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Unit Of Analysis
The unit of analysis is the entity that frames what is being looked at in a study, or is the entity being studied as a whole. In social science research, at the macro level, the most commonly referenced unit of analysis, considered to be a society is the state (polity) (i.e. country). At meso level, common units of observation include groups, organizations, and institutions, and at micro level, individual people. Unit of analysis vs the level of analysis Unit of analysis is closely related to the term level of analysis, and some scholars have used them interchangingly, while others argue for a need for distinction. Ahmet Nuri Yurdusev wrote that "the level of analysis is more of an issue related to the framework/context of analysis and the level at which one conducts one's analysis, whereas the question of the unit of analysis is a matter of the 'actor' or the 'entity' to be studied". Manasseh Wepundi noted the difference between "the unit of analysis, that is the phenomenon ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Babbie
Earl Robert Babbie (born January 8, 1938), is an American sociologist who holds the position of Campbell Professor Emeritus in Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University. He is best known for his book ''The Practice of Social Research'' (first published in 1975), currently in its 15th English edition, with numerous non-English editions. Education Earl Babbie was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Vermont and New Hampshire. In 1956, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Harvard Yard to attend Harvard College on a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship where he graduated in 1960 with a B.A. in social relations. From 1960 to 1963 Babbie served tours in the United States Marine Corps, as a disbursing officer in Okinawa, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. Babbie then went on to complete graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he received an M.A. in 1966. That same year he was honorably discharged from the USMC Reserve as First Lieutenant. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. It now encompasses a wide array of additional academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, culturology, and political science. The majority of positivist social scientists use methods resembling those used in the natural sciences as tools for understanding societies, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Speculative social scientists, otherwise known as interpretivist scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, and the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, eco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State (polity)
A state is a politics, political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory. Government is considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states. A country often has a single state, with various administrative divisions. A state may be a unitary state or some type of federation, federal union; in the latter type, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated state, federated polities that make up the federation, and they may have some of the attributes of a sovereign state, except being under their federation and without the same capacity to act internationally. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include "province", "Region#Administrative regions, region" or other terms.) For most of prehistory, people lived in stateless societies. The earliest forms of states arose about 5,500 years ago. Over time societies became more Social stratification, stratified and developed institutions leading to Centra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Level Of Analysis
Level of analysis is used in the social sciences to point to the location, size, or scale of a research target. It is distinct from unit of observation in that the former refers to a more or less integrated set of relationships while the latter refers to the distinct unit from which data have been or will be gathered. Together, the unit of observation and the level of analysis help define the population of a research enterprise. Level of analysis vs unit of analysis Level of analysis is closely related to the term unit of analysis, and some scholars have used them interchangingly, while others argue for a need for distinction. Ahmet Nuri Yurdusev wrote that "the level of analysis is more of an issue related to the framework/context of analysis and the level at which one conducts one's analysis, whereas the question of the unit of analysis is a matter of the 'actor' or the 'entity' to be studied". Manasseh Wepundi noted the difference between "the unit of analysis, that is the ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unit Of Observation
In statistics, a unit of observation is the unit described by the data that one analyzes. A study may treat groups as a unit of observation with a country as the unit of analysis, drawing conclusions on group characteristics from data collected at the national level. For example, in a study of the demand for money, the unit of observation might be chosen as the individual, with different observations (data points) for a given point in time differing as to which individual they refer to; or the unit of observation might be the country, with different observations differing only in regard to the country they refer to. Unit of observation vs unit of analysis The unit of observation should not be confused with the unit of analysis. A study may have a differing unit of observation and unit of analysis: for example, in community research, the research design may collect data at the individual level of observation but the level of analysis might be at the neighborhood level, drawing co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community
A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to people's identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, TV network, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large-group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. In terms of sociological categories, a community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity. In developmental views, a community can emerge out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research Design
Research design refers to the overall strategy utilized to answer research questions. A research design typically outlines the theories and models underlying a project; the research question(s) of a project; a strategy for gathering data and information; and a strategy for producing answers from the data. A strong research design yields valid answers to research questions while weak designs yield unreliable, imprecise or irrelevant answers. Incorporated in the design of a research study will depend on the standpoint of the researcher over their beliefs in the nature of knowledge (see epistemology) and reality (see ontology), often shaped by the Academic discipline, disciplinary areas the researcher belongs to. The design of a study defines the study type (descriptive, correlational, semi-experimental, experimental, review, meta-analytic) and sub-type (e.g., descriptive-longitudinal case study), research problem, Hypothesis, hypotheses, Dependent and independent variables, indepen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sample Population
In this statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset or a statistical sample (termed sample for short) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. The subset is meant to reflect the whole population, and statisticians attempt to collect samples that are representative of the population. Sampling has lower costs and faster data collection compared to recording data from the entire population (in many cases, collecting the whole population is impossible, like getting sizes of all stars in the universe), and thus, it can provide insights in cases where it is infeasible to measure an entire population. Each observation measures one or more properties (such as weight, location, colour or mass) of independent objects or individuals. In survey sampling, weights can be applied to the data to adjust for the sample design, particularly in stratified sampling. Results from probabil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dependency Theory
Dependency theory is the idea that resources flow from a " periphery" of poor and exploited states to a " core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor states are impoverished and rich ones enriched by the way poor states are integrated into the " world system". This theory was officially developed in the late 1960s following World War II, as scholars searched for the root issue in the lack of development in Latin America. The theory arose as a reaction to modernization theory, an earlier theory of development which held that all societies progress through similar stages of development, that today's underdeveloped areas are thus in a similar situation to that of today's developed areas at some time in the past, and that, therefore, the task of helping the underdeveloped areas out of poverty is to accelerate them along this supposed common path of development, by various means such as investment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World-systems Theory
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective)Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK is a multidisciplinary approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system (and not nation states) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis. World-systems theorists argue that their theory explains the rise and fall of states, income inequality, social unrest, and imperialism. The "world-system" refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor, which divides the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and periphery countries. Core countries have higher-skill, capital-intensive industries, and the rest of the world has low-skill, labor-intensive industries and extraction of raw mate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Relations
International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). International relations is generally classified as a major multidiscipline of political science, along with comparative politics, political methodology, political theory, and public administration. It often draws heavily from other fields, including anthropology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, and sociology. There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
