The Uses of Social
Research
Chapter 1
Introduction
 Research question

A question about one or more topics or
concepts that can be answered through
research
Is almost everyone in the country married with
children or are they living alone?
Introduction
 Research question example

Is almost everyone in the country married with
children or are they living alone?
 Start by looking at Census data
Introduction
Introduction
 Revised research question

Are more young people planning to marry
without having children, to marry and have
children, or to live alone?
Introduction
STOP AND THINK

Can you think of a better way of finding how
young people plan to live in the future than with
the Census data about the year 2006?
Introduction
 Unit of analysis
 The
unit about which information is collected
Introduction
 STOP AND THINK

Identify the units of analysis for each of the
following studies


Southgate and Roscigno’s (2009) study that
found that involvement in music is associated
academic performance for both young children
and adolescents
Cooney and Burt’s (2008) finding that in
American counties where a particular crime
occurs frequently the average punishment for that
crime will be less severe than in counties where it
occurs rarely
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 Research is a way of knowing
 How do we “know” things?
 We collect data in a number of ways
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 Knowledge from authorities
 Socially defined sources of knowledge
 Mom, Census Bureau, social institutions (religion,
schools, news media)
 When we rely on physicians, clergy members, and
elected officials for information, we are putting our faith
in their knowledge in those positions of authority.
 Problems
 Inappropriate
 Misleading
 Incorrect
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 Knowledge from personal inquiry
 Inquiry that employs the senses’ evidence for arriving
at knowledge
 Example
 If the flu has been going around and your friends and
family have been ill and you begin to feel sick,
observing them to see what they are doing to get
better and what is working is an example of personal
inquiry
 Problems
 Overgeneralize
 Perceive Selectively
 Premature Closure
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 The Scientific Method
 A way of conducting empirical research
following rules that specify objectivity, logic,
and communication among a community of
knowledge seekers, and the connection
between research and theory
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 The Scientific Method

Positivist view of science


A view that human knowledge must be based on
what can be perceived
Objectivity

The ability to see the world as it really is
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 The Scientific Method
 Post-positivist view of science


A view that knowledge is not based on irrefutable
observable grounds, that it is always somewhat
speculative, but that science can provide
relatively solid grounds for these speculations
Intersubjectivity

Agreements about reality that result from
comparing the observations of more than one
observer
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 The Scientific Method

Strengths





The promotion of skepticism and intersubjectivity
The extensive use of communication
Teaching ideas factually
The use of logic
Theoretical explanation
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 STOP AND THINK


Suppose I submit a research report to a
journal and the journal’s editor writes back that
the journal won’t publish my findings because
expert reviewers don’t find them persuasive.
Which of the strengths of the scientific method
is the editor relying on to make his or her
judgment?
Research versus Other Ways of Knowing
 The Scientific Method

Theory

An explanation about how and why something is
as it is.
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Uses of social research

Basic research

Research designed to add to our fundamental
understanding and knowledge about the social
world
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Uses of social research

Applied research

Research intended to be useful in the immediate
future and to suggest action or increase
effectiveness in some area
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Uses of social research

Social theory

Explanations about how and why people act in
certain ways
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Purposes of social research

Exploratory research
 Ground-breaking research on a relatively
unstudied topic or in a new area
 Tends to be inductive
 The researcher starts with observations about the
subject and tries to develop tentative generalizations
about it
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Purposes of social research

Qualitative data analysis
 Analysis that tends to involve the interpretation of
actions or the representations of meanings in
words
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Purposes of social research

Descriptive research
 Descriptive study
 Research designed to describe groups, activities,
situations, or events
The Uses and Purposes of Social Research
 Purposes of social research

Quantitative data analysis

Analysis based on the statistical summary of data
The Uses and Purposes of Social
Research
 Purposes of social research

Explanatory research
 Research designed to explain why subjects vary in
one way or another
 Tends to be deductive
 Often uses preexisting theories to decide what kinds of
data should be collected

Example
 Let’s say that there is a well-known theory that we can call
“The General Attraction Theory” and that it suggests that
people who are physically attractive get more of society’s
rewards than less attractive people. If we have a
hypothesis that people who are physically attractive are
more likely to be hired for certain jobs than their less
attractive peers and wanted to test this theory in a specific
industry – we would be conducting explanatory research
The Uses and Purposes of Social
Research
 Purposes of social research

Evaluation research
 Research designed to assess the impacts of
programs, policies, or legal changes
The Uses and Purposes of Social
Research
 STOP AND THINK
 Suppose you’ve been asked to learn
something about the new kinds of
communities that have arisen out of people’s
use of tweets and twitter.
 Of the four kinds of research outlined above
(exploratory, descriptive, explanatory,
evaluation), what kind of study have you been
asked to do?
Summary
 Professional and practical benefits
 Creation of usable theories about our social
world
 Social research methods can help us explore,
describe, and explain aspects of the social
world, as well as evaluate whether particular
programs or policies actually work.
Why are you in this class?
 Learn to be an informed consumer of
research

A statistic by itself is only one piece of
information
 You have to be accountable for your work
 You have ethical responsibilities
Quiz – Question 1
If we are presenting a detailed picture of a
population, in terms of gender, age, income,
residence, we have most likely conducted
a.
b.
c.
d.
evaluation research.
exploratory research.
explanation research.
descriptive research.
Quiz – Question 2
In many ways, the scientific method
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
compensates for the shortcomings of other
approaches to knowledge.
relies exclusively on the word of
“authorities” and “personal inquiry”.
emphasizes the value of communities of
scientists and critical skepticism.
both A and C
all of the above
Quiz – Question 3
Which of the following statements is factually
testable?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
All extra-terrestrials have large skulls.
Individuals with more education earn more
than less educated individuals.
The death penalty is less moral than firstdegree murder.
War should be outlawed.
None of the above