Chapter 4: Henslin; How do Sociologist do Research?

While reading this chapter I found the most interesting part were the six research methods. The reason this was interesting to me is because we tend to use a lot of these research methods. Personally I use almost all six of them. Each of these methods are used for different reason. You have surveys, which are used to keep count of thoughts, opinions and feelings. Surveys can be found after renting out a hotel room. They will send you an email asking how your stay was and if you enjoyed the service or not. Surveys are used to determine people’s feelings and thoughts.
The next method is secondary analysis. I don’t really use secondary analysis unless it is for a project or assignment. Essentially what a secondary analysis is for is for people to analyze data collected from others. We use documents all the time. When writing essays, looking up information, and many other. Documents can be used for anything are used for anything. Experiments is used in almost every day life. Experiments are meant to find out something new. An example of an experiment can be trying out new things that you’ve never done before such as mixing two drinks or trying new foods. Life is an experiment.
The fifth method research is unobtrusive research. This research method is observing people’s behaviors when they do not know they are being studied. I had to use this method in one of my classes recently and to me it felt weird because it makes me feel like stalker or weirdo. The reason why is because they don’t know they are being watched which is weird. That’s being a stalker pretty much. If someone were watching me and I didn’t know I would be creeped out. The last and final research method would be participant observation. This is when the researcher participated with the participant while still observing at the same time. Many people do this without knowing they do. I happen to do this a lot because I am very aware. I like knowing what will happen at every given moment. This chapter to me was more of a research because I learned more about what these methods do and how to use them.