Appelbaum, Carr”
First, find a social setting, e.g., family dinner, a synchronous online class meeting, place of employment, or another location where you can observe people’s behavior.
Observe individuals or groups in the setting for a minimum of a half-hour.
Blend in well—although you may be a participant observer, i.e., actively engaged in the social setting, you won’t talk to those you’re observing about your study…consider yourself “undercover”
Next, based upon your observations and understanding of the readings for the first two weeks:
How would you interpret and describe the social setting, human behavior, etc. as it relates to responding to COVID-19? Has COVID-19 changed their behavior from pre-pandemic times? How? Are they concerned about social distancing? Work? School? Family well-being, etc? Use clear examples of people’s behavior. (20 pts)
Upon completing your observations, what are some questions that you have about what you have just observed? Introduce at least one question (5 pts).
To help guide your question development, incorporate one of the sociological perspectives: conflict, functionalist, or interactionist perspective (see ch.1). Explain why the perspective is relevant; use examples from the observations and readings (20 pts)
Now develop an hypothesis to further demonstrate what you think are causal relationships based upon your observations. Use the “if-then” formula as indicated in this week’s Objectives and Overview” to help you identify the independent (IV) and dependent variable(s) (DV). Explain further why these variables are important to observe. (20 pts)
Finally, suggest a quantitative method of data collection (see chapter 2) that may help increase our understanding of the social setting you observed. Be sure to explain why you chose that particular quantitative method, e.g. noting the benefits. (10 pts)