Social Research Method

Social research involves the systematic collection and analysis of data related to the social world.

Introduction

Social research involves the systematic collection and analysis of data related to the social world. The goal of social research is to develop an understanding of social phenomena, uncover new insights, test theories, assess social interventions, and inform policy decisions.

Social research serves four primary purposes:

Exploratory research aims to generate new ideas and hypotheses. It focuses on discovering insights and familiarizing researchers with basic details.
Descriptive research presents a detailed profile of a group, process or relationship. It aims to describe social characteristics, contexts, trends, and changes over time.
Explanatory research goes beyond description to analyze and test theories about causal mechanisms and underlying processes. The goal is to understand why and how social phenomena occur.
Evaluative research collects data to evaluate a policy, program, or intervention. It assesses whether something is achieving its intended effects and outcomes.

These four purposes shape the methodology and approach taken in a social research project. While projects may incorporate multiple goals, one purpose tends to dominate the research questions, design, data collection, and analysis methods.

Exploratory Research

Exploratory research is conducted when a problem has not been clearly defined yet. The key goal is to develop preliminary ideas and gather information that will help define the problem and suggest hypotheses. Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data collection method, and selection of subjects. It often relies on secondary research such as reviewing available literature and data, or qualitative approaches such as informal discussions with consumers, employees, management or competitors, and more formal approaches through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies or pilot studies.

Exploratory research can involve:

Reviewing literature and previous research findings related to the problem
Interviewing experts on the subject
Conducting focus group interviews to explore consumers’ insights about the issue
Conducting in-depth individual interviews
Conducting projective techniques like word association, storytelling, third-person techniques, etc.
Conducting qualitative approaches like case studies on organizations that have faced similar problems before
Conducting pilot studies to test potential research approaches on a small scale before the main study

The findings from exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making on their own, but they can provide significant insights into a given situation and lay the foundation for future conclusive research. Exploratory research is flexible and can address research questions of all types (what, why, how). It is a valuable way to gain background information about the research problem and generate hypotheses that can be tested.

Descriptive Research

Descriptive research presents a profile of a group or describes a process, mechanism or relationship. It provides basic background information or context on a topic.

The main goals of descriptive research are to:

Present a profile of a group, event or situation
Describe a process, mechanism or relationship
Provide background information or context on a topic

Some key methods used in descriptive research include:

Surveys - Gather data from a sample through questionnaires or interviews
Observation - Directly observe and record behavior or events
Case studies - In-depth analysis of an individual, group or situation

Descriptive research is commonly used for:

Exploring the characteristics of a group, such as their demographics, attitudes, or behaviors
Monitoring changes and trends over time
Providing an overview of a topic before conducting more in-depth research
Gathering preliminary data to help design more targeted research studies

Some examples of when descriptive research is applied include market research surveys gathering data on consumer preferences, observational studies of teaching practices in classrooms, or case studies of unique medical conditions. The information gathered through descriptive research serves as a jumping-off point for future research.

Analytical/Explanatory Research

Analytical or explanatory research goes beyond simple description to model and test theories about the social phenomena under investigation. The goals of analytical research include:

Testing, refining, or elaborating on existing theories about social processes and relationships.
Developing new theories to explain observations and make predictions.
Identifying causal relationships between variables.
Gaining a deeper understanding of social mechanisms.

Analytical research utilizes both quantitative methods like surveys, experiments, and statistical analysis as well as qualitative methods like participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Analytical research is mostly used in basic, theoretical research rather than applied settings.

Some examples of analytical research projects include:

Testing different economic theories by analyzing historical data on inflation, unemployment, and growth rates.
Conducting lab experiments to understand how social norms influence individual behavior.
Developing new theories of gender identity formation based on in-depth interviews.
Analyzing crime records to test theories about the relationship between poverty and criminal activity.

The goal of analytical research is to move beyond surface description and shed light on the deeper social processes and structures that connect empirical observations. This type of research forms the backbone of building scientific knowledge in the social sciences.

Evaluative Research

Evaluative research is focused on collecting data to determine the effects or outcomes of a planned change or intervention, like a policy initiative or social program. The main goals of evaluative research are to:

Assess whether a program or initiative is achieving its intended aims and outcomes.
Identify strengths and weaknesses or areas for improvement.
Determine if a program should continue, be modified, or be discontinued.

Evaluative research utilizes both quantitative methods like surveys, as well as qualitative methods like interviews and focus groups. It can be conducted on a small or large scale. For example, evaluative research could examine the effectiveness of a new crime prevention program implemented in a local housing estate.

Evaluative research is generally used in applied research settings to evaluate the merit and worth of social programs, policies, or initiatives after they have been implemented. The findings from evaluative research can help policymakers and program administrators determine how to best allocate resources and make improvements. This type of research plays a key role in evidence-based policymaking.

Social research involves the systematic collection of data and observations to produce knowledge. It relies on scientific methods and empirical facts, rather than just common sense or personal experience.

Social research aims to be objective. The goal is to uncover truths about society through rigorous research, even if the findings contradict conventional wisdom or the researcher’s own beliefs. The research process and conclusions reached should be unbiased.

Social research is empirical at its core. This means that facts and observations are collected first, through objective research methods. After compiling evidence, the researcher then develops theories and conclusions based on the evidence. The data comes before any interpretation.

The social sciences are sometimes called the “soft sciences” in contrast to fields like physics and chemistry. This is because human societies and behaviors can be more difficult to measure and predict precisely compared to the physical world. But social research still strives to employ scientific rigor and empiricism to develop factual knowledge about the social world.

Social research aims to utilize scientific methods, theories and concepts to increase understanding of social processes and problems faced by groups in society. It moves beyond common sense, facts without theory, personal experience or media myths.

Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief

Social philosophers often mixed observations, speculations and ideas about how things should be.
Modern social researchers focus on how things actually are and why as scientists.
Science cannot determine if capitalism is better than socialism - this is left to philosophers.

Social research aims to find patterns of regularity in social life such as social norms.

Aggregates, Not Individuals

Social scientists study group motivations more than individuals.
Research objects are typically aggregates or collections, not individuals.

Concepts and Variables

A concept is an abstract idea or general notion.
A variable is a set of attributes, e.g. gender has attributes male and female.
Attributes describe an object like a person - female, Asian, alienated, etc.

The relationship between attributes and variables forms description and explanation in science. For example, describing a class’s gender breakdown into percentages of men and women uses the attributes of the gender variable.

Social theories are comprised of several key components:

Observation refers to empirical evidence gathered through seeing, hearing, or other senses. Observations are the raw data that theories attempt to explain.
A fact is a phenomenon that has been reliably observed. Facts are discoveries about the empirical world.
Laws are generalizations about classes of facts that hold universally and are not accidental. Laws summarize regularities in the world but do not explain them. There are no inviolable social science laws like those in physics.
A theory is a systematic explanation that relates observations to each other and provides an overarching framework for understanding some aspect of the world. Theories arrange facts and laws into a coherent model.
Concepts are the abstract building blocks representing classes of phenomena in a theory’s domain. Examples are human rights, social class, etc.
A variable is a concept comprising a set of attributes. Variables allow systematic description and correlation. Class revolution may correlate with the poverty variable.
Axioms are taken-to-be-true statements on which a theory is grounded. Axioms are the assumed starting points for theorizing.
Propositions are logical conclusions about relationships between concepts derived from axioms. E.g. “Humans have an innate moral sense.”
Hypotheses are specific, testable expectations that follow from propositions. E.g. “Humans have moral sense, so peaceful coexistence is possible.”

Theory Construction

There are two primary ways that theories are constructed in social research: deductive and inductive.

Deductive Theory Construction

Deductive theory construction involves using formal reasoning to derive theoretical expectations that can then be tested through observation and data collection. Researchers start with foundational assumptions or axioms and logically work through propositions and hypotheses. The hypotheses are then tested empirically.

For example, a researcher might start with the axioms that (1) humans are self-interested and (2) people try to maximize their gains. From these axioms, the researcher could propose that people will seek to minimize their losses in economic transactions. This proposition could lead to a hypothesis that buyers will negotiate for lower prices when making large purchases. The researcher could then design a study to test if this hypothesis holds true in the real world by observing buyer negotiation behavior.

The key aspect of the deductive approach is that theorists use abstract logic and reasoning to move from general principles to specific expectations. These hypotheses are then tested through empirical observation and measurement.

Inductive Theory Construction

Alternatively, theory can be built inductively by gathering empirical observations and extracting general principles and explanations. Rather than starting with abstract axioms, inductive researchers gather data and detect patterns, regularities, or correlations in the evidence. They interpret what they observe and build generalized conclusions and theories from the bottom-up.

For example, a researcher might observe that across many studies and contexts, increasing economic inequality in a society correlates with higher political polarization. From these observations, the researcher could inductively generate a theory that inequality causes political factionalism. Further observations could test this theory by gathering new evidence to see if the posited cause-effect relationship consistently appears across time and place.

Inductive theory construction moves from specific empirical facts to broad general principles. It builds theoretical explanations from the ground up. The resulting theories can then be tested deductively by deriving hypotheses and investigating if they hold true.

The key difference between deductive and inductive theory construction is the direction of the reasoning. Deductive theories move from abstract axioms to testable hypotheses. Inductive theories move from tangible observations to generalized explanatory principles. Both are valid scientific methods for developing theories that can advance knowledge.

Social research examines various units and focal points of analysis to study social phenomena. These include:

Individuals

Individual people are a common unit of analysis. Research may look at individuals’ characteristics such as gender, age, education level, income, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. It can also examine individuals’ attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, and personality traits.

Groups

Groups of people who share some commonality are another unit of analysis. Examples are ethnic groups, friendships groups, work groups, families, social classes, etc. Research on groups often looks at interactions between group members.

Organizations

Formal organizations like governments, companies, nonprofits, schools etc. are units of analysis. Research on organizations focuses on their policies, procedures, structure, goals, etc.

Objects created by people can be studied, like books, paintings, songs, scientific discoveries, etc. The aim is understanding the cultural significance.

Behaviors

Social interactions and actions are also units of analysis. Examples are friendship choices, voting behavior, participation in events, traffic accidents, crime rates, etc. The goal is finding patterns in human behaviors.

Characteristics

Attributes that can be measured are key focal points. Demographics like age, gender, income, education are commonly studied. Psychological traits like attitudes, personalities, prejudices, and beliefs are also analyzed.