Social Research Methodology
Chapter 1 The nature and process of social research
Academic research focus on people and their institutions. The aim is to understand, explain and
answer questions about the social world. Often motivated by developments and changes in society.
Social research denotes academic research on topics relating to questions relevant to the social
scientific fields, such as sociology, human geography, social policy, politics and criminology. Social
research involves research that draws on the social sciences for conceptual and theoretical
inspiration. People do social research because they may find a gap in the literature or an
inconsistency between a number of studies or an unresolved issue in the literature. Another is when
there is a development in society that provides an interesting point of departure for a research
question.
Axomia = een onbewezen, op ervaring berustende, aanvaarde stelling op grond van theorie.
The following factors form part of the context within which social research and its methods operate:
The theories that social scientists use to understand the social world have an influence on
what is researched and how research findings are interpreted. The topics that are
investigated are profoundly influenced by the available theoretical ideas.
The existing knowledge about an area is which a researcher is interested forms an important
part of the background within which social research takes place. This means that someone
planning to conduct research must be familiar with the literature on the topic of interest. You
must be acquainted with what is already known about the research area.
The researcher’s views about the nature of the relationship between theory and research also
have implications for research. For some researchers, theory is addressed at the beginning of
a research project. The researcher might engage in some theoretical reflections out of which
a hypothesis is formulated and subsequently tested.
The assumptions and views about how research should be conducted influence the research
process. It is often assumed that a ‘scientific’ approach should be followed, in which
hypothesis is formulated and then tested using precise measurement techniques. Such
research definitely exists, but the view that this is how research should be done is not
universally shared (=epistemological). They raise questions about the issue of how the social
world should be studied and whether a scientific approach is the right stance to adopt.
The assumptions about the nature of social phenomena influence the research process too.
The social world should be viewed as being external to social actors and something over
which they have no control. It is simply there, acting upon and influencing their behaviour,
beliefs and values (=ontological). They invite us to consider the nature of social phenomena –
are they relatively inert and beyond our influence or are they very much product of social
interaction.
The values of the research community have significant implications for research. Ethical
issues have been a point of discussion and indeed often of considerable dissension, over the
years. It is now almost impossible to do certain kinds of research without risking the
condemnation of research community and possible censure form the organization in which
researchers are employed. Ethical values and the institutional arrangements that have arisen
in response to the clamour for ethical caution have implications for what and who can be
researched and for how research can be conducted.
What is research for? Many social scientists feel that research should have a practical purpose
and that it should make a difference to the world around us. Such emphasis means that the
social sciences should emphasize implications for practice.
, Social research operates within a wider political context. Much social research is funded by
the government. This will mean that certain research issues are somewhat more likely to
receive financial support.
The training and personal values of the researcher form a component of the context of social
research methods in that they may influence the research area, the research questions, and
the methods employed to investigate these. Our experiences and interests frequently have
some influence on the issues we research.
The following elements are part of the process of social research:
Literature review: the existing literature is an important element in all research. We must
know:
o What is already known about the topic?
o What concepts and theories have been applied to the topic?
o What research methods have been applied to the topic?
o What controversies exist about the topic and how it is studied?
o What clashes of evidence (if any) exist?
o Who the key contributors to research on the topic are?
Concepts and theories: concepts are the way that we make sense of the social world. They
are labels we give to aspects of the social world that seem to have common features that
strike us as significant. For example, bureaucracy, power, social control, cultural capital and so
on. Concepts are a key ingredient of theories. They help us to think about and be more
disciplined about what we want to investigate.
Research questions: are important in research because they force you to consider the most
basic of issues. Research questions force you to consider the issue of what it is you want to
find about much more directly on what it is that you want to know about. If you don’t specify
clear research questions, there is a great risk that your research will be unfocused and that
you will be unsure about what your research is about.
Sampling cases: social research is not always carried out on people. We also use techniques
as content analysis. With something like media content, the data come from newspaper
articles or television programmes rather than from people.
Data collection: data collection represents the key point of any research project for many
people. Some methods entail a rather structured approach to data collection, like
questionnaire or a structured interview. More open-minded measures are participant
observation and semi-structured interviewing.
Data analysis: Data analysis is a stage that incorporates several elements. It might be taken to
mean the application of statistical techniques to data that have been collected.
Writing up: There are slightly different ways in which social research gets written up, and
these very according to the different styles of doing research. More structured kinds or
research are sometimes written up differently from more open-ended research. However,
there are some core ingredients that most dissertations, theses, and research articles will
include:
o Introduction
o Literature review
o Research methods
o Results
o Discussion
o Conclusion
,Chapter 2 Social research strategies: quantitative research and qualitative
research
Theory is important because it provides a backcloth and justification for the research that is being
conducted. It also provides a framework within which social phenomena can be understood and the
research findings can be interpreted.
Theory is an explanation of observed regularities. Grand theories operate on a high level of
abstraction. They guide or influence the collection of empirical evidence or to draw an inference from
it that could be tested, the searcher would find it difficult to make the necessary links with the real
world. Even highly abstract ideas must have some connection with an external reality.
Middle-range theories, unlike grand ones, operate in a limited domain, whether it is juvenile
delinquency, voting behaviour, educational attainment or ethnic relations. They vary in their range of
application. Middle-range theories represent attempts to understand and explain a limited aspect of
social life.
The background literature is as a proxy for theory, like prior research. And empirical generalization is
an isolated position about a relationship between two or more variables.
An empiricist believe that knowledge should be gained through sensory experience. The term
empiricism is used in a number of different ways, but two stand out. First, it is used to denote a
general approach to the study of reality that suggests that only knowledge gained through experience
and the senses is acceptable. This means that ideas must be subjected to the rigours of testing before
they can be considered knowledge. The second meaning is related to this and refers to a belief that
the accumulation of ‘facts’ is a legitimate goal in its own right. This is sometimes referred to as naïve
empiricism.
Deductive theory represents the commonest view of the nature of the relationship between theory
and social research, whereby the researcher draws on what is known about in a particular domain
and on relevant theoretical ideas in order to deduce a hypothesis that must then be subjected to
empirical scrutiny. The researcher must both skilfully deduce a hypothesis and then translate it into
operational terms. Deductive approach is usually associated with quantitative research.
Premise A: All men are mortal
Premise B: Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal (= the hypothesis to be tested)
Hypothesis
Data revision of
Theory Hypothesis Findings confirmed
collection theory
or rejected
Induction is when the researcher infers the implications of his or her findings for the theory that
prompted the whole exercise.
Premise A: All the swans I saw last week were white
Premise B: All the swans I saw this week were white
All swans are white
Inductieve confirmatie = je kan niet altijd een universele uitspraak stellen als ‘alle zwanen zijn
wit’. Dat kan pas als waar worden aangenomen op grond van falsificatie: een theorie
bedenken en deze ontkrachten (een niet-witte zwaan vinden)
, Epistemological considerations
An epistemological issue concerns the question of what is (or should be) regarded as acceptable
knowledge in a discipline. In the social science, a central issue is the question of whether the social
world can and should be studied according to the same principles, procedures, and ethos as the
natural sciences.
The doctrine of positivism has a lot of different meanings. Some writers, say it’s a descriptive
category, one that describes a philosophical position that can be discerned in research. For others, it’s
a negative term used to describe crude and often superficial practices of data collection. Positivism
entails the elements of both deductive and inductive approach.
Positivism is an epistemological position that advocates the application of the methods of the natural
sciences to the study of social reality and beyond. Positivism may be taken to entail the following
principles.
1. Only phenomena and hence knowledge confirmed by the senses can genuinely be warranted
as knowledge (the principle of phenomenalism)
2. The purpose of theory is to generate hypotheses that can be tested and that will thereby
allow explanations of laws to be assessed (the principle of deductivism)
3. Knowledge is arrived at through the gathering of facts that provide the basis for laws (the
principle inductivism)
4. science must (and presumably can) be conducted in a way that is value free (that is objective)
5. There is a clear distinction between scientific statements and normative statements and a
belief that the former is the true domain of the scientist. The last principle is implied by the
first because the truth or otherwise normative statements cannot be confirmed by the
senses.
Realism is another philosophical position that provides an account of the nature of scientific practice.
Interpretivism is the opposite of positivism and says that that a strategy is required that respects the
differences between people and objects of the natural sciences. They share a view that the subject
matter of the social sciences is fundamentally different form that of the natural sciences. The study of
the social world requires a different logic of research procedure, one that reflects the distinctiveness
of humans. There is a division between an explanation of human behaviour (positivist approach) and
understanding of human behaviour (heurmanutics /interpertivism). Verstehen (Max Weber)
described sociology as a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in
order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.
Phenomenology is a philosophy that is concerned with the question of how individuals make sense
of the world around them and how in particular the philosopher should bracer out preconceptions in
his or her grasp of that world.
Ontological considerations
Question of social ontology are concerned with the nature of social entities. The central question is
whether social entities can and should be considered objective entities that have a reality external to
social actors, or whether they can and should be considered social constructions built up from the
perceptions and actions of social actors. These two positions are referred to objectivism and
constructivism.
Objectivism is an ontological position that asserts that social phenomena and their meanings have an
existence that is independent of social actors. It implies that social phenomena and the categories
that we use in everyday discourse have an existence that is independent or separate from actors.
Karl Popper Objectivism: if theories are not supported they can be thrown away.
