w3. Scientific method

1. Summary

 Scientific methods refer to the process of revealing principles based on experience and measurement when studying a phenomenon. The scientific method was first used by the directness of light test by ibn al-Haytham in 1021. The feature of this is that it draws inductive conclusions. Therefore, there is always the possibility that it will be modified or discarded. Elements of scientific methods include characterization, hypothesis setting, prediction, and experimentation. Scientific methods proceed as follows: problem definition, information and data collection, hypothesis setting, experiment, data analysis, hypothesis assessment, result presentation, experiment repetition.

2. Interesting

 The scientific method seems to have broken one mold in that it is not only used in the natural sciences, but also in the social sciences. If scientific methods are needed for social science research, I think they will be used mainly for quantitative research. The beginning of this course is from natural science research, but I think it can be used in more diverse areas beyond natural science and sociology.

3. Discussion

What are some typical examples of sociological research where scientific methods are used, and why have they used them?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

W1-1 Why am I taking this class?

Probably, I expect most of the students taking this class will answer similarly. I am taking this class to enhance my English skills as well as to improve my social knowledge. However, since the name of this class is ‘ Invitation to Sociology ’ and the class is run in English, I am expecting to deal issues that are not only limited nationally, but also international issues, which might be hard to cover in other classes that run in Korean. I also guess that by using English to search information, I would be able to find much more information compared to researching in Korean. Therefore, by taking this class, I expect that I might be able to gain general understanding of the overall sociology and learn skills how to deal with the vast amount of the information to find the main point of the material.
Read more

Week 1-1. Introduction to Sociology

1. Summary  Sociology is the study of what activities and thoughts human beings have as members of society. They are also interested in the structure of society and have a welfare system in place From small to big, the areas that society deals with vary. Sociological imagination allows individuals to deviate from self-centered perspectives and view the world as a common entity. This can interest others in their situations and encourage them to directly address the problem. So sociology is the study of understanding social events, collecting, analyzing and studying empirical data.  2.  Interesting   I found the story of sociological imagination interesting. When a social event happened, even people who had no direct connection with it came forward and wondered about the phenomenon of anger and solidarity together, but when I learned about the concept of sociological imagination, my curiosity was solved a little bit. People seem to be able to see irra...
Read more

W2-2 Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods

A Short Summary of ‘ Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods’ This part of the book is about the methods employed in sociology and some standards of the methods and what it tells us. In scientific methods, there are four steps. Characterization, hypothesis, prediction and testing. For the best prediction in scientific methods, we need to know the correct relationship between correlation and causation. It is important not to mistake correlation and causation. Also, quantitative and qualitative methods are two different approaches of sociological research. Depending on how we approach, we can classify objective approach, critical approach and subjective approach. Overall, it is important to obey ethics. Something I learned after reading ‘ Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods’ What I found interesting was that even though sociology is in the Liberal Arts, it includes different scientific methods. And by using these methods, we can make predictions and expl...
Read more