Social research

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For the journal, see Social Research (journal).
"Sociological methodology" redirects here. For the journal, see Sociological Methodology.
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Social research is

social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative.[1]

  • Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable evidence, and often rely on statistical analyses of many cases (or across intentionally designed treatments in an experiment) to create valid and reliable
    general claims. Related to quantity.
  • Qualitative designs emphasize understanding of social phenomena through direct observation, communication with participants, or analyses of texts, and may stress contextual subjective accuracy over generality. Related to quality.

Most methods contain elements of both. For example, qualitative data analysis often involves a fairly structured approach to coding raw data into systematic information and quantifying intercoder reliability.[2] There is often a more complex relationship between "qualitative" and "quantitative" approaches than would be suggested by drawing a simple distinction between them.

Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyze a vast breadth of social phenomena: from analyzing census survey data derived from millions of individuals, to conducting in-depth analysis of a single agent's social experiences; from monitoring what is happening on contemporary streets, to investigating historical documents. Methods rooted in classical sociology and statistics have formed the basis for research in disciplines such as political science and media studies. They are also often used in program evaluation and market research.

Methods

Social scientists are divided into camps of support for particular research techniques. These disputes relate to the historical core of social theory (

social actions may choose ethnographic participant observation or open-ended interviews. Studies will commonly combine, or triangulate
, quantitative and qualitative methods as part of a multi-strategy design.

Sampling

Typically a population is very large, making a

purposive sampling, snowball sampling).[3] The most common reason for sampling is to obtain information about a population. Sampling is quicker and cheaper than a complete census
of a population.

Methodological assumptions

Social research is based on

applied research
. Pure research has no application on real life, whereas applied research attempts to influence the real world.

There are no laws in

testing
these hypotheses to see if they are true.

Social research involves creating a theory, operationalization (measurement of variables) and observation (actual collection of data to test hypothesized relationship). Social theories are written in the language of variables, in other words, theories describe logical relationships between variables. Variables are logical sets of attributes, with people being the "carriers" of those variables, for example, gender can be a variable with two or more attributes: male, female and non-binary gender.

Variables are also divided into

dependent variables
(which scientists are trying to explain). For example, in a study of how different dosages of a drug are related to the severity of symptoms of a disease, a measure of the severity of the symptoms of the disease is a dependent variable and the administration of the drug in specified doses is the independent variable. Researchers will compare the different values of the dependent variable (severity of the symptoms) and attempt to draw conclusions.

Guidelines for "good research"

When social scientists speak of "good research" the guidelines refer to how the science is mentioned and understood. It does not refer to how what the results are but how they are figured. Glenn Firebaugh summarizes the principles for good research in his book Seven Rules for Social Research. The first rule is that "There should be the possibility of surprise in social research." As Firebaugh (p. 1) elaborates: "Rule 1 is intended to warn that you don't want to be blinded by preconceived ideas so that you fail to look for contrary evidence, or you fail to recognize contrary evidence when you do encounter it, or you recognize contrary evidence but suppress it and refuse to accept your findings for what they appear to say."

In addition, good research will "look for differences that make a difference" (Rule 2) and "build in reality checks" (Rule 3). Rule 4 advises researchers to replicate, that is, "to see if identical analyses yield similar results for different samples of people" (p. 90). The next two rules urge researchers to "compare like with like" (Rule 5) and to "study change" (Rule 6); these two rules are especially important when researchers want to estimate the effect of one variable on another (e.g. how much does college education actually matter for wages?). The final rule, "Let method be the servant, not the master," reminds researchers that methods are the means, not the end, of social research; it is critical from the outset to fit the research design to the research issue, rather than the other way around.

Explanations in social theories can be

idiosyncratic
causes of a particular condition or event, i.e. by trying to provide all possible explanations of a particular case. Nomothetic explanations tend to be more general with scientists trying to identify a few causal factors that impact a wide class of conditions or events. For example, when dealing with the problem of how people choose a job, idiographic explanation would be to list all possible reasons why a given person (or group) chooses a given job, while nomothetic explanation would try to find factors that determine why job applicants in general choose a given job.

Research in science and in social science is a long, slow and difficult process that sometimes produces false results because of methodological weaknesses and in rare cases because of fraud, so that reliance on any one study is inadvisable.[4]

Ethics

Further information: Human subject research

The ethics of social research are shared with those of medical research. In the United States, these are formalized by the

Belmont report
as:

Respect for persons

The principle of respect for persons holds that (a) individuals should be respected as autonomous agents capable of making their own decisions, and that (b) subjects with diminished autonomy deserve special considerations.[5] A cornerstone of this principle is the use of informed consent.

Beneficence

The principle of beneficence holds that (a) the subjects of research should be protected from harm, and, (b) the research should bring tangible benefits to society. By this definition, research with no scientific merit is automatically considered unethical.[5]

Justice

The principle of justice states the benefits of research should be distributed fairly. The definition of fairness used is case-dependent, varying between "(1) to each person an equal share, (2) to each person according to individual need, (3) to each person according to individual effort, (4) to each person according to societal contribution, and (5) to each person according to merit."[5]

Types of methods

The following list of research methods is not exhaustive:

Foundations of social research

Sociological positivism

The origin of the

positivist philosophy of science
in the early 19th century.

Émile Durkheim

Statistical sociological research, and indeed the formal academic discipline of sociology, began with the work of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). While Durkheim rejected much of the detail of Auguste Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method, maintaining that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and insisting that they may retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality.[9] Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method (1895).[10] In this text he argued: "[o]ur main goal is to extend scientific rationalism to human conduct. ... What has been called our positivism is but a consequence of this rationalism."[11]

Durkheim's seminal monograph,

psychological) causes. He developed the notion of objective suis generis "social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study.[9] Through such studies he posited that sociology would be able to determine whether any given society is "healthy" or "pathological", and seek social reform to negate organic breakdown or "social anomie". For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning".[12]

Modern methodologies

In the early 20th century innovation in survey methodology were developed that are still dominant. In 1928, the psychologist Louis Leon Thurstone developed a method to select and score multiple items with which to measure complex ideas, such as attitudes towards religion. In 1932, the psychologist Rensis Likert developed the Likert scale where participants rate their agreement with statement using five options from totally disagree to totally agree. Likert like scales remain the most frequently used items in survey.

In the mid-20th century there was a general—but not universal—trend for American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due to the prominence at that time of action theory and other system-theoretical approaches.

statistical survey analysis,[14] panel methods, latent structure analysis, and contextual analysis.[13] Many of his ideas have been so influential as to now be considered self-evident.[13]

See also

Social research organizations

References

  1. ^ Shackman, Gene. What is Program Evaluation, A Beginner's Guide. Module 3. Methods. The Global Social Change Research Project. 2009. Available at http://www.ideas-int.org. See Resources.
  2. PMID 17286625
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-00-715447-0
    . Chapter 14: Methods
  4. ^ "This was the biggest political science study of last year. It was a complete fraud". Vox. 20 May 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  5. ^ a b c "Belmont report". The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. April 18, 1979. Archived from the original on April 5, 2004.
  6. ^ A. H. Halsey (2004), A history of sociology in Britain: science, literature, and society, p. 34
  7. ^ Geoffrey Duncan Mitchell (1970), A new dictionary of sociology, p. 201
  8. ^ Willcox, Walter (1938) The Founder of Statistics.
  9. ^ a b Wacquant, Loic. 1992. "Positivism". In Bottomore, Tom and William Outhwaite, ed., The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought
  10. ^ Gianfranco Poggi (2000). Durkheim. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  11. ^ Durkheim, Emile. 1895. Rules of the Sociological Method. Cited in Wacquant (1992).
  12. ^ Durkheim, Émile [1895] The Rules of Sociological Method 8th edition, trans. Sarah A. Solovay and John M. Mueller, ed. George E. G. Catlin (1938, 1964 edition), p. 45
  13. ^
    doi:10.1093/ijpor/13.3.229
    .
  14. ^ Lazarsfeld, P. F., & Henry, N. W. (1966). Readings in mathematical social science. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Further reading

External links

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