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PSY 390 STUDY UNIT 1: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
PSY 390 STUDY UNIT 1: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODS IN THE
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Chapter 1: Social Sciences and Research
understand what social research is about?
What is Social Science Research?
Social Science research is a process of acquiring knowledge and answering questions pertaining to the social world using the empirical method..
It is a method which provides empirical evidence
Chracteristics
Characteristics of research method
Research is:
Systematic
Controlled
Empirically based
Scientific approach to research
Systematic
Research Steps are methodological: Formulate questions – plan – collect data – analyse & interpret data – report results
Controlled
reserach are to some extenet, controlled (i.e. measured)
does not concern itself with normative questions (i.e. concept that cannot be measured)
As such, it is also open to public scrutiny
Empirical
Concerns itself with variables which are measureable and testable.
Objectively dirven.
Goal
The goal of social science research is to
study and understand the social world,
i.e., human behaviour and society, through the scientific method
Limitations
Social science research is not able to address non-empirical issues (i.e. normative or value-related issues)
Are social science research methods scientific
To evaluate the status of social science, we can begin by relating social science to these two views of science (Static and dynamic view).
Static view of social science
This body of social science knowledge can be regarded as systematized
information
to the world because
Information is categorised
Each division of social sciences has its definition, area of investigation, aims, and methodology, focusing on different aspects of human behaviour.
Properties of social phenomena
The knowledge is about properties of social phenomena and causes of human behaviour
Unified system of language
Social sciences have been developing a unified system of language in different disciplines for communication.
continuous advancement
The knowledge is under continuous advancement, with increasing precision and specialization.
The dynamic view of science
The dynamic view of science is
concerned with what scientists do
.
Social scientists are involved intensively with most, if not all of the activities that scientists do.
For instance, they ask questions connected to human behaviour at different levels (e.g. physiological, psychological, economical, political and societal).
What is research
Research is a disciplined process for increasing knowledge and for answering carefully formulated questions.
What is thescientific method
The scientific method is a method of acquiring knowledge that uses observations to
develop a hypothesis
, and then uses the hypothesis to
make logical predictions
that can be empirically tested by making additional, systematic observations. Typically, the new observations lead to a new hypothesis, and the cycle continues.
Different non-scientific methods
Other than research, There are other methods to acquire knowledge namely:
Authoritative sources
Authoritative sources may differ significantly on an issue
The Method of Tenacity
: involves holding on to ideas and beliefs simply because they have been accepted as facts for a long time or because of superstition.
One problem with the method of tenacity is that the information acquired might not be accurate
The Method of Intuition
: involves accepting information as true because it "feels right", or you have a "gut feeling" about the information.
The problem with the method of intu- ition is that it has no mechanism for separating accurate from inaccurate knowledge.
The Rational Method
: involves seeking answers by logical reasoning.
Non-systematic opinions/observation:
Personal experience / direct observation.
THEORY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH
Definition of Theory
A theory can be defined as a set of interrelated
constructs, definitions, and propositions
that presents a systematic view of phenomena
by specifying relations among variables
, with the purpose of explaining and predicting the phenomena’.
Theories are value-free propositions (They do not say which one is right or wrong)
Relationships between Theory and Research
Theory enables us to see
implications and relationships that are not evident
from any datum taken alone. Theory, therefore, stimulates and guides empirical investigation.
Related in the following ways
Testing theory
We use
research to test theory
The analysis of
research
is greatly
strengthened
in light of available
theory.
Theory helps
isolate variables
to be observed in research.
Theory structures how the findings will be expressed
for the purposes of generalization (i.e. it provides explanation of various findings that were already available)
Sometimes, research
hypotheses
are
derived from theory.
Research frequently results in the development and modification of theory.
ETHICS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
research ethics refer to the
responsibilities
of researchers to
respect all individuals
affected by their research studies and to ensure that these individuals are
not harmed
in any way by the research results or the process of conducting the research.
Failing to conduct research ethically not only destroys people’s respect and faith in scientific research but also impairs the research process
Ethical Concerns in Social Science Research
Ethical Concerns Relating to the Professional Conduct of Researchers
Misrepresentation:
This includes misrepresenting one’s findings by fabricating one’s data (i.e. research fraud) and misrepresenting one’s work by using another’s work as one’s own without proper acknowledgement (i.e. plagiarism)
•
Whistle-blowing:
This means that researchers should act morally and end unethical behaviour; whether that is done by their supervisors, their sponsors, or their organisation.
Publication credit:
This means that all researchers who have substantially contributed to a piece of research should be given authorship credit in all publications.
Ethical Concerns Relating to the Rights of Research Participants
Hadley & Mitchell (1995) identify four basic individual rights that are closely
related to research ethics
Privacy:
the right to decide what to disclose and what to hold about their information;
Fair treatment:
the right to receive fair (e.g. not being humiliated) and honest treatment (e.g. not being lied to)
Self-determination:
the right to determine what they will do (e.g. whether or not to participate in research) and what will happen to them (e.g. they may experience pain);
Freedom from harm:
the right to be free from harm (e.g. physical, psychological, and political harm);
Chapter 2: Varieties of Social Science Research
Three research approaches
There are atleast three different apporaches to sceices
positivist social science
interpretative social science
critical social science.
These approaches represent alternative assumptions and principles of observing, measuring, and understanding social world
Interpretative social science
One of three major approaches to social research that emphasizes
exploring and describing social actions within a context
understanding socially constructed meaning (Constructionist ontology)
value relativism
a voluntaristic view of human volition - Human actions based on subjective choices
Purpose
the goal of social research is to develop an understanding of social life and discover how people construct
meaningful social action
, not just people’s visible, external behavior
Nature of social reality
ISS employs a
Constructionist orientation.
i.e. An orientation toward social reality that assumes the
beliefs and meaning
that people create and use fundamentally
shape what reality is
for them
Nature of human being
Humans are interacting beings who create and reinforce shared meaning.
view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)
ISS adopts voluntarism and sees people as having volition (being able to make conscious choices).
Voluntarism
An approach to human agency and causality assuming that human actions are based on the
subjective choices and reasons
of individuals
Relationship between science and common sense
Positivists see common sense as being inferior to science. By contrast, ISS holds that ordinary people use common sense to guide them in daily life
View on explanations or theory of social reality
ISS is idiographic and inductive. Explanations are idiographic and advance via inductive reasoning
The purpose of ISS theory is to provide an interpretative explanation
Idiographic
A type of explanation used in interpretive social science in which the explanation is an in-depth description or picture with specific details but limited abstraction about a social situation or setting.
View on evidence
Social scientific evidence is contingent, context-specific, and often requires bracketing.
Bracketing
A strategy of interpretive social science researchers to
identify the taken-for-granted assumptions
of a social scene and then set them aside or hold them in temporary abeyance.
By recognizing and separating the ordinary, “obvious” meanings people use in daily life, researchers can better understand their role.
Social science should be relativistic regarding value positions.
View on true or false
Explanations are verified using the postulate of adequacy with people being studied
Postulate of adequacy
An interpretive social science principle that explanations should be understandable in commonsense terms by the people being studied.
Practical orientation
A pragmatic orientation toward social knowledge in which people apply knowledge in their daily lives; the value of knowledge is the ability to be integrated with a person’s practical everyday understandings and choices.
Critical social science
One of the three major approaches to social research that emphasizes:
chaninging/influencing social behaviours
Evaluate present day systems or social phenomena
and value-based activism for human empowerment.
Purpose
In the CSS view, the primary purpose of research is to
critique and transform
social relations by
revealing the underlying sources of social control
, power relations, and inequality
Nature of social reality
CSS adopts a critical realist ontology that views reality as being composed of multiple layers: the empirical, the real, and the actual
Nature of human being
CSS recognizes that people are rational decision makers who are shaped by social structures and creative beings who construct meaning and social structures
View on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)
CSS blends determinism and voluntarism to emphasize bounded autonomy
Bounded autonomy
An approach to human agency and causality used in critical social science that assumes human action is based on subjective choices and reasons but only within identifiable limits.
Relationship between science and common sense
CSS is of the position that Scientific knowledge is imperfect but can fight false consciousness.
False consciousness
An idea used by critical social science that people often have false or misleading ideas about empirical conditions and their true interests.
View on explanations or theory of social reality
Abduction is used to create explanatory critiques
Abduction
means making repeated reevaluations of ideas and data based on applying alternative rules or schemes and learning from each
Explanatory critique
A type of explanation used in critical social science in which the explanation simultaneously explains conditions (or tells why) events occur and critiques conditions (or points out discrepancies, reveals myths, or identifies contradictions).
Explanation is verified via praxis
Praxis
A way to evaluate explanations in critical social science by putting theoretical explanations into real-life practice and the subsequent outcome is used to refine explanation.
The relevance or use of social scientific knowledge
CSS researchers uses Reflexive-dialectic orientation and Transformative perspective
Reflexive-dialectic orientation
An orientation toward social knowledge used in critical social science in which subjective and objective sides are blended together to provide insights in combination unavailable from either side alone; the value of knowledge as a process that integrates making observations, reflecting on them, and taking action
Transformative perspective
The view that the researcher probes beyond the surface level of reality in ways that can shift subjective understandings and provide insights into how engaging in social-political action may dramatically improve the conditions of people’s lives.
Positivist
One of the three major approaches to social research that emphasizes:
discovering and explaining causal laws
empirical observations, and
value-free research.
Through a deterministic, realist ontology, in order to formulate theories and predictions
Purpose
Purpose of conducting Social sciences discover and document universal
causal laws
of human behaviour
Causal law
General cause–effect rules used in causal explanations of social theory and whose discovery is a primary objective of positivist social science.
Nature of social reality
Modern positivists adopt a
realist
ontology (i.e. materialism/ empirical observation)
Nature of human beings
assumes that humans are self-interested, pleasure-seeking/pain-avoiding, rational mammals. That learn by observing their external/social behaviour (a.k.a
mechanical model
of a man)
Mechanical model of man
A model of human nature used in positivist social science stating that observing people’s external behaviors and documenting outside forces acting on them are sufficient to provide adequate explanations of human thought and action.
View on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)
emphasizes the
determinism
of relationships and looks for determining causes or mechanisms that produce effects.
Determinism
An approach to human agency and causality that assumes that human actions are largely caused by forces external to individuals that can be identified.
View on explanations or theory of social reality
explanation is nomothetic.
I.e. A type of explanation used in positivist social science that relies heavily on causal laws and lawlike statements and interrelations.
View on true or false
PSS explanations must meet two conditions: They must
(1) have no logical contradictions and
(2) be consistent with observed facts,
Common Features of
The Three Major
Approaches to Social Science
all of the approaches say that the social sciences strive to create systematically gathered, empirically based theoretical knowledge through public processes that are self-reflective and open ended.
All are theoretical
.
The nature of theory varies, but all emphasize using ideas and seeing patterns. None holds that social life is chaos and disorder; all hold that explanation or understanding is possible.
All are public.
All say a researcher’s work must be expressed to other researchers; it should be made explicit and shared. All oppose keeping the research processes hidden, private, or secret.
All are systematic.
Each emphasizes meticulous and careful work. All reject haphazard, shoddy, or sloppy thinking and observation
All are open-end processes.
All see research as constantly moving, evolving, changing, asking new questions, and pursuing leads. None sees it as static, fixed, or closed/ set in stone/
All are empirical.
Each is rooted in the observable reality of the sights, sounds, behaviours, situations, discussions, and actions of people. Research is never based on fabrication and imagination alone
All are self-reflective.
Each approach says researchers need to think about what they do and be self-conscious. Research is never done in a blind or unthinking manner. It involves serious contemplation and requires self-awareness.
Chapter 3: The Research Process
Steps in the Research Process
4. Formulation of Research Design
Involves considering the strengths and weaknesses of different methods.
identify the specific procedures
that will be used to define and measure your variables and how you
plan to evaluate the internal and external validity and reliability
of your measurement procedure
decide between an experimental (cause-and-effect) or a descriptive, correlational or quasi-experimental research strategy
decide among betweensubjects, within-subjects, factorial or single-subject designs
5. Sampling
involves
identifying
the
target
population, defining the
characteristics
of the group and
sample size.
3. Formulation of the Research Problem or Research Hypothesis
Involves
narrowing
a broad and vague topic
to a specific
and manageable research
problem
To formulate research problems, researchers
have to identify the main elements
of the topic and
specify these elements
in a limited and researchable scope
6. Data Collection
involves the
gathering of measurable data
(either quantitative or qualitative) as in accordance with research design.
Measures are also evaluated
and possibly modified at this stage of pre-testing before a large amount of data is actually collected.
2. Literature Review
Involves essential for gathering relevant information about the topic
Reviewing the literature also gives you a
framework
for establishing the importance
of your study.
7. Data Analysis and Interpretation
Involves the
coding of data
to facilitate analysis and communication of results
involves applying appropriate descriptive and inferential
statistics to summarize and interpret the results
data are
summarized and interpreted in relation to the research question
1. Topic Definition
Involves deciding on what is the topic of interest.
may be very
broad
in the beginning,
but it will be tapered down
to a more specific research question or hypothesis after presenting the necessary lit. review.
8. Reporting of Research Results and Conclusions
invovles reporting your research results to your target audience
Characteristics of the Research Process
Interdependency
The processing of each of the research steps depends on the other steps.
i.e. you cannot analyse data before the data are collected
Replication of research process
Replication
of the research process is
possible.
The process does not have to be original. It may replicate other researchers’ previous work, but the replication usually does not have exactly the same specifications of every step of the process.
There are
usually modifications in conditions, to extend
the generality of results to other populations or to test theories from other perspectives
Spiral progression
can be conceived as a spiral, whereby researchers usually
start with Step 1 and work through to Step 8.
The research product (i.e. the knowledge and theories gained from research) adds to the literature in the field to answer old questions and generate new questions.
You may enter research at any point in the research cycle.
For instance, when you reach the final stage of the research process, you may either stop the process or begin another research cycle by exploring new questions.
Overlapping Steps
The steps of the research process may overlap.
You
may process two or more activities at the same time.
For instance, you may begin coding or preliminary analysis of some data while others are still being collected.
'Back and forth' process
may need to conduct review/re-examination throughout the process
For instance, if any of the steps is unsuccessful or has difficulties, you may go back to early stages and
review or revise steps in the process.
Systematic process
Ideally, and as outlined above and in many research method books,
research is planned, designed, and conducted fairly systematically
.
But as you actually carry out your research, you will find that it is to some extent a messy process.
This does not mean that the results are dubious or useless; rather, it means that research seldom proceeds as smoothly and completely as planned.
Types of research
non-experimental
correlational
quasi-experimental
descriptive
strategies
experimental
Quantitative vs Qualitative
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESEARCH APPROACHES AND METHODOLOGIES
Following are some of the implications of the positivist and interpretive approaches on research methodologies
Theory of social reality
Since
positivist research aims to discover universal laws
, which are defined in probabilistic terms, researchers have to present
data in numerical forms
so that computation can be carried out
interpretivists look for deep understanding of social phenomena
. They extend beyond numerical descriptions and rely on verbal or written descriptions for their rich capacity to convey meaning and communication.
what constitutes good evidence/ explanation
Positivists believe that reason and replication are two major criteria
to determine whether an explanation is true or false. They therefore demand
standard measures
/tools to measure and analyse observable behaviour in order to facilitate checking and repetition. They also rely on a less culturally bound language for communication – numerals, statistical methods, and logic shared among the ‘scientific fields’.
For
interpretivists, subjective understanding of the world is more important
for explaining behaviour, and therefore they delve into the interpretation of meaning by means of abstraction, comparison, identification of themes and the like.
Assumed relationship between common sense and science
Positivists regard science as logically consistent
, systematic, and free from biases. Thus they measure behaviour by ‘objective’ and ‘reliable’ tests/scales and present what is done in research systematically.
interpretivists think that common sense/ experience is a legitimate means
to acquire knowledge and therefore demand less in logical consistency or systematic presentation of data. Interpretivist data analyses rely heavily on the researcher’s intuition and experience in interpreting meanings
Perceived role of value in social science
Positivists think that social science should be value-free
. They try to avoid personal values and political influence from affecting research results by using standardized means to record and interpret test scores or measures
Interpretivists, on the other hand, allow for the existence of value throughout the research process. They
empathize with the researched targets’ situations and understand the researched phenomena according to the attitudes, beliefs, and values
of the research participants.
Distinction between Quantitative and Qualitative Methodologies
(Su1-23)
Research setting
Quantitative
research conducted in
artificial/ lab
setting
Qualitative
research conducted in
natural
setting
Nature of data
Quantitative
studies describe behaviours with
measures
or observable/ objective scales
Qualitative
studies usually describe behaviours in words/
subjective undersatnding
.
Research model
Quantitative
research
adopt natural/physical science
as a research model
Qualitative
research
rejects natural/physical sciences
model
Theory/Explanation
Quantitative
research is
deductive
and use theory or explanations to guide the development of the study
Qualitative
research is
inductive
and develops Theory or explanations out of the data in the study
Research focus
Quantitative
research is concerned with an
objective
reality
Qualitative
research is concerned with
meanings
and how individuals perceive their world.
Research product
Quantitative
research focuses on a
cause-and-effect
relationship
Qualitative
research emphasizes describing the development of a
process
, aiming at
identifying cultural patterns
Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative Research
Strengths
Researching people in natural settings may produce research results that are
closer to reality than quantitative data are.
(High external validity)
stresses interpretations and
meanings that are essential
in human lives.
(provides deeper understanding)
higher flexibility in the research process
Weakness
problems of reliability caused by
extreme subjectivity
(low internal validity)
personal values and
biases may enter
into the research process.
Entering the personal sphere of the researched
may violate ethical principles.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Quantitative Research
Strengths
Numbers enable
precise
description and effective
comparison
of things.
It reduces the effect of subjective judgements on data collection and analysis,
enhancing reliability
.
It is a relatively efficient way of data collection; it is
economical
Representativeness and
generalizability of results may be estimated
and checked.
Weaknesses
Statistical correlations may be based on ‘variables’ that, in the context of naturally occurring interaction, are
arbitrarily defined.
(high internal validity but low external validity)
Interplay between Quantitative and Qualitative Methodologies
Mixed Methodology involves combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches
I.e. combining qualitative interview with quantitative survey