Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

CHART 1 Examples of Quantitative Studies

STRATEGIES OF RESEARCH DESIGN

Study citation
and title

Methodological
technique used

Topic

Research question

Main hypothesis
tested

Main independent
variable(s)

Main dependent
variable

Unit of analysis

Universe

Ridgeway and Erickson

(2000), “Creating and

Spreading Status Beliefs”

Experiment

Processes by which

people develop beliefs

about the social status

of others

As individuals interact,

do external, structural

factors that affect the

interaction mold the

beliefs they come to

hold about entire

categories of people in

the future?

People can be “taught” to

make status distinctions

among categories of

people, who are actually

equal, based on limited

interaction in which one

category exerts more skill.

Whether a person’s

interaction with someone

in a category that shows

members of the category

to have superior or

inferior skill at tasks

Whether individuals

develop and apply a

belief of inequality to an

entire category of people

Individual undergraduate

student

All individuals

Musick, Wilson, and

Bynum (2000), “Race

and Formal Volunteering:

The Differential Effects of

Class and Religion”

Survey

Rates of volunteering by

White and Black adults

What different kinds of

resources are available

to Blacks and Whites that

explain why Blacks are

less likely to volunteer?

Social class and religion

affect whether Blacks

volunteer differently

than Whites.

Social class, religious

attendance, race

Whether a person said

he or she volunteered for

any of five organizations

(religious, education,

political or labor, senior

citizen, or local)

Individual adults

All adult Whites and

Blacks in the United

States

Barlow, Barlow, and

Chiricos (1995),

“Economic Conditions

and Ideologies of Crime

in the Media”

Content analysis

U.S. mass media

portrayals of law-

breakers

Do economic conditions

affect how the media

portray offenders?

The media distortion of

crime shows offenders

in a more negative way

(blames them) when

economic conditions

are bad.

Unemployment rate in

several years, 1953–1982

Whether distortion

occurred, measured

as a mismatch between

media attention (articles

in Timemagazine) and

crime statistics for several

years

The media report

All U.S. mass media

reports