Summary
Research Skills Reader
Chapter 1: Why Science?
What is Science?
Every discipline has a different subject matter, but they share three fundamental features of science:
1. Systematic empiricism: Empiricism refers to learning based on observation, and scientists
learn about the world systematically. They do so by planning, making, recording and
analyzing observations of it. Scientists are unique in their insistence on checking their ideas
about the way the world works against their systematic observations. When these systematic
observations turn out to conflict with their ideas, ideas should be adapted.
2. Empirical questions: Questions about the way the world is. These questions can be answered
by systematically observing them.
Example: The question of whether a particular investment strategy yields higher returns than
another is empirical. Either the investment strategy produces higher returns, or it does not.
This can be determined by systematically observing and analyzing financial data.
3. Public knowledge: After asking their empirical questions, making their systematic
observations and drawing their conclusions, scientists publish their work.
Example: Public article in a professional journal containing: the research question in the
context of previous research, a detailed description of the methods they used to answer their
question, and the presentation of their results and conclusion.
Publication is an essential feature of science for two reasons:
- Science is a remarkably social process. It is a large-scale collaboration among many
researchers distributed across both time and space. Our current scientific knowledge of most
topics is based on many different studies conducted by many different researchers who have
shared their work publicly over many years.
- Publication allows science to be self-correcting. Individual scientists understand that their
data or methods can be flawed, they might make mistakes, and their conclusions may be
incorrect. Publication allows other scientists to detect and correct these errors so that, over
time, scientific knowledge increasingly reflects the way the world actually is.
Because individual studies can be flawed, or specific to the time and place in which they were
conducted, academics typically don’t treat a single study as the final say on a certain subject.
Sometimes there is lots of debate on whether a certain effect, theory or finding actually exists, even
after many studies by many different authors. In order to settle such debates or test how widely
important theories and results apply; many disciplines have recently seen more large-scale replication
studies that test key theories in many different labs and locations at the same time.
, The broader purposes of business research
Science/business research has three goals:
1. Describe (how does something work?) > This goal is achieved by making observations.
Example: Perhaps I know different managers and observe that some are more successful at
managing their team than others. I could perform qualitative research, follow these
managers, and describe what they do throughout the day. Similarly, I could ask them to
participate in a survey in order to gain some sense of how large the difference between
successful and less successful managers is. Such approaches could help me move on towards
explaining what makes some managers more successful than others.
2. Explain (why does something work this way?) > determining the causes of behavior.
Example: I could survey many of the managers and ask them all kinds of questions on their
personality, management style, or other relevant characteristics. Subsequently, I could collect
data from the members of their team to assess how effective they think their manager is, or
perhaps collect some more objective measure of success. I could then use statistical methods
to see whether these things are related. If I find that they are, I have improved my
understanding of which factors specifically make managers successful, and how important
each of these factors is. If I find no connection between these factors and manager success, I
may need to revise my ideas of which factors are important and why. Therefore, in each case,
we have learned something.
3. Predict (how will something look in the future?) > once we have observed with some
regularity that two behaviors or events are systematically related to one another, we can use
that information to predict whether an event or behavior will occur in a certain situation.
Example: Once I understand which factors drive managers’ success, I can predict whether a
job candidate I want to hire is likely to be (or become) a successful manager by thinking
about how they ‘score’ on the set of characteristics that would make a manager successful.
Scientific research is often classified as being either basic or applied:
Basic research > Conducted primarily for the sake of achieving a more detailed and accurate
understanding of human behavior, without necessarily trying to address any practical
problem.
Applied research > Conducted primarily to address some practical problems. Research on the
effects of cell phone use on driving, for example, was prompted by safety concerns and has
led to the enactment of laws to limit this practice.
Many papers have both a ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ element to them, and many excellent studies
contribute both to theoretical and practical understanding.
Research Skills Reader
Chapter 1: Why Science?
What is Science?
Every discipline has a different subject matter, but they share three fundamental features of science:
1. Systematic empiricism: Empiricism refers to learning based on observation, and scientists
learn about the world systematically. They do so by planning, making, recording and
analyzing observations of it. Scientists are unique in their insistence on checking their ideas
about the way the world works against their systematic observations. When these systematic
observations turn out to conflict with their ideas, ideas should be adapted.
2. Empirical questions: Questions about the way the world is. These questions can be answered
by systematically observing them.
Example: The question of whether a particular investment strategy yields higher returns than
another is empirical. Either the investment strategy produces higher returns, or it does not.
This can be determined by systematically observing and analyzing financial data.
3. Public knowledge: After asking their empirical questions, making their systematic
observations and drawing their conclusions, scientists publish their work.
Example: Public article in a professional journal containing: the research question in the
context of previous research, a detailed description of the methods they used to answer their
question, and the presentation of their results and conclusion.
Publication is an essential feature of science for two reasons:
- Science is a remarkably social process. It is a large-scale collaboration among many
researchers distributed across both time and space. Our current scientific knowledge of most
topics is based on many different studies conducted by many different researchers who have
shared their work publicly over many years.
- Publication allows science to be self-correcting. Individual scientists understand that their
data or methods can be flawed, they might make mistakes, and their conclusions may be
incorrect. Publication allows other scientists to detect and correct these errors so that, over
time, scientific knowledge increasingly reflects the way the world actually is.
Because individual studies can be flawed, or specific to the time and place in which they were
conducted, academics typically don’t treat a single study as the final say on a certain subject.
Sometimes there is lots of debate on whether a certain effect, theory or finding actually exists, even
after many studies by many different authors. In order to settle such debates or test how widely
important theories and results apply; many disciplines have recently seen more large-scale replication
studies that test key theories in many different labs and locations at the same time.
, The broader purposes of business research
Science/business research has three goals:
1. Describe (how does something work?) > This goal is achieved by making observations.
Example: Perhaps I know different managers and observe that some are more successful at
managing their team than others. I could perform qualitative research, follow these
managers, and describe what they do throughout the day. Similarly, I could ask them to
participate in a survey in order to gain some sense of how large the difference between
successful and less successful managers is. Such approaches could help me move on towards
explaining what makes some managers more successful than others.
2. Explain (why does something work this way?) > determining the causes of behavior.
Example: I could survey many of the managers and ask them all kinds of questions on their
personality, management style, or other relevant characteristics. Subsequently, I could collect
data from the members of their team to assess how effective they think their manager is, or
perhaps collect some more objective measure of success. I could then use statistical methods
to see whether these things are related. If I find that they are, I have improved my
understanding of which factors specifically make managers successful, and how important
each of these factors is. If I find no connection between these factors and manager success, I
may need to revise my ideas of which factors are important and why. Therefore, in each case,
we have learned something.
3. Predict (how will something look in the future?) > once we have observed with some
regularity that two behaviors or events are systematically related to one another, we can use
that information to predict whether an event or behavior will occur in a certain situation.
Example: Once I understand which factors drive managers’ success, I can predict whether a
job candidate I want to hire is likely to be (or become) a successful manager by thinking
about how they ‘score’ on the set of characteristics that would make a manager successful.
Scientific research is often classified as being either basic or applied:
Basic research > Conducted primarily for the sake of achieving a more detailed and accurate
understanding of human behavior, without necessarily trying to address any practical
problem.
Applied research > Conducted primarily to address some practical problems. Research on the
effects of cell phone use on driving, for example, was prompted by safety concerns and has
led to the enactment of laws to limit this practice.
Many papers have both a ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ element to them, and many excellent studies
contribute both to theoretical and practical understanding.
