Approaches to Social Research 5th Edition / Chapter 4 / Elements of Research Design / Web Resources

Chapter 4 / Elements of Research Design

Web Resources

General References

	The Research Methods Knowledge Base

For students who want an alternative source of information about basic concepts or for instructors who want to supplement Approaches to Social Research, this site is an excellent sourcebook with hyperlinked text. It covers all the concepts introduced in chapter 4, but with simplified explanations and different examples.

Examples of Aggregate Data

The State of the World’s Children 2009

This page provides links to statistical tables with various economic and social indicators on children's well-being from countries and territories around the world. Footnotes to the tables contain the main data sources and definitions of the indicators, nearly all of which represent aggregate data . Among the indicators in the table on "education," for example, are adult literacy rate, net primary school attendance, and primary school entrants who reach the last grade of primary school. Demographic indicators include crude death rate, crude birth rate, life expectancy, and fertility rate.

	Statistical Abstract: State Rankings
	This page from the Census Bureau's 2009 Statistical Abstract contains links to statistics and state rankings on a variety of aggregate measures such as the violent crime rate, unemployment rate, doctors per 100,000 population, median household income, and percent of persons below poverty level. Table footnotes contain links to information about definitions and data sources.



Reading Tables and Understanding Statistics on Relationships

	Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)
	This site was developed by the Computer-Assisted Survey Methods Program at the University of California, Berkeley to provide programs for the documentation and Web-based analysis of survey data. One can analyze data from several archives, including the General Social Survey (GSS) and the American National Election Study (ANES). The data analysis programs are designed to be run from a Web browser, and SDA yields results very quickly -- within seconds. The following two links for the analysis of GSS data are especially useful for learning to read tables.

	Quick Tables
	This site enables the user to generate tables for specified variables from the 1972-2004 GSS cumulative datafile. One can examine relationships between politics or voting and background variables, religious variables and background variables, and race or gender or other issues and background variables.

	Current User Interface
	With this program the user can analyze relationships among any variables in the 1972-2006 GSS cumulative datafile. Variables may be selected by browsing the Codebook, and tables can be run by clicking on “Frequencies or Cross-tabulation” and then inserting variable names as “row” or “column.”

	Correlation and Statistical Significance
	These two pages provide brief but lucid explanations of two of the most common statistics in social research.

Applying Concepts to Research on Marital Couples

	Several pages from the Web site of the University of Texas PAIR Project guide researchers interested in the study of courtship and marriage. Begun in 1981, the Project is a longitudinal study that follows 168 couples across the span of their relationships. The following three links to the PAIR Project research pages describe the study of causal relationships and the formulation of a research question using PAIR data.

	Causal Analysis
	From the old Web site of the PAIR Project, this page discusses issues of causality and research design in relation to the study of marital couples.

	Temporal Issues in Studying Marriage: Conceptualizing Cause and Effect
	Also from the Web site of the PAIR Project, this page offers an advanced-level analysis of issues in the study of causal relationships.

	Focusing on a Problem
	This page discusses how to formulate a research question with specific reference to the study of marital happiness. In describing the process of problem formulation, the author clarifies the terms concept, variable, hypothesis, theory, and paradigm.