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Seven rules for social research /
'Seven Rules for Social Research' teaches social scientists how to get the most out of their technical skills and tools, providing a resource that fully describes the strategies and concepts no researcher or student of human behaviour can do without.
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Princeton :
Princeton University Press,
©2008.
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| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
Tabla de Contenidos:
- Chapter 1: The first rule. There should be the possibility of surprise in social research. Selecting a research question
- Researchable questions
- Interesting questions
- Selecting a sample
- Samples in qualitative studies
- Is meaningful social research possible?
- Summary
- Student exercises on Rule 1. Chapter 2: The second rule. Look for differences that make a difference, and report them. You can't explain a variable with a constant
- Maximizing variance to find the effect of a cause
- Size versus statistical significance
- Comparing effects where there is a common metric
- Calibration: converting explanatory variables to a common metric
- Substantive profiling: the use of telling comparisons
- Visual presentation of results
- Policy importance
- Importance for theory
- Conclusion
- Student exercises on Rule 2. Chapter 3: The third rule. Build reality checks into your research. Internal reality checks
- Reality checks on data-dubious values and incomplete data
- Reality checks on measures-aim for consistency in conceptualization and measurement
- Reality checks on models-the form equivalence check
- External reality checks: validation with other data and methods
- Using casual-process observations to test plausibility of results
- Using ethnographic data to help interpret survey results
- Other examples of multiple-method research
- Concluding remark
- Student exercises on Rule 3. Chapter 4: The fourth rule. Replicate where possible. Sources of uncertainty in social research
- Overview: from population to sample and back to population
- Measurement error as a source of uncertainty
- Illustration two methods for estimating global poverty
- Toward a solution: identical analyses of parallel data sets
- Meta-analysis: synthesizing results formally across studies
- Summary: Your confidence intervals are too narrow
- Student exercises on Rule 4. Chapter 5: The fifth rule. Compare like with like. Correlation and causality.
- Types of strategies for comparing like with like
- Matching versus looking for differences. The standard regression method for comparing like with like
- Critique of the standard linear regression strategy
- Comparing like with like through fixed-effects methods
- First-difference models: subtracting out the effects of confounding variables
- Special case: growth-rate models
- Sibling models
- Comparing like with like through matching on measured variables
- Exact matching
- Propensity-score method
- Matching as a preprocessing strategy for reducing model dependence
- Comparing like with like through naturally occurring random assignment
- Instrumental variables: matching through partial random assignment
- Matching through naturally occurring random assignment to the treatment group
- Comparison of strategies for comparing like with like
- Conclusion
- Student exercises on Rule 5. Chapter 6: The sixth rule. Use panel data to study individual change and repeated cross-section data to study social change. Analytic differences between panel and repeated cross-section data
- Three general questions about change
- Changing-effect models, Part 1: two points in time
- Changing effects models, Part 2: multilevel models with time as the context
- What we want to know
- The general multilevel model
- Convergence models
- The sign test for convergence
- Convergence model versus changing-effect model
- Bridging individual and social change: estimating cohort replacement effects
- An accounting scheme for social change
- Linear decomposition method
- Summary
- Student exercises on Rule 6. Chapter 7: The seventh rule. Let method be the servant, not the master. Obsession with regression
- Naturally occurring ramdom assignment, again
- Decomposition work in the social sciences
- Decomposition of variance and inequality
- Decomposition of segregation indexes
- The effects of social context
- Context effects as objects of study
- Context.
- effects as nuisance
- Critical tests in social research
- Conclusion
- Student exercises on Rule 7.