Agenda

2. Agenda • The Research Process • Questions • Theories • Concepts • Variables • Relationships and Hypotheses

3. Agenda (continued) • Statements • Data and Measures • Tests • Inferences • Revisions

4. Research in practice • Implicates individual researchers and research communities • Aims at following community standards • Publication • Documentation • Standardization • Replication • Adherence to ethical norms

5. Hypothesis Revision or Expansion of Hypothesis ... Research Design Definition of Test Inference Development of Measures Data Analysis Observation Data Collection

6. Social Research Questions Questions: Matters for inquiry • Identifying questions • Refining questions • Evaluating questions

7. Research Questions What is the effect of… • Children watching Sesame Street • Adolescents using the Internet • Adults viewing pornography

8. Social Research Foundations, Strategies & Ethics • Finding prior information • Reviewing prior research • Integrating literature review • The role of social theory • Ethical Research

9. Conceptualization Defining the variables and relationships implicated in theories and hypotheses • Conceptual explication • Empirical explication

10. Explicating concepts Abraham Kaplan (1963): “The meaning of a term is a family affair among its various senses.”

11. Explicating concepts (Seminar Exercise) Involvement

12. The paradox of conceptualization Abraham Kaplan (1963): “The proper concepts are needed to formulate a good theory, but we need a good theory to arrive at the proper concepts.”

13. Conceptualizing variables Watching Sesame Street increases interest in language learning among young boys • Watching Sesame Street • Interest in language learning • Young boys • Increases

14. Refining variables • Try to state the most general form of the concepts being used (generic or conceptual definition) • Try to identify particular uses of the concept (variance in usage) • Try to identify particular observations that indicate the concept (operational definition)

15. Key distinctions What is the nature of the difference being defined? (How does it vary?) • A difference of kind (nominal variable) • A difference of degree • Rank or order (ordinal variable) • Continuum (interval or ratio variable)

16. Hypotheses “Differences that make differences” General Form: This difference (independent variable) makes that difference (dependent variable) • What difference motivated Semmelweis? • What differences did he consider as sources?

17. Identifying variables • Students in Comm 522 who attend class regularly do better than those who do not • Independent variable? • Dependent variable? • Population?

18. Identifying variables • The portrayal of relationships among various social groups in the artifacts of mass culture stems from patterns of dominance and subservience among those groups in society • Independent variable? • Dependent variable? • Population?

19. Identifying relationships • Students in Comm 522 who attend class regularly do better than those who do not • How related? • Mechanism?

20. Identifying relationships • The portrayal of relationships among various social groups in the artifacts of mass culture stems from patterns of dominance and subservience among those groups in society • How related? • Mechanism?

21. Generating Hypotheses • Watching Sesame Street contributes to interest in learning • Heavy use of the Internet fosters social isolation • Repeated exposure to mild erotica leads people to seek out more extreme sexual content

22. Refining hypotheses • Interrogate concepts and processes • Try to state the most general form • Try to state particular observations that support or contradict hypothesis

23. Statements & Empirical Tests Statements: What should happen if a particular hypothesis is true? • A relationship implied by the hypothesis • A logical outcome of manipulation Tests: Do these things indeed happen as expected?

24. Theory Hypothesis Hypothesis Hypothesis Empirical Statement (Operational Hypothesis) Empirical Statement (Operational Hypothesis) Empirical (Operational Hypothesis)

25. Social Capital Theory H1: Personal interactions increase social capital H2: TV viewing reduces social capital H3: Organizational involvement increases social capital S1 Greater TV viewing reduces social capital (time displacement) S2 Greater TV viewing reduces social capitial (content) S3 Null Hypothesis Greater TV viewing is unrelated to social capital

26. “Good” empirical tests Examine statements that are… clearly implied by hypothesis of interest structured to rule out plausible alternative hypotheses

27. The Logic ofScientific Inference • Testable • Falsifiable, not Provable • Testing Competing Theories • Testing Competing Statements • Generalizability • Crucial Tests • Always Revising • A difference of degree • Rank or order (ordinal variable) • Continuum (interval or ratio variable)

28. Using the research • Read critically, with an eye toward your own research purposes • “Unpack” theoretical models • Explicate concepts and relationships • Use diagrams • Match models and methods and carefully

29. For Tuesday • Read handout: “Reading Theory Critically” • Read articles on selective exposure (course pack) • Apply 10-step procedure to one of the first three papers: Mills, Aronson & Robinson, 1957 Freedman, 1965 Sears & Freedman, 1967