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an introduction to empirical research methods Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by

Learning outcomes: - Identify the different ways people decide what’s real. - Be able to explain the fundamental nature of social science. - Understand the basic options for conducting empirical research

This is a draft cheat sheet. It is a work in progress and is not finished yet.

main purposes of empircal researcch

(1) exploring, (2) describing and (3) explaining social phenomena at the level of aggreg­ates, not indivi­duals

research question

a research program always starts with a research question.
this question an be either descri­ptive or explan­atory
-> a research question van be answered by system­ati­cally collection data

avoiding inaccurate inquiry

resear­chers seek to avoid inaccurate day-to-day inquiry with overge­ner­alized conclu­sions by careful, deliberate and repres­ent­ative observ­ations, avoiding illogical reasoning
 

the empirical circle

the empirical circle:
- building on existing insights
- general theories generate concrete expect­ations: hypotheses
- hypotheses are tested by observ­ations
- observ­ations are genera­lized to build/­adjust theories

empirical circle

a specified version of the empircal circle presented by Babbie