Chapter 1: Introduction to Social Science Research

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Populations and Samples a. A population includes every member of a category, such as all adults in the United States or every student in a school. i. Populations do not have to be large, just inclusive. ii. Any value (e.g., mean, standard deviation, etc.) that is generated from or applied to a population is called a parameter. b. A sample is a subset of a population. or e!ample, if I "ant to #no" the average "eight of students in a school, and I "eight some of the students, but not all, the students that I "eighed are my sample. i. Any value that is generated from sample data is called a statistic.

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Inferential and $escriptive Statistics a. Statistics that are calculated "ith sample data for the purpose of reaching some conclusion about the population the sample is supposed to represent are called inferential statistics. b. %hen the researcher simply "ants to describe the characteristics of a sample or a population, such as the mean, but does not "ant to use these statistics to ma#e inferences about the population, these are called descriptive statistics.

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Sampling &ethods a. 'andom sampling( )very member of the population has an e*ual chance of being selected for the sample. b. 'epresentative sampling( +he researcher purposely selects that sample so that it represents the population on one or more important characteristics. c. ,onvenience sampling( +he researcher selects the sample out of convenience "ithout regard to ho" "ell the sample represents the population. d. +he "ay a sample is selected influences ho" "ell the sample represents the population, and "hether the results found in the sample "ill generalize to the larger population.

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-ariables a. Any construct that has more than one value can be a variable. b. +here are different types of variables.

i. ,ategorical (sometimes called *ualitative)( A variable "ith independent categories, such as gender or grade level. ii. .rdinal( A variable for "hich the numbers are meaningful, but the intervals bet"een the numbers are not e*ual, such as the place of finishing in a race. iii. Interval/ratio( A variable for "hich the numbers are meaningful and the intervals bet"een the numbers are e*ual, such as "eights on a scale, hours, inches, etc. c. +here is also a distinction bet"een independent and dependent variables. i. $ependent( +he values of this variable are presumed to depend on the values of another variable. ii. Independent( +he values of the dependent variable are presumed to depend on the value of the independent variable. 0. e.g., )nergy level (dependent variable) can depend on ho" much sugar one eats (independent variable).

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'esearch designs a. +here are different types of research that employ different research designs. b. )!perimental( +he researcher manipulates an independent variable to determine "hether it influences the dependent variable. c. 1uasi2e!perimental( +he researcher manipulates an independent variable to determine "hether it influences the dependent variable, but in a naturally occurring situation rather than a controlled laboratory setting. d. ,orrelational( +he researcher does not manipulate independent variables but measures t"o or more variables to see ho" they are associated "ith each other. e. .bservational/naturalistic( +he researcher observe phenomenon as they occur in a natural setting (e.g., a school, a business, a forest) and records the observations.

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3raphs a. $ata are often represented pictorially, in graphs. b. +he purpose of the graph is to summari4e the information about a distribution in a manner that is clear and easy to comprehend. c. +here are several "ays to graphically represent data. Some of the most common are line graphs, column graphs, stac#ed column graphs, and pie charts.