Ensuring Validity and Reliability in Sociological Research- Strategies for Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Ensuring Validity and Reliability in Sociological Research- Strategies for Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Sociology research methods have two types of data: quantitative and qualitative. In order to maintain their validity and reliability, researchers need to use scientific methods to collect, interpret and analyze data (OpenStax, p.32). According to OpenStax (p.32), scientific methods give the researchers organized and systematic measures that they take, which would help to achieve consistency and objectivity in their problem. As a result, there would be a shared basis for analysis and discussion, which would ensure validity (how well the research study measures what was designed to be measured), reliability (how likely the results of the research are to be replicated if there is a reproduction of the study) as well as accuracy (OpeStax, p.31-32). Researchers can start their scientific study by asking a question and identifying and describing a problem. The researchers should be keen to define their terms and not rule out any topic yet. Rather, they need to strive to frame questions in better terms of research (OpenStax, p.32). They can then review the existing reliable sources about the topic or problem. In conducting a literature review, the researchers need to identify what other authors have found out and the gaps that are missing in their research so that they may strive to fill in the gaps if possible. They then should formulate their hypothesis. For instance, they can formulate a hypothesis by stating that ‘Bullying at schools reduces academic performance among the bullied adolescents.’ In this case, the independent variable is ‘bullying at school’, and the dependent variable is ‘academic performance among bullied adolescents.’ The scientific research will, therefore, focus on validating or nullifying this hypothesis.

For a sociological research, a hypothesis with a dependent and independent variable may be ‘The use of social media increases the rate of cheating among students in private schools.’ In this case, the independent variable is the use of social media, and the dependable variable is the rate of cheating.

Reference

OpenStax. Introduction to Sociology 2e. Texas: Rice University, 2017.

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Sociological research methods use two types of data: quantitative (numeric-based data) and qualitative (word-based data). What should researchers do to maintain their “validity” and “reliability?” Please explain in detail. A reading source is on page 31 of the online textbook, chapter 2.

Ensuring Validity and Reliability in Sociological Research- Strategies for Quantitative and Qualitative Data

2. Read and learn Table 2.1, “Examples of Dependent and Independent variables,” on page 33 of the online textbook chapter 2. Then, write your own hypothesis and independent and dependent variables for sociological research.