Research Methods

Research Methods, continued. The unit of analysis in social scientific research may be individual people,
groups such as family, formal social organizations such as universities, or any of a wide range of social
artifacts, including both material artifacts such as books or paintings and social interactions such as weddings
and riots. Conceptualization is a process of specifying the meaning of terms exactly so that measurements are
possible. Concepts are mental images derived from observations and experiences that have become grouped
together and labeled by some term, such as “prejudice”. What we observe and experience as the indicators of
a concept, rather than the concept itself, that is real and possible to measure. Submission question: Look
through recent issues of social scientific journal such as the American Sociological Association Review or
Social Psychology, and write a research report which examines several dimensions of a particular concept.
Give bibliographic citations for the article to describe the dimensions of the concept the researcher examined.