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>> My research class starts next week.
>> Okay, that's great.
So do you have a topic in mind?
Is there something you are interested in?
>> Thought about maybe doing something in social networking.
>> Social networking.
What about social networking is interesting to you?
>> Well I want to know how I can use it to get a job.
>> Okay. Getting a job with social networking.
So already that's great.
You've got an idea of a causal relationship.
That is, if I do this I will probably get that,
like maybe it's a correlation.
So that's interesting.
So how are you thinking of approaching this?
>> What do you mean?
>> Well, I guess you want to learn something here in terms
of what about social networking works to get you a job
so what were you thinking of doing?
How are you going to learn about this?
>> I don't know.
I guess I was going to ask people.
>> Well probably a good place
to start first is reviewing the literature.
There's probably a lot already published in this area.
>> Oh yeah.
You look on Wikipedia it's kind of common knowledge,
about 80 percent of all jobs come
from like the hidden job market and networks and such.
>> Well Wikipedia is okay,
and certainly I don't disregard that.
That's another piece of information
but there is certainly peer review journals
where there's probably a greater scope, a lot more fairness,
the research is more reliable so you probably want to start
of with a live research and looking for a few key words
that you think might be relevant to the kind of topic you have
and from that you may be able to extend some of that
or maybe use some of that or apply so that it will lead you
to a different population.
>> So I would just start by searching
with social networking in jobs?
>> Sure. And again, you're purpose is to find
out where the social networking actually helps people get
certain kinds of jobs and that's a pretty broad topic
so you'll probably find that you get to narrow your topic
as you learn a bit more about it.
>> I would think that in some industries social networking
really wouldn't influence whether somebody gets a job
or not.
Folks aren't using a computer then social networking really
might not be that big of a thing.
>> But you said 80 percent so I don't know,
is there anything left for me to look at?
>> Well, I mean, there are different cultures,
people use things differently.
There are a lot of things you've got to begin to find out about.
What exactly are you trying to -- who's your search population?
>> I don't know, I guess people I know to make it easy.
So maybe friends and family, co-workers?
>> All right, I think we need a bit broader than that
but maybe those people don't work in the industry
that you're exploring.
What kind of questions do you think you'd ask them?
>> Do they use social networking,
which sites do they use, how often they use it?
>> Did it help them get a job?
>> Yeah, did it help them get a job?
>> How would they know that?
I mean these are pretty broad questions.
They may do social networking and it may not get them a job.
I mean there is plenty of correlations but not causation.
Do you think you -- if you're really trying
to find an underlying mechanism here
that connects one behavior to a certain outcome?
Is that the purpose of your work?
>> I think so.
>> Okay, so you really want to refine those questions
and again you may see that other people have asked similar
questions and they help you focus and design your study.
>> I think you should get
to designing your survey questions and get going.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't know.
I think so.
>> Well those are all great questions to ask
but again you want to go back to the literature
and see what kinds of questions are most effective
for eliciting the kind of information
that you think you want.
>> So when you say literature you're talking
about those journals and stuff that you mentioned,
they might have articles saying what other people have done
in this area?
>> That's exactly right.
And of course a librarian can help you focus some of that.
Key word searches can help you with some of that.
But again, the social sciences is a vast literature.
Behavioral, psychology, sociology, anthropology,
I'm sure you'll find something in those areas
in those disciplines that is very relevant to the kind
of work that you're doing.
>> So it's not cheating to build on what other people have done
and other researchers?
>> Absolutely not.
The idea is that you want to build on other people's work.
I mean, I think the way I would approach this is
that you ask a question to be able to ask a better question
and that's the kind of the nature of the publications.
It saves you repeating somebody else's work.
It can save you a lot of time and also it can give you a sort
of sense of where
that particular literature is focusing right now.
>> So you mean, like when Evan said he saw the 80 percent,
maybe that was a specific site that they used or a specific job
so maybe I could see if there's different things
that they haven't used yet
or maybe a different position they didn't look
for that maybe not included in his 80 percent.
>> I mean there are different cultures, maybe 80 percent works
for one particular group and maybe doesn't work
for another group because of the way they use social networking.
Again, people have different intentions.
So anyway, it's certainly worth looking at the literature
to help you design the work, to be more efficient with it,
to not repeat somebody else's
and if you actually do base your work on somebody else's
of course you want to give citations,
you want to give references
to make sure you give credit where it's due.
>> I think you should get a head start
and start getting some questions out to people that you know
and start asking about how it's done.
>> Well I think you want to be little careful about that
because one thing that we are concerned
about is protecting human subjects.
Now, this gets into the idea of respect for individuals,
beneficence which may you want to do good in the world
and finally we want to be fair minded.
That is, the idea of justice.
There are certain ways in which we ask particular populations
certain kinds of questions and so we have to keep
in mind the ethical considerations
of the work that we do.
>> Well how would asking people about a job be about ethics?
>> Well I don't want to ask them why someone wouldn't want
to hire them.
Why they haven't had a job in a few years.
>> That's right.
you could probably think of them
as examples why people didn't want
to volunteer that information.
I mean, sometimes things can be said and you wish
that you hadn't said them and they can be used in places
that you didn't intend.
>> So you always want to minimize the risk or harm
to individuals and those are the kind of things that you need
to think about before you delve into the research
which is why you need to have somebody that you're checking
to see whether this is a good design,
or that it will actually achieve the kind of outcome
that you were expecting.
>> So I can just come up with some questions
and then have Evan look at it maybe, to make sure
that he doesn't see anything that I'm not catching.
>> Well we have an institutional review board here
at the university to help you with your research
and if it needs a little more tweaking
with the design then we can help you with that as well.
>> It sounds like you're set.
>> All right.
>> So what kind of question do you think you're going to ask?
>> You know, I'm already two steps ahead.
I have a great idea.
I've got access to a jail to some prison population
and I'm a big believer in faith based programs and how
that can help with rehabilitation
so I think it would be great if you just mandate a few programs
and have those folks have to go through it
and then see how their rehabilitation goes.