Lesson 3: Social

Science Research and

Methodology
Introduction
✗ Research in the field of social
sciences primarily deals with
people and their life situations.
✗ While research in the natural
sciences is concerned in
explaining the nature's
phenomena.
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Introduction
✗ There is much difficulty in the
study of people and their behavior
because human decisions and
experiences vary tremendously
while taking into consideration of
a magnitude of a cultural and
individual assumptions and
suppositions. 3
Social Science Research
✗ Involves in discovering and
learning new things by following a
systematic plan of action
applying principles of research.

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Social Science Research
✗ It is an indespensable means for
understanding and appreciating a
wide array of phenomena and
events in our everyday lives.

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ It utilizes a wide array of
techniques that principally draws
upon the methods employed in
the different major disciplines in
the field.

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ In Anthropology- importance of
ethnography.
✗ Sociology- case studies, or
naturalistic observation.
✗ Psychology- conduct laboratory
observation with humans as
subjects.
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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ These various discipplines employ
different methods like survey,
structured interview, informal
interview, key informant, focus
group discussion, observational
analysis, content analysis and
field experiment.
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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Features of quantitative and
qualitative research.
✗ In social statistics, collection and
analysis of data may involve both
quantitative and qualitative
approaches.

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Quantitative Style
✗ - measure objective facts
✗ - focus on variables
✗ - reliability is the key
✗ - statistical analysis
✗ - researcher is detached

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Qualitative Style
✗ - construct social reality, cultural
meaning
✗ - focus on interactive processes,
events
✗ - authenticity is the key

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Qualitative Style
✗ - situationally constrained
✗ - researcher is involved

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Both style is used in social
science.
✗ Demographers utilize statistics
on birth, deaths and diseases that
are quantitative in nature.

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ In psychology, experts may try to
understand emotions and ideas
by stimulating laboratory
experiments.

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Approaches in Social
Science Research
✗ Quantitative Style
✗ - objective, deductive,
generalizable, numbers
✗ Qualitative Style
✗ - subjective, inductive, not
generalizable, words

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The Quantitative Approach
✗ It gives importance to the
systematic and empirical
investigation of occurrence by
way of statistical analysis,
computational method, and
other observable variables.

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The Quantitative Approach
✗ Generated data from a
quantitative research may be in
numerical form such as statistics
or percentages.
✗ Yield results can be generalized
and apply into a larger group.

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The Quantitative Approach
✗ Since data are presumed value-
free and independent in context,
researchers hope to bring in
precise and accurate findings.

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Quantitative Techniques
and Methods
✗ Survey
✗ - same set of questions are given
to pre- determined respondents/
participants.
✗ Structured interview
✗ - undertaken using a prepared set
of questions.
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Quantitative Techniques
and Methods
✗ Experiments in Psychology
✗ - follows guidelines employ in the
natural sciences wherein
responses are normally empirical
in nature and conditions are
strictly set and controlled.

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The Qualitative Approach
✗ Method that employs asking a set
of questions while collecting data
from participants themselves.
✗ A researcher attempts to
discover themes and explain the
context or patterns present in
that group of people from the
gathered data. 21
The Qualitative Approach
✗ The qualitative technique asks the
important questions “how” and
“why” as researchers try to
uncover the deeper meaning of
numerical figures and gather
extensive insights pertaining to
human behavior
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Qualitative Techniques and
Method
✗ Ethnography- a detailed and
general description of a certain
locality culled from researcher's
observation of community, data
obtained from interviews, and
observation of the researcher
from the point of view of the
subject of the study. 23
Qualitative Techniques and
Method
✗ Participant- observation- data
obtained by the researcher
through active participation and
observation with the aim of
gaining a close and intimate
familiarity with a community or a
group of people.
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Qualitative Techniques and
Method
✗ Key Informant- interview with
individuals who have direct
knowledge on the topic at hand.
✗ Focus group discussion- data
gathered through interview with a
particular group of people while
asking an insights on a certain
topic. 25
Qualitative Techniques and
Method
✗ Informal interview (semi-
structured or unstructured) -
interviewing people without
following any strict sense of
questions.

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Qualitative Techniques and
Method
✗ Document Analysis- obtaining
information from written
records such as letters, diaries
and journals.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ The purpose of conducting social
science research can be
classified into exploratory,
descriptive an and explanatory
research.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ Exploratory research- in
addressing “what” questions, this
research is oftentimes employs.
✗ - It serves as the springboard so
that a more systematic study
can be done in a particular point
of interests.
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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ Descriptive research- presents a
clearer and detailed picture of
phenomenon. It focuses on
“how” and “who” of the research
problem.
✗ E.g. How did a material thing
came into materialize?
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The Need to Coundct Social
Research
✗ For example, an exploratory
research on school bullying may
reveal that there is a high
incidence of this phenomenon in
an urban area as compared to
rural setting.

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The Need to Coundct Social
Research
✗ After gaining familiarity with the
problem at hand, one may want
to expound on the situation by
describing it in detailed.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ A descriptive research could
illustrate how bullying is being
undertaken despite strict
implementation of school
policies.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ If a researcher goes on to
identify the real reason why
things occur as they are, he or
she may be heading to undertake
an explanatory research.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ As acknowledge, builds on with
the data originating from
exploratory and descriptive
research, it is a high time to look
for causality.

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The Need to Counduct
Social Research
✗ In this case, this type of research
attempts to answer the question
“why” things happen as they are.

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Thanks!
Any questions?

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