done before. Middletown was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times.

Readers in the s and s identified with the citizens of Muncie, Indiana, but they were equally fascinated by the sociological methods and the use of scientific data to define ordinary people in the United States. The book was proof that social data was important—and interesting—to the U. Sometimes a researcher wants to study one specific person or event. A case study is an in-depth analysis of a single event, situation, or individual. To conduct a case study, a researcher examines existing sources like documents and archival records, conducts interviews, engages in direct observation and even participant observation, if possible.

Researchers might use this method to study a single case of, for example, a foster child, drug lord, cancer patient, criminal, or rape victim. However, a major criticism of the case study as a method is that a developed study of a single case, while offering depth on a topic, does not provide enough evidence to form a generalized conclusion.

In other words, it is difficult to make universal claims based on just one person, since one person does not verify a pattern.

This is why most sociologists do not use case studies as a primary research method. However, case studies are useful when the single case is unique.

In these instances, a single case study can add tremendous knowledge to a certain discipline. These children mimic the behaviors and movements of animals, and often invent their own language. As you may imagine, a feral child is a subject of great interest to researchers. And since there are very few feral children, the case study is the most appropriate method for researchers to use in studying the subject.

At age three, a Ukranian girl named Oxana Malaya suffered severe parental neglect. She lived in a shed with dogs, and she ate raw meat and scraps. Five years later, a neighbor called authorities and reported seeing a girl who ran on all fours, barking. Officials brought Oxana into society, where she was cared for and taught some human behaviors, but she never became fully socialized.

She has been designated as unable to support herself and now lives in a mental institution Grice Case studies like this offer a way for sociologists to collect data that may not be collectable by any other method. If this, then that.

When you test the theory, your results either prove or disprove your hypothesis. One way researchers test social theories is by conducting an experiment , meaning they investigate relationships to test a hypothesis—a scientific approach. There are two main types of experiments: lab-based experiments and natural or field experiments. In a lab setting, the research can be controlled so that perhaps more data can be recorded in a certain amount of time.

In a natural or field-based experiment, the generation of data cannot be controlled but the information might be considered more accurate since it was collected without interference or intervention by the researcher. As a research method, either type of sociological experiment is useful for testing if-then statements: if a particular thing happens, then another particular thing will result. To set up a lab-based experiment, sociologists create artificial situations that allow them to manipulate variables.

Classically, the sociologist selects a set of people with similar characteristics, such as age, class, race, or education.

Those people are divided into two groups. One is the experimental group and the other is the control group. The experimental group is exposed to the independent variable s and the control group is not. To test the benefits of tutoring, for example, the sociologist might expose the experimental group of students to tutoring but not the control group.

Then both groups would be tested for differences in performance to see if tutoring had an effect on the experimental group of students. As you can imagine, in a case like this, the researcher would not want to jeopardize the accomplishments of either group of students, so the setting would be somewhat artificial. The test would not be for a grade reflected on their permanent record, for example. Sociologist Frances Heussenstamm conducted an experiment to explore the correlation between traffic stops and race-based bumper stickers.

This issue of racial profiling remains a hot-button topic today. A real-life example will help illustrate the experiment process. In , Frances Heussenstamm, a sociology professor at California State University at Los Angeles, had a theory about police prejudice.

To test her theory she conducted an experiment. She chose fifteen students from three ethnic backgrounds: black, white, and Hispanic. Those were her independent variables—students, good driving records, same commute route. Next, she placed a Black Panther bumper sticker on each car. That sticker, a representation of a social value, was the independent variable. In the s, the Black Panthers were a revolutionary group actively fighting racism. Heussenstamm asked the students to follow their normal driving patterns.

She wanted to see whether seeming support of the Black Panthers would change how these good drivers were treated by the police patrolling the highways. The first arrest, for an incorrect lane change, was made two hours after the experiment began. One participant was pulled over three times in three days.

He quit the study. After seventeen days, the fifteen drivers had collected a total of thirty-three traffic citations. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. A survey is a data collection tool used to gather information about individuals. Surveys are commonly used in psychology research to collect self-report data from study participants.

A survey may focus on factual information about individuals, or it might aim to obtain the opinions of the survey takers. So why do psychologists opt to use surveys so often in psychology research? They offer researchers a way to collect a great deal of information in a relatively quick and easy way. A large number of responses can be obtained quite quickly, which allows scientists to work with a lot of data.

A survey can be used to investigate the characteristics, behaviors, or opinions of a group of people. These research tools can be used to ask questions about demographic information about characteristics such as sex, religion, ethnicity, and income.

They can also collect information on experiences, opinions, and even hypothetical scenarios. For example, researchers might present people with a possible scenario and then ask them how they might respond in that situation. How do researchers go about collecting information using surveys? A survey can be administered in a couple of different ways. In one method known as a structured interview, the researcher asks each participant with the questions. In the other method known as a questionnaire, the participant fills out the survey on his or her own.

You have probably taken many different surveys in the past, although the questionnaire method tends to be the most common. Surveys are generally standardized to ensure that they have reliability and validity.

Standardization is also important so that the results can be generalized to the larger population. One of the big benefits of using surveys in psychological research is that they allow researchers to gather a large quantity of data relatively quickly and cheaply. A survey can be administered as a structured interview or as a self-report measure, and data can be collected in person, over the phone, or on a computer. One potential problem with written surveys is the nonresponse bias.

Experts suggest that return rates of 85 percent or higher are considered excellent, but anything below 60 percent might have a severe impact on the representativeness of the sample. Surveys can be implemented in a number of different ways. The chances are good that you have participated in a number of different market research surveys in the past.

Some of the most common ways to administer surveys include:. Ever wonder what your personality type means? This section describes the methods of field research, including direct observation, participant observation, and qualitative interviews. Data Collection This page describes key components and considerations involved in collecting data through surveys and questionnaires, administrative data, and field research. Search all resources in the Research Connections Library. Search Resources.