Category: Data and Methods
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Saturation in Qualitative Research
Saturation is a fundamental yet unscientific aspect of qualitative research. In this post, I explain what saturation is and why it is often unscientifically derived. Thematic analysis creates categories Qualitative research produces reams of textual data from archives and interviews. Sociologists analyze these data and, using thematic analysis, develop categories…
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Counting Chaos: Problems of Early Covid-19 Pandemic Data Reporting
This post examines the early state of administrative data that the public and authorities used to understand the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights challenges in data collection and reporting across different organizations and countries. Let’s remember, unfortunately, the chaotic and fearful early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.…
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Grant writing: What makes social science research ideas fundable?
From idea to grant proposal: empirical research projects in the social sciences See also Some Tips on Finding Research Grants 10 Tips for Writing Research Grant Proposals Why funding? Funding allows researchers the time, space, and materials to execute a research idea. Grant proposals communicate the research idea to the…
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Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences and ChatGPT
We covered a basic approach in How to use ChatGPT in Social Science Research; in this post, we focus on specific issues of using ChatGPT for quantitative research. Caveat: This post reflects what I’ve learned until March 2024. Remember that the AI tools develop quickly. Some of the problems or…
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How to use ChatGPT in Social Science Research
In this post, I discuss how to use ChatGPT and other AI assistants in social science research. The take-away message is: The AI is the assistant and you are the director. See also Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Social Scientist Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences and ChatGPT Many AI…
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Academic Writing for Psychology Students
This is for the course “Critical Academic Writing” taught, in English, at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Psychology. This course is designed to teach first-year MA students in psychology the skills necessary for academic writing in English in order to write a quantitative, high-quality MA thesis. A high-quality MA…
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How to write the results section of a research article in the social sciences
When you analyze data, your readers will want to know the results. But, you have lots of data and lots of analyses. How can we best write the results section of an empirical research article in the social sciences? Articles on writing empirical research articles in the social sciences Some…
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Local Data and Upstream Reporting as Sources of Error in the Covid 19 Undercount
The growth, stability, and decline in cases and mortality due to Covid 19 are generally based on administrative data that various people and organizations collect, harmonize, and aggregate. Many data providers have made their data available in machine-readable form for public scrutiny with an intention to guide policy-makers and educate…
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Sociological Methods for Psychology Students
University of Warsaw: Social Research Specialization Course title Current Topics in Sociology – A Methodological Approach Instructor dr. hab. Joshua K. Dubrow Contact details jdubrow2000[at]gmail.com Affiliation Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, and the Graduate School for Social Research (GSSR), of the Polish Academy of Sciences Course format Seminar Number of…
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The Elite: Definition and Identification
Sociology has long examined the concept of “elite” as a group with disproportionate power in society. In this post, we examine classic and contemporary definitions of the elite and methods for identifying them. The literature on the elite is vast. We will only scratch the surface to get at key…
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Socioeconomic Status: Definition and Measurement
What is socioeconomic status? Socio-economic status (SES) refers to a specific configuration of material conditions — income, education, and occupational prestige — that impact how people think and behave. In this post, we discuss how social scientists, particularly sociologists and psychologists, define and measure socioeconomic status (SES). We focus on…
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Quantitative Approaches to Intersectionality: The Small n Problem
A challenge for intersectional survey research is the “Small n Problem”: when there are too few observations in the sample to permit the desired analysis. To perform the multivariate quantitative techniques popular in analyses of survey data, we need an adequate number of cases in each category. For instance, if…
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Data Write-up: The Who, What, When, Where, and Why
You are an investigator. You collect data to test your theory and prove your point. You and journalists are similar. In writing their articles, journalists are taught to answer five questions: who, what, when, where, and why. This post tells you how to write the data and methods section of…
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