Foundations of Research Methods
Week 1
EPPS 2301: Research in the Social and Policy Sciences
Factors that compromise our ability to
understand the world around us
• Traditions
• Authority
• Inaccurate observations
• Overgeneralizations
• Selective observation
• Illogical reasoning
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Cognitive Bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people
are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and
affects the decisions and judgments that they make.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Cognitive Bias
“Four widespread cognitive biases and how doctors can overcome
them” (American Medical Association)
1. Confirmation bias: selectively gathering and interpretation evidence to conform with
one’s beliefs
2. Anchoring bias: prioritizing information and data that support one’s initial impressions
of evidence
3. Affect heuristic: actions are swayed by emotional reactions instead of rational
deliberation
4. Outcomes bias: believing that clinical results—good or bad—are always attributable to
prior decision
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/ethics/4-widespread-cognitive-biases-and-how-doctors-can-
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Research Enterprise
Modern society relies on research
Research allows us to:
Universe Cosmos
• Explore our universe
• Explore our environment
• Use and create new technology
• Understand ourselves
Contexts
Tools
US
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
What is research?
• Research is systematic investigation
• Research is empirical
• Research is transparent and open to criticism
• Research is a public effort
The Research Enterprise:
The macro-level effort to accumulate knowledge
across multiple empirical systematic public
research projects
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Social Research
• Regarding our societies, things we do, how we interact,
how we live, how we feel, how we see ourselves
• Sociology, education, public health, criminology, housing,
public welfare, psychology, etc.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Research to Practice Continuum
Translational Research:
The systemic effort to move research from initial
discovery to practice and ultimately to impacts on
our lives.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Research to Practice Continuum
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Basic and Applied Research
Basic Research: Designed to generate
discoveries and to understand how the
discoveries work
Applied Research: Projects where a
discovery is tested under increasingly
controlled conditions in real-world contexts
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Research to Practice Continuum
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Implementation research
Research that examines how well can a discovery be implemented in and
disseminated in a broader range of contexts that extend beyond the original
controlled studies
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Research to Practice Continuum
EPPS 2301: Research in the Social and Policy Sciences
Policy and Impact Research
Policy research: Research that is designed to investigate existing
policies or develop and test new ones
Impact research: Research that assesses the broader effects of a
discovery or innovation on society
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Where do research ideas come from?
 Seeing practical problems in the field
 Reviewing the literature or existing evidence
 Requests for research proposals [RFPs]
 Generating your own research ideas
 Reading the news from reputable outlets (e.g. The Economist, WSJ, NY
Times, etc.)
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Literature Review
 A systematic compilation and written
summary of the literature published in
scientific journals that is related to a
research topic of interest
 The literature included should be peer
reviewed and conducted early in the
research process
 Peer review is a system for ensuring the
accuracy and methodological integrity of
published research articles
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The Language of Research
THEORETICAL: Social research is concerned with developing,
exploring, or testing the theories or ideas that researchers have
about how the world operates
EMPIRICAL: Based on observations and measurements of reality
PROBABILISTIC: Based on probabilities
CAUSAL: Pertaining to a cause-effect relationship
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Descriptive Research
Answers who, what, when, why, where or so
what?
Documents what is going on or what exists
There is no manipulation of behaviors
Quantitative or qualitative in nature
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Relational Research
Looks at relationships between two or more variables
Does not examine how one variable impacts another
Example: Positive relationship between studying for a test and test
performance
• Results will not indicate that studying for a longer period of time
will automatically lead to improved performance or a higher grade
• What other factors may impact how well you perform on that test?
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Challenge for Correlational Research:
The Third Variable Problem
In a correlational relationship, it is
often a third variable that is
causing the synchronization
between two correlated variables
Z
An example: Cities with a greater
number of churches have a higher
crime rate. What factor may
A
B
explain this relationship?
Is it only through Z that there is a
relationship between A and B
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Types of Relationships
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Causal Studies
The goal of causal research is to provide evidence
of the effectiveness of a program, intervention, or
policy change on one or more desired outcomes.
Causal studies are also called, experiments,
randomized control trials (RCTs) or quasiexperimental studies
X
Y
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Baseline Equivalence: A defining feature of
causal studies
Key characteristic: equivalence across observable
and unobservable characteristics between groups
affected and not affected by intervention, policy, or
program
Only statistical difference between these
two groups is that one received an
intervention the other did not; otherwise
they look the same
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
How Time Factors in Research Studies
Cross-sectional studies
–Take place at a single point in time
• Repeated measures designs
–Uses two or a few waves of measurement
• Time series designs
–Uses many waves of measurement (more than 20)
Longitudinal studies
–Follow the same individuals over multiple measurement
waves
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
What kind of research study is this?
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
What kind of research study is this?
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Types of Data
Qualitative data
• Data that are in the form of text,
pictures, sounds, etc.
Quantitative data
• Data that are in numeric form
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Variables: What are they?
VARIABLE: Anything that can vary can be a variable
• Income, individual’s sex
• Variables are made of attributes, which are
specific values of a variable (Individual’s sex =
male or female)
Two types of variables:
• Independent variable (X): the variable you
manipulate
• Dependent variable (Y): the variable that is
affected by the independent variable.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Attribute Requirements
Exhaustive: Variables should include all possible answerable responses
Mutually exclusive: No respondent should be able to have two attributes
simultaneously
Both
English
Spanish
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Units of Analysis
Unit of Analysis: The entity you are analyzing in
your analysis
• Individuals
• Groups
• Artifacts (e.g., traffic intersections, books, photos,
newspapers, etc., etc.….)
• Geographical units (e.g., towns, counties, states)
• Social Interactions (e.g., dyadic relations, divorces,
arrests)
Unit of Analysis:
It is the analysis you do in your study that
determines what the unit is.
Comparing two children’s test scores vs.
Comparing two classrooms test averages
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Let’s say we are interested in understanding how
race/ethnicity influences income.
• What would be my independent and dependent
variables?
• How would ensure that your variable capturing
race/ethnicity was mutually exclusive and
exhaustive?
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
What is a hypothesis?
Hypothesis: a specific statement of prediction
Describes in concrete terms what you expect to happen in
your study
Informed by a theoretical or conceptual framework
Found in quantitative research
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Developing a hypothesis
Let’s say that we want to examine the relationship
between juvenile delinquency and social class
1. How you will measure social class, delinquency?
 Social class = “family income”
 Delinquency = “number of arrests”
2. Second, measure the specified variables
 Social class = “Family income” (measured on a continuum
in dollars)
 Delinquency = “Number of arrests” (a count of arrests)
Social Class
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Alternative and Null Hypotheses
Alternative hypothesis (H1A)
–A specific statement of prediction stating what you expect will happen in your
study
–Delinquency is negatively associated with social class
Null hypothesis (H0)
–A specific statement that predicts there will be no effect of a program or
treatment you are studying
–Delinquency is not associated with social class
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
One or Two-Tailed Hypotheses Tests
One-tailed hypothesis test
–A hypothesis that specifies a direction
Two-tailed hypothesis test
–A hypothesis that does not specify a direction
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Deductive Reasoning
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
An example of deductive reasoning
All mammals nurse their
young.
Whales are mammals.
Therefore whales
nurse their young.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Inductive Reasoning
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
An example of inductive reasoning
Being black must be a distinguishing feature of
crows.
All the crows I have seen are black.
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
The structure of research
Begin with broad questions
Narrow down focus
Operationalize: “the act of translating a construct into its
manifestation”
Observe
Analyze data
Reach conclusions
Generalize back to questions
EPPS 2301: Research Design in the Social and Policy Sciences
Validity: Making sound inferences