Information technologies as a means of studying the phenomenon of the individual socialization

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of the use of information technologies (IT) in sociological research, in particular in the process of studying the phenomenon of socialization of the individual. The material consists of three parts, which highlight the essential characteristics of the category of socialization, the current trends in the use of information technology in sociology, and some areas of application of information technology in the process of studying the socialization of the individual.
 Socialization of personality is an important social-pedagogical phenomenon, as the process of human entry into society is often accompanied by problems. Currently, the relevance of intelligence on the problems of socialization has increased significantly, which is largely connected with social changes. The article presents the definition and the main features of the category "socialization", scientific approaches to the interpretation of this concept, as well as a brief overview of the methods of diagnosing the level of socialization of a person.
 The formation of a digital society led to the appearance of computing social sciences and the separation of digital sociology at the beginning of the XXIst century. The peculiarity of the modern period is the use of various sources of secondary sociological information, in particular those which are based on the objective recording of the real behavior of people. The gathering of sociological information takes place with the use of methods of content analysis, analysis of texts and social networks, etc. The vast majority of these methods involve the use of information technology. In addition, methodologies for working with data from Big Data and Data Mining are now widely used to gather and analyze large volumes of heterogeneous data and to generate new useful information on existing or potential interconnections between phenomena on this basis. So, sociology is now focused on the use of new information tools. At the same time, the use of traditional information and communication technologies is still remains of current interest (tools for conducting surveys, statistical analysis programs, etc.), which can significantly reduce the waste of time, reduce the probability of errors of different types, carry out the different methods of analysis.
 In the process of the socialization of a person studying a variety of surveys are widely used, the results of which must be systematized and analyzed. In order to collect such data, it is expedient to use the possibilities of the Internet, which allows reaching a large audience of respondents and reduce the waste of time both by respondents and researchers. Currently online surveys are often used by Google Forms, which provides tools for creating questionnaires of different types of questions, storing received replies, transferring them to spreadsheets in Google Drive, and initial analysis. In the case of increased requirements to the complexity and quality of the questionnaire, as well as the need to reach a large number of respondents, you should turn to specialized web resources, such as SurveyMonkey. The data obtained during the online survey can be analyzed using statistical programs (Statgraphics, Statistica, S-plus, SPSS, Systat, etc.). In particular, such programs provide an opportunity for cluster and factor analysis to classify the phenomena studied and identify the most influential factors.
 Consequently, important steps in the study of the phenomenon of socialization and the level of socialization of the individual are the collection of data (through online surveys using Google Forms) and their analysis using software (office spreadsheets, general-purpose statistical packages or specialized programs aimed at performing specific statistical procedures).