3.1: The Research Process

Problem Recognition and Definition

Researchers start with a question such as "What do I want to know?"; "What is important for society to know?"; or "Why does this occur?" Unfortunately some questions cannot be answered, such as "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Even though many would like to know the answer to this question, it cannot be empirically observed; that is we cannot perceive it through one of our fives senses (empirical means we are able to perceive it through one of the five senses of sight, taste, touch, hearing, or smell). After a researcher decides on what question she wants to answer she must state her goals and objectives. Does she want to determine if religious service attendance causes couples to have happier marriages? Or does she want to describe the characteristics of happy marriages. The first one is a causal study (what causes what) and the second is a descriptive study. The next step is to conduct a literature review to establish what is already known about the topic. Why reinvent the wheel? If someone has already done research on the characteristics of happy marriages, why do you need to do that? But maybe the person before you only studied certain characteristics and you have thought of more that might be important. Much research in sociology builds on existing research. The research question is usually stated as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is the researcher's educated belief about what she will find, such as "Those marriages that possess the most characteristics of happy marriages will be the happiest."

Creating the Research Design

There are many different types of studies that can be conducted. The most common type in sociology is survey research. But there are also interviews, observation, action research, polls, and experiments, as well as others. One determinant of the research design is whether the researcher wants to describe some social phenomenon or determine if one phenomenon causes another phenomenon. Descriptive studies answer the questions of who, what, where, and when. Causal studies are undertaken to determine how one variable affects another, how and why. Back to our marital happiness study, do we want to describe the characteristics of a happy marriage? Or do we want to determine if the presence of many of the characteristics causes a happier marriage? In other words, how does presence of characteristics influence happiness?

Sampling

Sometimes the entire population-the group you are interested in researching-can be studied. Often it is too large to study everyone. Think of a survey of all the students at College of the Canyons; that's over 20,000 people. Do we really need to survey all of them? Can we realistically survey all of them? If we choose our sample-subset of the population- carefully it will reflect the characteristics of the population and the way the sample answers the questions will be representative of everyone in the population.

Sampling methods are classified as either probability or nonprobability. In probability samples, each member of the population has a known chance of being selected. Probability methods include random sampling, systematic sampling, and stratified sampling. In nonprobability sampling, members are selected from the population in some nonrandom manner. These include convenience sampling, judgment sampling, quota sampling, and snowball sampling. You will learn about all of these sampling methods in your research methods class. We will discuss only random and convenience sampling here.

In random sampling each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. You need a list of everyone in your population to obtain a random sample. The easiest way to draw a random sample is to assign a number to each person in the population and then use a table of random numbers (you'll learn about this in your research methods class) to select the subset (sample). Convenience sampling is used when you don't have a list of everyone in your population so you choose participants because they are convenient to you.

Data Collection and Analysis

The next step is to collect your data by administering your survey, interviewing your subjects, or making observations. If you collect quantitative data-data that is, or can be converted to, numbers-you can enter it into a computer program, typically SPSS (you'll use this in your statistics class). If you collect qualitative data-data that can't be converted to numbers; data that is about the quality of somethingyou look for themes in the results.

Reporting the Results

The reason we do research is to expand the knowledge base and in order to do that we need to report our results. This is typically done via journals and conferences. Journal articles typically contain several sections: abstract, statement of the problem, methods used, results, discussion of the results, and references.

The analysis is the process through which large and complicated collections of scientific data are organized so that comparisons can be made and conclusions drawn. The study must show validity-the study must actually test what you intended to test. If you want to say one even is the cause of another, you will need to rule out other possibilities or explanations to show that your research is valid. For example if you want to prove that marijuana use leads to heroine use, you have to prove that there are no other contributing factors such as peer pressure or emotional or mental dysfunctions. The study must also demonstrate reliability-the ability to repeat findings of a research study. To demonstrate reliability we must demonstrate that the research process can be replicated with similar results.