Instructions:
How to turn it in: Type up your answers on a word doc or on google docs. Then go to crowdgrader and copy and paste your answers into the corresponding question spaces for homeworks #3, and, about a week later, for homework #4.
How to study: Please discuss the questions, ideas and answers in person, via google hangouts and online via a google doc class study guide.
The questions:
Quantitative Data Collection and Analysis
Many times people who analyze quantitative data are not the same people who collected it. The secondary analysis of survey data is very common, and results from the fact that good data is costly and difficult to collect, and, good research projects will allow for many questions to be asked with the same overall dataset.
1a. Use chapters 10, 11, 12 (from Neuman) to discuss some important attributes (include both advantages and challenges/disadvantages) of the secondary use of quantitative data to construct research projects.
1b. Illustrate your points using examples from at least two of Derek Kreager’s research papers discussed during weeks 9 and 10.
Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis
Qualitative data collection and analysis presents researchers with wonderful opportunities to do innovative research. Ethnographic field research in particular has proven to be one of the primary strategies that our MA students have used for their projects.
2a. Describe all of the most important attributes of a successful field research study and the things that you would do to make sure that a MA thesis that you might write would be of high quality. Be sure to reference Neuman chapters 13, 15 and work discussed in class or posted to Gooogle+.
2b. Illustrate attributes of successful ethnographic field research by referencing concrete examples (quote sections of text, and interpret them) found in any of the ethnographic dissertations we read or published ethnographic books.
2c. Describe the advantages and disadvantages to starting your research career with an ethnographic MA thesis.
Crash Course in Statistics for Sociological Research
Course materials
Review chapter 5 of Agresti and Finlay. Pay special attention to section 5.4.
3a. Suppose that you want to use survey methods in a thesis sized research project (choose any topic that interests you). Use the concepts discussed on pages 135 to 141 to explain what sample size you will aim for. Do not neglect the issues raised on page 141.
Crash Course in Statistics for Sociological Research
Review chapter 9 of Agresti and Finlay and take a look at this plot.
4a. Provide an accurate but non-technical explanation of what correlation and linear regression are and what they are used to estimate.
4b. Explain how the point in the upper right influences the estimates (in a general way) and explain the type of problem that outliers present for these types of quantitative analyses. Describe how two different strategies can be used to address this problem. One involves the sampling frame, and the other should involve the use of multiple regression. Explain your logic.
Crash Course in Statistics for Sociological Research
Review Chapter 10 from Agresti and Finlay. Understanding Chapter 10 is really important for making sense of the multiple regression analysis, like the analysis that you read in Kreager’s research.
5a. Identify and briefly describe the most important findings from the Kreager study that you reviewed.
5b. Now, use the discussion of association, causation, and statistical control to explain how Derek eliminated alternative explanations and demonstrated evidence of causal relationships. In other words, make explicit use of the general rules and ideas from chapter 10 to explain how Kreager analysed his results and therefore demonstrated his primary findings.
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