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Research Methods Revised

This document discusses research methods in the social sciences. It outlines various approaches to research including flexible designs like case studies and ethnography, and fixed designs like experiments and surveys. It also discusses different methods for collecting data such as interviews, questionnaires, observation, and documentary analysis. The key purposes of social science research are described as description, exploration, explanation, and emancipation.

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Nika Sedaghati
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31 views15 pages

Research Methods Revised

This document discusses research methods in the social sciences. It outlines various approaches to research including flexible designs like case studies and ethnography, and fixed designs like experiments and surveys. It also discusses different methods for collecting data such as interviews, questionnaires, observation, and documentary analysis. The key purposes of social science research are described as description, exploration, explanation, and emancipation.

Uploaded by

Nika Sedaghati
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Research Methods in Social

Sciences
Social Science Research
• Methods as well-stablished traditional approaches in doing research
in disciplines of
• Psychology
• Sociology
• anthropology
• Education
• Health sciences
• Concern for truth: You should work:
• Systematically
• Skeptically
• Ethically
Social Science Research
• Research purposes: What the research project seeks to achieve
• Description: to find out what variables are involved in a phenomenon
• Exploration: explore poorly understood areas
• Explanation: explain a phenomena through intervention and testing the
effect of one variable on another
• Emancipation: doing research on people trying to empower them; much like
what feminist research has done to women
Social Science Research
• Design as your plan for collecting and analyzing primary data
• Two types of design:
• Flexible design or qualitative research: preliminary work to sort out the focus
and the general approach and initial ideas about the research questions
• Early-stage data collection
• Proceeding based on what you infer from early-stage data collection
• Evolving design
• Research questions are likely to change
• Fixed design or quantitative research:
• Working out most aspect of design before data collection
Flexible Design Research
• Action research
• Aiming to bring change; directly involving the researcher and
participants
• Provides a means of addressing and resolving practical problems
• Suitable for practitioner researchers like teachers and nurses
• If successful it can lead to cycles of development and change in an
organization
Flexible Design Research
• Case study
• Focusing on a single case or a number of cases; cases can be individuals,
institutions, or situations
• Providing an opportunity to study in depth complexities, relationships,
and processes
• Encourages the use of multiple sources of data
• Entails longitudinal designs
• Typically seek to focus on situations as they occur naturally
Flexible Design Research
• Ethnography
• Focusing on the description and understanding of the life and customs of
people living in a specific culture
• Relies on direct participant observation
• Suitable for studies focusing on how members of a culture see events
• Rich data focusing on processes and relationships set in a context
• Moving from description and explanation
Fixed Design Research
• Experimental research
• Manipulating or changing certain aspects of what is studied
• Involves allocation of people to experimental and control groups
• Follows tight specification of the conditions under which the intervention is
going to be exercised
• Involves testing hypotheses using statistical procedures
Fixed Design Research
• Survey research
• Involves collecting data from a group of people on a range of
variables using questionnaires or structured interviews
• Large sample sizes can be involved with low cost.
• Acceptable response rate is necessary.
Social Science Research
• Documentary analysis
• Close analysis of documents as in historical research
• Analyzing archived media sources
• Government archives
• Analyzing any leftover from the past
Methods of Collecting Data
• Interviews
• Need for a voice recorder
• Need for developing empathy with the interviewee
• Need for good social skills
• Need for preparation and piloting
• Having a chance to evaluate the responses
• Having a chance to ask probing questions to delve deeper into the
interviewee's answers
Methods of Collecting Data
• Questionnaires
• Collecting data from a large sample
• Using pre-coded answers
• Need for careful planning
• Developing or borrowing a questionnaire
Methods of Collecting Data
• Structured observation
• Used to observe and analyze a wide range of situations
• A record of what people actually do
• Produces coded quantitative data which can easily be analyzed
• Need for high levels of reliability in collecting data
Methods of Collecting Data
• Participant observation
• Little or no need for special equipment
• Full participant or marginal participant
• Generating rich qualitative data
• Need for extended involvement in a setting
Methods of Collecting Data
• Documentary analysis
• Getting hold of the document may not be easy.
• Need for assessing the credibility of the document
• Documents being two removes from reality: interpretation of the
author and interpretation of the researcher

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