Date: 19 August

Day: Thursday
Submitted to: Prof. Sudipta Garai

Alaka Rajeev 193031

Bachelor of Arts (Psychology, Sociology, English)
Semester V
Methods of Social Research - SOC 531
Department of Sociology
CHRIST (Deemed to be University),
Bengaluru - 560029

Question 1 - What are the characteristics of a hypothesis (Mention at least three) ? Explain
with an example.
Answer - Three important characteristics of a hypothesis are:
1. It must make logical sense and should have a theoretical understanding or strong
observation to back it.
2. It must be testable by using scientific methods.
3. It must be falsifiable as there should be the scope of the hypothesis being disconfirmed.

Example - Students who are provided with counselling service in the days prior to their exams
show reduced anxiety on the day of the exam.
● Counselling helps understand and process emotions and feelings about an event/situation.
The exam period can bring about a lot of stress and anxiety which when discussed with a
professional can yield positive benefits. This is a logical rationale and has theory and
research to support it.
● The researcher can test this by measuring the students’ anxiety before and after they are
provided counselling service whilst also choosing to use self rating scales or interviews to
understand how the student is feeling themselves.
● There is definitely an element of falsifiability because there could be hesitancy from the
students’ end towards counselling or therapy along with increased external stressors and
 personal lack of involvement in the process which could lead to therapy not having had
reduced their anxiety.

Question 2 - Think about a concept and discuss its variables and attributes (which will help in
conceptualization and operationalization of that concept in research).
Answer - Concept: Social Stratification is a very broad concept that is predominantly found in
Sociology that talks about how groups are arranged in a hierarchical manner on the basis of a
wide range of parameters such as age, sex, income, caste etc.
Variables: There could be gender-based stratification with men being at a higher position in the
hierarchy than women, with an age-based stratification in a workforce where young individuals
might have more value if the task is of a strenuous nature, there could be a difference in terms of
treatment meted out to someone from a lower caste as compared to someone from a higher caste
(caste-based stratification) and so on.
Attributes: Within gender-based stratification, there are several factors that could be explained
in terms of how there is a difference in terms of the kinds of educational opportunities available
to males and females, there is disparity in the workplace and so on. But, a researcher might want
to specifically look at all how a gender based stratification leads to feminization of poverty
which is caused by a gender gap that keeps increasing due to a disparity between the privilege,
wealth and power made available to men and women.

Question 3 - What is inductive research? Use a sociological example to explain.

Answer - Inductive reasoning begins with the researcher focusing on data or observations
obtained in the field, gauging certain trends and patterns to come up with a hypothesis and then
using that data to arrive at a theory or broader generalisations that can help explain the
observations. The researcher allows the data that is gathered to facilitate the emergence or
creation of a theory and this can be observed, for example, if the researcher aims to gather
primary and secondary data on sanitation practices during COVID. This is a broad area wherein
the researcher can go and interact with individuals and families, collect data about their practises
and then observe if there are any patterns such as individuals belonging to a particular social
class showed aversion to certain sanitisation practises and how religion is also linked to it. When
the researcher feels that the patterns within the data is strong enough to single down on it and
explore it further, the work on understanding why that occurs is undertaken which then leads to
creation of a theory or a set of observations.