Seven Rules for Social Research

by Firebaugh, Glenn

• ISBN13: 9780691135670
• ISBN10: 0691135673
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-03
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Seven Rules for Social Research teaches social scientists how to get the most out of their technical skills and tools, providing a resource that fully describes the strategies and concepts no researcher or student of human behavior can do without.

Author Biography

Glenn Firebaugh is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography at Pennsylvania State University

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
The First Rule: There Should Be the Possibility of Surprise in Social Research	p. 1
Selecting a Research Question	p. 2
Researchable Questions	p. 2
Interesting Questions	p. 4
Selecting a Sample	p. 18
Samples in Qualitative Studies	p. 23
Is Meaningful Social Research Possible?	p. 26
Summary	p. 29
Student Exercises on Rule 1	p. 31
The Second Rule: Look for Differences That Make a Difference, and Report Them	p. 36
You Can't Explain a Variable with a Constant	p. 37
Maximizing Variance to Find the Effect of a Cause	p. 39
Size versus Statistical Significance	p. 41
Comparing Effects Where There Is a Common Metric	p. 42
Calibration: Converting Explanatory Variables to a Common Metric	p. 44
Substantive Profiling: The Use of Telling Comparisons	p. 46
Visual Presentation of Results	p. 51
Policy Importance	p. 53
Importance for Theory	p. 54
Conclusion	p. 56
Student Exercises on Rule 2	p. 58
The Third Rule: Build Reality Checks into Your Research	p. 64
Internal Reality Checks	p. 65
Reality Checks on Data-Dubious Values and Incomplete Data	p. 65
Reality Checks on Measures-Aim for Consistency in Conceptualization and Measurement	p. 69
Reality Checks on Models-The Formal Equivalence Check	p. 71
External Reality Checks: Validation with Other Data and Methods	p. 76
Using Causal-Process Observations to Test Plausibility of Results	p. 77
Using Ethnographic Data to Help Interpret Survey Results	p. 79
Other Examples of Multiple-Method Research	p. 81
Concluding Remark	p. 82
Student Exercises on Rule 3	p. 84
The Fourth Rule: Replicate Where Possible	p. 90
Sources of Uncertainty in Social Research	p. 91
Overview: From Population to Sample and Back to Population	p. 93
Measurement Error as a Source of Uncertainty	p. 100
Illustration: Two Methods for Estimating Global Poverty	p. 101
Toward a Solution: Identical Analyses of Parallel Data Sets	p. 105
Meta-analysis: Synthesizing Results Formally across Studies	p. 106
Summary: Your Confidence Intervals Are Too Narrow	p. 109
Student Exercises on Rule 4	p. 111
The Fifth Rule: Compare Like with Like	p. 120
Correlation and Causality	p. 121
Types of Strategies for Comparing Like with Like	p. 129
Matching versus Looking for Differences	p. 130
The Standard Regression Method for Comparing Like with Like	p. 131
Critique of the Standard Linear Regression Strategy	p. 132
Comparing Like with Like Through Fixed-Effects Methods	p. 134
First-Difference Models: Subtracting Out the Effects of Confounding Variables	p. 134
Special Case: Growth-Rate Models	p. 138
Sibling Models	p. 140
Comparing Like with Like through Matching on Measured Variables	p. 146
Exact Matching	p. 146
Propensity-Score Method	p. 147
Matching as a Preprocessing Strategy for Reducing Model Dependence	p. 151
Comparing Like with Like through Naturally Occurring Random Assignment	p. 152
Instrumental Variables: Matching through Partial Random Assignment	p. 153
Matching Through Naturally Occurring Random Assignment to the Treatment Group	p. 158
Comparison of Strategies for Comparing Like with Like	p. 159
Conclusion	p. 162
Student Exercises on Rule 5	p. 165
The Sixth Rule: Use Panel Data to Study Individual Change and Repeated Cross-section Data to Study Social Change	p. 172
Analytic Differences between Panel and Repeated Cross-section Data	p. 173
Three General Questions about Change	p. 175
Changing-Effect Models, Part 1: Two Points in Time	p. 176
Changing-Effect Models, Part 2: Multilevel Models with Time as the Context	p. 182
What We Want to Know	p. 183
The General Multilevel Model	p. 183
Convergence Models	p. 185
The Sign Test for Convergence: Comparing Your [phi]s and [delta]s	p. 186
Convergence Model versus Changing-Effect Model	p. 191
Bridging Individual and Social Change: Estimating Cohort Replacement Effects	p. 195
An Accounting Scheme for Social Change	p. 197
Linear Decomposition Method	p. 198
Summary	p. 201
Student Exercises on Rule 6	p. 203
The Seventh Rule: Let Method Be the Servant, Not the Master	p. 207
Obsession with Regression	p. 209
Naturally Occurring Random Assignment, Again	p. 209
Decomposition Work in the Social Sciences	p. 218
Decomposition of Variance and Inequality	p. 220
Decomposition of Segregation Indexes	p. 222
The Effects of Social Context	p. 226
Context Effects as Objects of Study	p. 227
Context Effects as Nuisance	p. 230
Critical Tests in Social Research	p. 231
Conclusion	p. 235
Student Exercises on Rule 7	p. 236
References	p. 241
Index	p. 253
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