Social Science Research and Methodology

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEACH
Babu.MT
LISSAH

Questions
• Introduction
• What is research
• Social science research or social work research?
• Propose of SR
• What we can do with research
• Recent Trends in Social Science Research
BMT-LISSAH 2/20/2012

• Sciences are broadly divided into natural and
social science
• Social science includes various disciplines
dealing with human life ,behavior, social groups
and social institution
• They consists of anthropology, behavioral
sciences,commmerce,demogrphy,economics,edu
cation,geography,history,law,legislation,;linguist
ics,management,political sciences, psychology,
public administration ,sociology and social work

• Social sciences are not exact sciences like
physical sciences. it always deals with human
nature and environment and which is so
complex. no one person is consistent from one
moment to another.
• A controlled experiment is not possible in social
sciences but it is sine qua non of empirical
sciences
( how the discipline gathered information?)

Four Methods
( Knowledge Gathering)
• Research is intended to bring knowledge
• For this knowledge accumulation 1)tradition,
2)authority, 3)practical wisdom,4)problem
solving methods were applied (check)

Reserach
Phase-1
Defining
problem
Phase-2
Determining
Solution
Phase-3
Implementation
Phase -4
Evaluation
Problem solving method

• Discussing Research in this context
• What you think about Research?
• Qualities required to become a good
reseracher? (your thoughts)

Research
• Composed of two words re and search
• Again, or over again/closely, carefully, to test or
to probe
• A noun describing a careful and systematic
study in some field of knowledge undertaken to
establish facts or principles

• Research is a structured inquiry that utilizes
acceptable scientific methodology to solve
problems and create new knowledge that is
generally applicable

Research( Defined as )
• “Research is an Endeavour to discover, develop and
verify knowledge –Rumnell
• Scientific research is a systematic and objective
effort to offer solutions to problems
• Research invokes cause and effect relationships and
helps to formulate policies and programmes

• “it is systematic and objective attempt to study
a problem for the purpose of deriving general
principles” (Theodorson & Theodorson)
• “It is systematic investigation to find solutions
to a problem”. Robert Burns

Social Science Research
• It is systematic method of exploring analyzing
and conceptualizing human life in order to
extend ,corrector verify knowledge of human
behavior and social life .it seeks to find
explanations to unexplained social phenomena
,to clarify the doubtful and correct the
misconceived facts of social life .

Objectives of Research
• To discover new facts
• Verify and test old facts
• To understand human behavior
• To know connection between human activities
and natural laws
• To develop new scientific tools concepts and
theories –Extend the area of knowledge

• To understand the functioning of the society.
• To study individual behavior and social action.
• To evaluate social problems ,their effects,
solution
• To explore social reality
• To develop theories ( Tasks :Read Theories)

• Becker 1989,Sarantokos 1998
• General goals
• Theoretical goals
• Pragmatic goals
• Political goals
• Mahr (1995)- Educational
• Personal
• Institutional
• Political
• Tactical

Scope of social science research
• The fields are unlimited
• Every phase of social phenomena
• Every phase of human life
• Every stage of past and present development are
materials for the Social scientist
• Interdisciplinary approach
(Identify areas)

Limitation of SS research
• Scientist :
• Complexity of the subject matter
• Human problems /refusal of respondents
• Personal values
• Anthropomorphization
• Wrong decisions

Can be viewed as
• A systematic and scientific study of a
phenomenon to create new knowledge or
to increase existing fund of knowledge.

• Activity undertaken with personal need or
purpose is not consider as research.
• Research shall be scientific, library
oriented,

• Royce A Singleton “ Scientific* Social Research
consists of the process of formulating and
seeking answers to questions about the social
world.”
• *What is Mean By A Scientific Method???

Steps
• Theodorson & Theodorson(1969)
• defining Problem
• stating the Problem
• Devise hypothesis
• Data collecting procedure
• Gathering data
• Analyzing data
• conclusions

• Kenneth D Bailey (1982)
• Choosing research problem & stating hypothesis
• Formulating the research design
• Analyzing the data
• interpreting the results

Basic Steps in Research
Data
collection
Testing
Hypothesis
inferences
prediction
Practical
application
Causal observation Event
Curiosity
Hypothesis

Research Process
1. Selection of Problem
2. Review of Literature
3. Formulating Hypothesis/Objectives
4. Preparing a Research Design
5. Data Collection
6. Analysis of Data
7. Conclusions/Suggestions
8. Research Report
Assignment Supply Format for Proposal and Start work on that)

Types and Method of research
• Pure and applied
• Exploratory research
• Diagnostic study
• Evaluation study
• Action Research
 Experimental research
 Analytical study
 Historical research
 Survey research

Pure &Applied
• It is also known as basic or fundamental
research
• It is initiated out of intellectual curiosity or
inquisitiveness
• Initiated for the sake of knowledge without any
intention to apply it in practice( Einstein theory
of relativity, Newton's law)
• It will lead to discovery of other areas like new
theory or refinement of the existing theory
• It lays foundation for applied research

Applied Research
• It is problem oriented and action oriented
research initiated to find out solution to areal
life problem requiring an action or policy
decision
• It always focusing for an immediate and
practical results
• Applied research have a vast scope in the fields
of technology, management, commerce
,economics, and other social sciences

Exploratory research
• Exploratory study is a preliminary study of an
unfamiliar problem about which the researcher
has little or no knowledge
• It is ill structured and much less focused on
predetermined objectives
• To generate ideas, to increase the familiarity of
researcher about the problem
• To make a precise formulation of the problem
etc(more note )

Descriptive research
• It is the simplest form of research. it is a fact
finding investigation with adequate
interpretations
• t is more specific than exploratory research
• It is designed to gather descriptive information
information and provides information for
formulating more sophisticated study

criteria
• The problem must be descriptive
• The data should be assessable to an accurate
objective
• It should be possible to develop valid studies of
comparison
• It should lead itself to verifiable procedure of
collection and analysis of data

objective
• Identifying the various characteristics of a
community institutions or problem under study.
but it does not deal with testing of hypothesis
,but it can reveal the relationship b/w variables
• Usefulness
• Development of young sciences
• Highlighting of methodological aspects of data
collection &interpretation
• Prediction
• Providing facts

Diagnostic study
• It is more or less same to the descriptive study
but with a different focus.
• It intends to discover what is happening ,why it
is happening ,what can be done about it
• It aims at identifying the problem and the
posssible solution for it
• Requirement

Evaluation study
• It is one type of applied research .made for
assessing the effectiveness of social economic
programmmes implemented or for assessing the
impact of development project on the
development of the project area such as
determination of the results attained by some
activity designed o accomplish some values or
goals or objective

• The propose of the study is asses or appraise the
quality and quantity of an activity and its
performance and to specify its attributes and
conditions required for its success or failure
• The change that brought by the project is also
assessed in evaluative study.
• Concurrent evaluation, periodic valuation,
terminal evaluation are different types of ER

Action Research
• It is type of evaluative study.
• It is concurrent evaluation study of an action
programmme launched for solving a problem
for improving an existing situation

Experimental research
• It is designed to asses the effects of particular
variables on a phenomena by keeping the other
variable constant or controlled.
• It aims at determining whether and in what
manner variables are related to each other.
• The factor which is influenced by other factors
is called dependant variables.
• And other factors which influence it are known
as independent variables

• For eg: agricultral productivity /ph productivity
is determined by the fertility,
Irrigation,manuring etc.
• Qualitative & Quantitative Research?????

Historical Research

Social Science Research and Methodology

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