Fundamentals of Social Science

Research
Rubeena Zakar, MBBS, MPS, PhD (Germany)
Assistant Professor, Institute of Social and Cultural
Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore
 The Aim of Research

To move from subjective to more objective

knowledge of something:

Subjective
knowledge
An individual’s everyday
understanding that comes from
their values, experiences and
beliefs.
Objective
knowledge
Knowledge that is
independent of opinion,
prejudice and bias.

© onlineclassroom.tv 2007
The logic of research

“…as social scientist we believe that patterns and

regularities occur in society and that these are not
simply random. The task we are faced with is to ask
why these patterns exist: in other words to produce
explanations of them.
We couch these explanations in terms of theories.
Theories allow us to select out from a mass of confusing
material those elements of reality which are of concern
to us. On the basis of theory we can develop
hypotheses about relationships which ought to exist, if
the theory is valid.”
(Rose & Sullivan 1996, 10)
Classic hypothetic-deductive research
 Research strategies: Inductive and
deductive
• Inductive research strategy: first collect data
 observation  examine data 
construction of theory to explain the
relationship among the variables
• Deductive research strategy: Theory 
deduce specific hypothesis from the theory 
test hypothesis to discover whether there is
evidence to support it
 Inductive and deductive research
• Deduction: it can be seen as reasoning from
general understandings to specific
expectations
• Induction: it can be seen as reasoning form
specific observations to general explanations
 Theoretical Research
• Pertaining to theory
• Social research is theoretical
• Much of it is concerned with developing,
exploring, or testing the theories or ideas that
researchers have about how the world
operates
 Empirical, Probabilistic, Causal
Research
• Empirical/Probabilistic Research

• Based on direct observation and measurements of

reality
• Probabilistic Research
• Based on probabilities

• Causal Research
• Pertaining to a cause-effect relationship
Theoretical and empirical research
Types of Study: Description and
explanation
Types of Study: Relational and causal studies

Relational studies:
look at the relationship between two and more
variables

Causal studies:
To determine whether one or more variables cause or
affect one or more outcome variables.
Time in research: Cross-sectional Vs
Longitudinal research

Cross-sectional study: A study that takes place at a

single point in time

Longitudinal study: A study that takes place overtime

 measure participants on at least two separate
occasions or at least two points in time
Variables

Variable: Any entity that can take on different values

Are variables always quantitative?

What about treatment or program? Are they
variables?

Attribute: it is a specific value on a variable. E.g.

Gender has two attributes
Variable “agreement” has five attributes
 Variables …

Independent variable: The variable that you

manipulate. What you (or nature) do
E.g. Program or treatment or cause

Dependent variable: The variable affected by the

independent variable,
e.g. outcome
 Exhaustive and mutually exclusive property
of attributes

Exhaustive: Each variable attributes should be

exhaustive, that is, they should include all possible
answerable responses.
If you have too many attributes then list the most
common attributes and use for them general category
other

Mutually exclusive: that no respondent should be

able to have two attributes simultaneously. E.g.,
gender
Qualitative and quantitative research
The quantitative methods
 The unit of analysis
• The entity you are analyzing in your analysis
for example:
– Individuals
– Groups
– Artifacts (books, photos, newspapers)
– Geographical unit (town, census tract, state)
– Social interactions (divorce, arrest)
• Three research criteria:
– Reliability
– Validity
– Representativeness
 Reliability
• It refers to the quality of a measuring
instrument that would cause it to report the
same value in successive observations of a
given case
• Reliability concerns:
– Consistency of the data collected
– The precision with which it is collected
– The repeatability of the data collected method

– A method is more reliable if it can be easily repeated

• Data is reliable if the same results can be gained

by different researchers by asking the same
questions to the same people
 Validity
• An indicator is said to be very valid if it really
measures the concept it is intended to
measure
• Representativeness:
– Whether the results of research can be
generalized to wider populations
• Sampling is representative if the characteristics of the
sample group reflect the characteristics of the target
population
• Demographic data is representative if the information
collected is comprehensive
• Case studies can be representative if they are a typical
of the group or institution being researched
Ethical principles in obtaining data
• Voluntary particpation
• no harm may be done to the participants
• “informed consent“
• anonymity
• confidentiality
• Right to service
Thank you