Soc710X Quantitative Methods

I've finished the grading and updated the gradebook. Course grades have been submitted.

Thank you for an enjoyable semester. You worked hard, and I appreciate it. I hope you feel it was worthwhile and has helped prepare you to be sociological researchers.

Stop by my office to get feedback on your survey reports.

Happy New Year!

The focus of your data analysis should be your research question. You do not need to do a variety of tests just for the sake of doing a variety of tests. Rather, I want you to use your data to try to answer your research question as thoroughly as possible. Generate as many tables as you need to answer your research question. (If you developed several hypotheses, do as much analysis as you need to investigate each of them.)

I will have office hours this week, W 4-8PM and TH 4-6:30PM, and next week, M 4-8PM and T 4-8PM.

Post your question, your variables, your statistical test, and if you can, your results as a comment to this page.

A brief outline for discussion:

• Social researchers must select observations that will allow them to generalize to people and events not observed. This involves sampling, a selection of people to observe.
• Sometimes you can and should select probability samples using precise statistical techniques, but other times nonprobability techniques are more appropriate.
  

A brief outline of some issues with survey construction.

• surveys can be synchronous (interviews) or asynchronous (questionnaires).
• surveys provide a method of collecting data by (1) asking people questions or (2) asking them to agree or disagree with statements representing different points of view (Likert answer set). Questions may be open-ended (respondents supply their own answers) or closed-ended (they select from a list of provided answers).
  

A brief outline for our discussion of measurement issues.

• Measurement theory specifies a probability model for measuring some specific sociological indicator. True score theory posits that every measurement may be thought of as a combination of the target property plus errors. There are two kinds of errors, random and nonrandom. The latter kind generate measurement bias.

Each group will be assigned a concept. Discuss your understanding of the concept and arrive at a consensus about its meaning. Write a one or two sentence description of the sociological meaning of the concept.

Next, identify three or four indicators of the concept. Try to cover what you consider all of the concept's main dimensions. Think of ways to measure the indicators. Discuss reliability and validity as they apply to your measures.

Post your response in the comments below. Remember to include everyone's name.

1. poverty
2. alienation
3. happiness
4. charisma
   

What are the characteristics of scholarly diction?

Diction refers to the kinds of words and expressions you choose to use in your communication. The choice is usually based on context, and we all have the ability to express what we mean using a different diction (colloquial, formal, intimate, etc.) depending on the situation and audience.

Each group will run a R script that produces two network graphs to compare. What can you say about the similarity and differences between the graphs? Use some of the quantitative indicators we've discussed (and detailed in K & Y 4) to illustrate these differences. Post your summary and the two graphs as a comment to this page. (Remember to click on the upload button for each graph.)

Just to remind us, here is a brief description of some of the network parameters.

degree centrality