Week 4 - Chapter 3 and 4

Positivism

- Dominant paradigm in social science - Least positivist - anthropology and history - Most positivist - Economics and experimental psychology - Middle - Political science and sociology - Dominated articles of major sociology journals in Britain, Canada, Scandinavia, and US during 1960s and 1970s - By 1980s and 1990s, declined sharply in European journals, but remained dominant in North American journals

Research Process phases

- Exploration - Research design - Research execution

Exploration

- Includes exploring and selecting research questions for further investigation, examining the literature to understand the current state of knowledge in that area, and identifying theories that may help answer the research questions of interest

Common mistakes in research

- Insufficiently motivated research questions - Pursuing research fads - Unsearchable problems - Favorable research methods - Blind data mining

Two areas of philosophy

- Ontology - Epistemology

Three approaches of social science

- Positivist social science - Interpretative social science - Critical social science

Basic positions within ontology

- Realists - Nominalist

Literature review purposes

- To survey the current state of knowledge in the area of inquiry; - To identify key authors, articles, theories, and findings in that area; - To identify gaps in knowledge in that research area

10 Questions - PSS

1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social science research? - Causal laws - the ultimate purpose of research is to obtain scientific explanation to discover and document universal causal laws of human behavior. 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? - Predict behavior - modern positivists adopt a realist ontology. They hold that reality exists "out there" and is waiting to be discovered. 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? - Mechanical model of man - observing people's external behaviors and documenting these outside forces acting on them are sufficient to provide adequate explanations of human thought and affection 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? - Determinism - PSS investigates how external forces, pressures, and structures that operate on individuals, groups, organizations, or societies produce outcomes. An approach to human agency and causality that assumes that human actions are largely caused by forces external to individuals that can be identified. 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? - Separate ways of knowing - science borrows some ideas form common sense, but it replaces the parts of common sense that are sloppy, logically inconsistent, unsystematic, or full of bias 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? - Nomothetic - type of explanation used in PSS that relies heavily on causal laws 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? - PSS explanations must meet two conditions - they must have (1) no logical contradictions and (2) be consistent with observed facts and can be replicated 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? - Adopts dualist view - assumes that cold, observable facts are fundamentally distinct from ideas, values, or theories. Evidence for causal law requires more than piling up supporting facts. It involves looking for evidence that contradicts the causal law. 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? - Uses instrumental orientation in which the relevance of knowledge is its ability to enable people to master or control events in the world around them; technocratic perspective wherein the researcher tries to satisfy the information needs of large-scale bureaucratic organizations 10. Where do sociopolitical values enter into science? - Term Objective has two meanings: (1) that observers agree on what they see and (2) that scientific knowledge is not based on values, opinions, attitudes, or beliefs

10 Questions - ISS

1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social science research? - Meaningful social interaction - develop an understanding of social life and discover how people construct meaning in natural settings. 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? - More nominalist ontology. Social reality is largely what people perceive it to be; exists as people experience it and assign meaning to it. 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? - Creating flexible systems of meanings 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? - Voluntarism - an approach to human agency and causality assuming that human interactions are based on subjective choices and reasons of individuals 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? - ISS holds that ordinary people use common sense to guide them in daily life. 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? - Theory for ISS tells a story. ISS describes and interprets how people conduct their daily lives. 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? - In ISS, a theory is true if it makes sense to those being studied and if it allows others to enter the reality of those being studied 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? - ISS sees the features of specific contexts and meanings as essential to understand social meaning. Evidence about social action cannot be isolated from the context in which it occurs or the meanings assigned to it by the social actors involved. 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? - Try to capture the inner lives and subjective experiences of ordinary people 10. Where do sociopolitical values enter into science? - Argues that researchers should reflect on, re-examine, and analyze personal points of view and feelings as part of the process of studying others

10 Questions

1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social science research? 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? 10. Where do sociopolitical values enter into science?

Nominalist

Assumes that humans never directly experience a reality out there. Our experience with what we call the real world is always occurring through a lens of interpretation and inner subjectivity

Literature review

Commonly done using keyword searches in online databases; should be reasonably complete, not restricted to a few journals, a few years, or a specific methodology

Research design

Concerned with creating a blueprint of the activities to take in order to answer research questions identified in the exploration phase. Includes: - Selecting a research method, - Operationalizing constructs, - Devising an appropriate sampling strategy

Ontology

Concerns the issue of what exists, or the fundamental nature of reality

Paradigm

General organizing framework for theory and research that includes basic assumptions, key issues, models of quality research, and methods for seeking answers

Epistemology

Issue of how we know the world around us or what claim about it is true

Pilot testing

Often overlooked but extremely important part of research process. Helps detect potential problems in research design and/or instrumentation and to ensure that the measurement instruments used in the study are reliable and valid constructs of the interest

Operationalization

Process of designing precise measures for abstract theoretical constructs. Starts with specifying an operational definition or conceptualization of constructs of interest

Inter-subjectivity

Rational people who independently observe facts will agree on them subjectively.

Rug example

Realist - a rug is something to cover a floor and walk upon Nominalist - what is the rug made of, how it was created, in what ways is it used, why is it here, how does a specific historical cultural setting and people's practices with it shape what we see

Realist

See the world as being "out there" - What you see is what you get - World is organized into pre-existing categories just waiting for us to discover

Interpretative Social Science

Systematic analysis of socially meaningful action through direct detailed observation of people in natural settings in order to arrive at understandings and interpretations of how people create and maintain their social worlds