Areas of knowledge
HUMAN SCIENCES
Human Sciences -Overview
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What are the human sciences?
Studying people from the outside – human
experiments – predicting human behaviour.
Considerations for this form of study.
Studying people from the inside – surveys,
questionaires and interviews.
Considerations for this form of study.
Interpreting and using data.
Conclusions – to what extent are the human
sciences useful? What are the problems
associated with these areas of study?
Discussion
What are the human sciences?
 In
pairs - List the subjects you think are in
this Area of Knowledge.
 Note briefly what each one studies.
Some of the Human Sciences
•Anthropology
•Human biology
•Business studies
•Communication studies
•Criminology
•Demography
•Development studies
•Economics
•Education
•Human geography
•Industrial relations
•Law
•Media studies
•Medicine
•Methodology
•Philosophy
•Political science
•Political theory
•Psychiatry
•Psychology
•Public administration
•Social policy
•Sociology
Discussion
What are the human sciences?
 Table
discussion-On your list, show any
interconnections you can find.
 What do these subjects all have in
common?
 Write a definition for your group– what are
the human sciences?
What are the human sciencesa definition.
Human
sciences are the study of
human behaviour, the patterns in
human society and individual
actions.
Methodology?
In pairs: How do Human Scientists “find out?”
•Anthropology
•Human biology
•Business studies
•Communication studies
•Criminology
•Demography
•Development studies
•Economics
•Education
•Human geography
•Industrial relations
•Law
•Media studies
•Medicine
•Methodology
•Philosophy
•Political science
•Political theory
•Psychiatry
•Psychology
•Public administration
•Social policy
•Sociology
METHODOLOGY
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Questionnaires and surveys
Interviews
Observation
Gathering and interpretation of statistics
Study of written sources (official records,
books…)
Study of artefacts
experiments
Group discussion (tables)
How
do human scientists
use all the ways of knowing
in their studies?
Studying human beings – ways
of knowing
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In their studies, human scientists take a range of
approaches, using all the ways of knowing.
From the outside – sense perception, using careful
observation with the challenge of inferring the
meaning of activities observed.
From the inside – language – in interviews,
questionaires.
In some fields emotional empathy is also relevant.
Reasoning – in planning investigations, drawing
conclusions, making higher level generalisations.
Human sciences – who is in the
centre?
Where do we place ourselves, psychologically
and culturally, as we learn?
• Discussion (table)
Anthropology: what problems do you foresee in the study
of other cultures?
To what extent can we understand a culture through
observation?
• Homework – complete this reflection.
1. Methodology in the human
sciences - Human experiments –
predicting human behaviour.
Asch experiment
USF elevator experiment
In pairs:
What do these videos demonstrate about human
behaviour?
How might this affect the outcome of an experiment and
how might we make allowances for it?
2. Methodology in the human
sciences - Human experiments –
predicting human behaviour.
 The
Milgram experiment.
Does this experiment show any additional considerations
for human experiments?
What ethical problems does this raise?
 Discussion
(tables) - Studying people from
the outside – observations, lab
experiments. What are the considerations
for this form of study? Difficulties,
problems, challenges, requirements.
 Homework – complete this reflection for
homework.
Issues in Experimentation
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Agreed definitions
Cultural assumptions and biases – in design; in what is
observed; in interpretation
People as the subject/ interaction between scientist
and subject
Behaviour of people being observed … (the
observed respond to the expectations of the
observer)
Hawthorne Effect (presence of observers produces a
bias and unduly affects the outcome of the
experiment)
Controlled or repeat experiments (impossible in
almost all cases)
Surveys, interviews and
questionaires.
• Discussion (pairs) - What problems
with interviews as a methodology
does Sir Humphrey demonstrate?
Questionaire: (groups)
 Identify
at least 10 flaws that make this
questionaire and its subsequent
interpretation unlikely to gather
accurate information.
 What
skills must the human scientist
possess to find out information through
questioning?
The placebo effect
• Discussion (pairs): What are the
implications of this phenomenon for
human scientists?
Surveys and interviews considerations
 Scope
and scale
 Sample size and choice
 Question(er) bias/ loaded questions
 Quality of answers
 Assumptions?
 Choice of language
 Reliance on memory
 Reporting – reliability
 Consideration of alternatives
 Representation of conclusions
Lies, damned lies and statistics
• Discussion - Which of the human sciences
might rely heavily on statistics to build
knowledge? Give examples of how they do this.
• What are some of the pitfalls of building
knowledge in this way?
Discussion (tables):Human Science Knowledge Issues and links with
other WOKs and AOKs
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In what senses can empathy, intuition and feeling be considered
legitimate or especially powerful ways of knowing in the human
sciences?
How might the language used in polls, questionnaires and other
information-gathering devices of this sort influence the conclusions
reached?
What are the main difficulties human scientists confront when trying
to provide explanations of human behaviour? What methods have
been invented to circumvent these difficulties and to minimize their
influence on the results that are obtained?
How does the use of numbers, statistics, graphs and other
quantitative instruments affect the way knowledge claims in the
human sciences are valued?
In what ways might the beliefs and interests of human scientists
influence their conclusions? Do the same considerations apply in
other areas of knowledge such as the natural sciences or
mathematics?
What differences and similarities are there between the human
sciences and the natural sciences, in terms of both their methods
and procedures for gaining knowledge and the nature of the
knowledge produced?
 Homework
To what extent are the human sciences
useful? What are the problems associated
with these areas of study?
Complete this reflection.