THEORY AND OTHER ELEMENTS
OF RESEARCH
BUSN 364 – Week 4
Özge Can
A research example:
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
Neuman, Chapter 3 (pg.55)
Question: Why do people smoke cigarettes?
Theory of social resources:
More educated, high income people tend to smoke less
 However, smoking is more than a health issue...


Theory of cultural taste:
Pampel (2006): Is taste in music related to smoking
because of the different life styles?
 Finding: Jazz lovers in general are more likely to
smoke than nonjazz lovers of the same social class.

8
Theory...
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Helps us to understand the complexities of social life
Explains why people do what they do
Clarifies and systematize thinking, extends
understanding, deepends discussions and enriches
analysis
Plays critical role in advancing knowledge and
organizing the way we conduct research
Theory...

Has multiple meanings in daily life so don’t confuse!

Theory is NOT:
 Our
explanations in daily life
 General worldviews; the way of seeing, interpreting and
understanding events
 Criticisms based on a political or moral viewpoints;
belief/value-based critiques
 Philosophical commentaries
What is THEORY?


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A system of interconnected ideas that condenses and
organizes the knowledge about the world and
explains how it works
Classical social theorists => e.g. Durkheim, Marx, Smith,
Mills, Weber
More recent theorists => e.g. Bourdieu, Giddens,
Goffman, Foucault, Krugman
Although they generate many new ideas and theories,
we all can use theory!
What is THEORY?

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A good research involves theory. If theory remains
unclear, incomplete or poorly formulated => it is a
weak research
Theories are not static: we constantly modify older
theories and develop new ones
Validity = Accuracy of a theory in explaining/
predicting things
Parsimony = the idea that simple is better; everything
else being equal, a theory that explains more with less
complexity is better
“There is nothing so practical as a good
theory.”
- Kurt Lewin
Summary Table: Theory versus Ideology
Basis of Difference
Ideology
Theory
Certainty of asnwers
Absolute, certain asnwers
with no questions
Tentative conditional answers
that are incomplete and
open ended
Type of knowledge
Closed, fixed belief systems
Open, expanding
Type of assumptions
Based on faith, moral belief
or social position
Based on open, informed
debate and rational
discussions
Use of normative claims Descriptions, explainations
and normative claims all
merged
Seperation of descriptions,
and explanations from
normative claims
Empirical evidence
Selective use, avoiding direct Considering all evidence,
tests; resistance or denial of seeking repeated tests,
contrary evidence
change with new evidence
Logical consistency
Contradictions and logical
fallacies
Highest level of consistency;
avoiding logical fallacies
The Parts of Theory

Assumptions
 An
un-tested starting point in a theory that is necessary
in order to build a theoretical explanation

Concepts
 An
idea that is thought, carefully defined and made
explicit in a theory that we can express as a word or
symbol

Relationships
 Whether
if so, how
the concepts are connected to one another and
Concepts

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They are everywhere, we use them all the time
Concepts have two parts: a symbol (a word, term, a
written character) and a definition.
We find them easy to use but difficult to define or
describe
 For
example: “Height”
 A characteristics of a physical object indicating the
distance from top to bottom.
 The word “height” refers to an abstract idea. We
associate a sound and a written symbol to this idea.
Relationships

Proposition

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A theoretical statement about the relatipnship between two
or more concepts
Hypothesis
An empirically testable version of a theoretical proposition
that is yet to be tested or verified with empirical evidence
 It is most used in deductive theorizing
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Unit of analysis => In research, we must fit the concepts to a
specific type of unit of social life: individual people, groups,
organizations, movements, exchanges, institutions, countries etc.
Abstract and Empirical Levels
Proposition
Abstract
level
Treatment
to
employees
Employee
loyalty
Hypothesis
Empirical
level
Social security &
other benefits
Annual
turnover
Some Important Aspects of Theory

Direction of theorizing
 Either
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Level of analysis
 Micro,

deductive or inductive
macro or meso
Forms of explanation
 Causal,

structural, interpretative
Range of a theory
 Empirical
generalization, a middle-range theory, a
framewoek
Direction of Theorizing in Research

Deductive Approach: Start with abstract concepts and
propositions then evaluate them against empirical
evidence
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We go from ideas, theory or a mental picture toward
observable empirical evidence
Inductive Approach: Start with specific observations of
the empirical world and then generalize from this
evidence to build toward abstract ideas

We go from empirical observations toward theoretical
concepts and propositions
Causal Explanation

A theoretical explanation about why events occur
or how things work in terms of a cause-effect
relationship among concepts/variables
 Example:

“Higher poverty causes crime rates to increase”
Three requirements of causality:
1. Temporal order
2. Empirical association
3. Elimination of alternative explanations
Causal Explanation
1) Temporal order:
 The
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cause must come earlier in time than an effect
Difficult in cross-sectional research: Like a chicken-and-egg
problem
To resolve it researcher needs to bring in other information
or a research design to test for temporal order
Simple causal relations are unidirectional (single direction).
More complex relationships: mutual or simultaneous
causation
Causal Explanation
2) Association:
 Two
phenomena occur together in a patterned way or
appear to act together.
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When one event happens or is present, the other one is
likely to happen or be present as well.
It is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of
causality:
 An association exists between the day of the week and
the exam grades.
Causal Explanation
3) Eliminating Alternatives:
 We
must show that the effect is due to the causal
variable, not to something else.
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In experiments, we build controls into the study design
In non-experimental research, we identify possible
alternative causes and measure them. Once we measure
them, we can use statistical techniques to control them
Causal Explanation

A positive relationship means that a higher value on
the cause goes with a higher value on the effect or
outcome
 Example: As the number of years of a person’s schooling
increases, the longer the person’s life expectancy is.

A negative relationship means that a higher value on
the cause goes with a lower value on the effect or
outcome
 Example: As the number of years of a person’s schooling
increases, his/her prejudice decreses.
Examples of Causal Relationships
Positive relationship:
Positive and negative relationship:
Positive path relationship:
Role of Theory in Research Process:

Close interaction between theory and research
findings:
 Helps
to make connections and see the broader
significance of research findings: To see the forest
instead of just a single tree
 We refuse, extend or modify a theory based on
empirical results of a research.

More central to basic-explanatory research; more
indirect impact in applied-descriptive research
Social Theory Examples:
The Philosophy of Science

We can define science in two ways:
1) What practicing scientists actually do?
2) What philosophers have claimed as the core
meaning of science?
What makes social science scientific?

There is no single answer; there is no one way to do
science => There are multiple alternative approaches
The Philosophy of Science

Ontology:
 The
issue of what exists; the fundamental nature of
being. Asks the question: “what reality is?”

Two basic positions:
 Realist
=> see the world as being “out there”. The
world exists independent of humans and their
interpretations of it.
 Nominalist (subjectivist) => humans never directly
experience reality “out there”. Our experience is always
occuring through the lenses of interpretations and
subjectivity.
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The positions are on a continuum:
The Philosophy of Science
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Epistemology:
 The
issue of how we know the world around us; the
knowledge of the world
 “How we know what we know or what are the most
valid ways to reach truth”
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Realist position: we can produce knowledge and learn about
reality by making careful observations of it.
Nominalist position: making observations will not lead to
knowledge about reality because interpretations and
subjective views influence all observations
Three Major Approaches:
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Positivist social science
 Emphasizes
discovering causal laws, careful empirical
observations and value-free/ objective research

Interpretive social science
 Emphasizes
meaningful social action, socially
constructed meaning and value relativism
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Critical social science
 Emphasized
competing surface-level distortions,
multiple levels of reality and value-based activism for
human empowerment
Positivist Social Science:
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The purpose of science is to discover laws
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The reality is empirically evident
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Humans are rational thinking
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View on human agency: deterministic
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Scientific knowledge is different from and superior to all other
knowledge
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Explanations are causal and advance by deductive reasoning
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Explanations are verified using replication by other
researchers
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Social science should be value-free and objective
Interpretive Social Science:
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The purpose of science is to understand social meaning
in context
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The reality is socially created
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Humans interact and create shared meaning
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View on human agency: voluntaristic/ autonomy
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Scientific knowledge is no better than other knowledge forms

Explanations are in-depth descriptions and advance by
inductive reasoning
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Scientific evidence is contingent and context specific
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Social science should be relativistic regarding social positions
Critical Social Science:
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The purpose of science is to reveal what is hidden
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The reality has multiple layers

Social life is relational
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View on human agency: bounded autonomy
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Scientific knowledge is imperfect but can fight false
consciousness
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Explanations are based on critiques and verified through
praxis
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Social science contains a moral-political dimension there is
unequality in terms of human freedom and empowerment
Common Features of the Three
Approaches:
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All are empirical.
All are systematic.
All are theoretical.
All are public.
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All research studies are explicit and shared; transparent
All are self-reflective.
All are open-end processes.
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All see research as constantly moving, evolving, changing and
asking new questions