Step 1: Define different classes with methods and the Key Concepts
- SOCL – 345 Social Research: Sociology social research was one of my favorite courses that I have taken while majoring in sociology. I feel that social research is a course that can connect to other majors really well. This course went over quantitative and qualitative data and how to read and understand the data. This course was enjoyable for me because I was able to look into alot of things that I am interested in. This course also went over the ethics that go into social research and some of the key points you have to do when conducting research.
- SOCL – 401 Sociological Theory: Sociological theory was class that went indepth about the relationship between theory and research methods. During this course I learned about all the different theoretical perspectives inform research questions, methods of data collection, and interpretations of findings.
- SOCL-346 Statistics for the Social Science: This is the second level of SOCL-345 Social Research, this class is where you put everything you have learned to work. During this class you go out into the field and do research about a topic that is decided during SOCL-345. In this class you go through every step of research and write a research paper at the end of the class.
Step 2: Papers that show learning
These are my two writings. I have not done a paper in SOCL-346 Statistics for the Social Science yet because I am currently taking the class and the paper is at the end of the semester. However the first paper is from SOCL-345 Social research and the second paper is from SOCL-401 Sociological Theory. I wrote both of these papers in the same semester so I wouldn’t say that my writing differed from either paper. However, I feel that the paper from SOCL-345 Social research has more to do with methodology because this paper is looking over multiple different research papers and giving a hypothesis and a methods sections. The paper from SOCL-401 Sociological theory is a paper about a certain unit from the class during the semester so this paper didn’t go in depth about methodology more so just about the people that created the methodology.
Step 3: Major aspects of social research
Social research is a very important aspect to society. Social research gives proof to all the theories that being put out there. Some of the different aspects that are involved in social research are the research design which is where you are actually deciding what the research is going to look like and how you will go about it. Data collection is the next aspect which is where the data that is being looked at is collected. This is where researchers will go out and do surveys, interviews, observations, and experiments. The next aspect of social research is sampling this is where the researchers decide how they are going to get the sample they are wanting to look at. One the data is collected the next aspect is data analysis this is where the researchers analyze the data and look at it and determine if there is different patters, trends, or relationships between the data that was collected. Once all this is over the researchers go through there interpretation. this is where the researchers put all the relevant theoretical frameworks together and make analyze the research questions and determine weather or not they are true.
Step 4: How to connect to real world?
I feel that methodology connects to the real world in many different aspects. Methodology is used in every line of work because in every line of work you are doing some type of research. Methodology has taught me how to do research, how to obtain data, how to analyze data, and how to make a conclusion from the data. Being able to do research is a huge part of the line of work I want to go into because I will need to do research to understand why certain things are happening. Once I figure out why these certain things are happening it will allow me to change the way I am doing things for the better. This allows me to put out the best work possible.