Week 9 Discussion

Part 1 will be about field research.  Many studies cannot be done on college campuses or in labs.  It is often necessary to “get out there” and study people in their own environments. Field research is very important in the social sciences.  Part 2 will come from the SPSS workbook.  It is often the case that researchers study more than two levels of the independent variables.  An example of this would be studying the differences between students at CSUN, CSULA, and CSUDH.  A different type of test must be used when this is the case.  Complete both 1 and 2:

1. Describe a type of field research that you would like to do. What would be the objective of this study? What types of people would you be observing or talking to? How would doing this help you to answer your research question?  Would your study be qualitative or quantitative?

2. Complete the video game example from the SPSS workbook (p. 88). Paste the statistics output into your posting (Between-Subjects Factors and Descriptive Statistics at minimum). This output must be included to show you did it. What is the output from the video game study? Describe what you are able to make sense of. What might you conclude from the findings? 

Week 9 Discussion Answer

A type of field research I would like to do is participant observation. The objective of my study is to determine if customers at a department store are likely to approach sales crew based on skin color or race. Specifically, I want to see if white American customers tend to approach white sales staff, if black American customers are likely to approach black American sales staff, or if Latin Americans or Asian Americans tend to approach Latin American or Asian American employees respectively. This study is quantitative and I will be recording my observations in counts.