Notes:
American Sociological Association (ASA), a national organization for sociologists dedicated to advancing sociology as a scientific discipline and profession serving the public good
peer review, a process by which research is evaluated by a group of experts in the specific subject area
independent variable, a factor that causes a change in another variable,
dependent variable, a factor that is changed by another variable
validity, the extent that the study measures what it claims to measure,
operational definition, a clear, concise, and observable measure of the variable
reliability, the extent to which a study yields the same result in repeated studies
quantitative research design, data collection that focuses on exploring correlations by using systematic, numerical, and other objective measures to generalize across groups of people (HP), or a qualitative research design, data collection using interviews, fieldwork, observation, photos, text, and other subjective measures (HP)
epresentative sample, a subset of the population whose characteristics accurately reflect those of the larger population from which it is drawn
Institutional Review Board (IRB), a committee that reviews research proposals to protect the rights and welfare of human participants in research
informed consent, a signed statement by participants indicating full knowledge of the risks involved, and acknowledgment of the procedures to withdraw from the study at any time willingly
Anonymity, concealing the identities of participants within the research project, and confidentiality, guarding who has the right of access to the data provided by the participants