Lecture 2 - The Foundations of Scientific Inquiry PDF

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The Foundations of Scientific Inquiry Social Ecology 10 Research Design Lecture 2

Introduction •

In this lecture, I will pick up where I left off with the discussion about why we use specific methods to answer research questions.

I. WHY RESEARCH METHODS?

Overview •

Last lecture, we spent a lot of time talking about the pitfalls of human observation and why our less formal ways of answering questions and making observations in the real world may lead us to incorrect conclusions.

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The underlying reason that our day-to-day observational skills are so problematic is that there are no ground rules for making systematic personal observations. Which brings us to....

The Foundations Of Scientific Inquiry •

This is where the "scientific" methods come in. As your text explains, by virtue of agreement (and you will begin to learn about some of these underlying agreements in this course) researchers follow certain criteria when conducting research in order to gain an understanding with the least amount of bias and haphazardness.

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Each method may have certain rules that should be followed, and/or assumptions that must be met in order to meet scientific standards.

Logical & Empirical •

Generally though, for a scientist (or a good researcher, as I prefer to think of them) to accept an assertion, it must have both LOGICAL and EMPIRICAL support. This means, quite simply, that it must make sense, and it must be in accordance with real world observations.

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Logical means it has to make sense, or be explainable by what we know about the processes under study, often through the application of a good workable theory.

What’s Empirical? •

What do I mean by empirical? This term will crop up continually in your reading, and probably in your readings for other courses, especially when you read scholarly journal articles. Empirical research refers to the “production of knowledge” based on experience or observation.

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It is the production of experiential, rather than just agreement knowledge, in scholarly research. In other words, it is data to support a logical assertion.

Components Of The Scientific Method In Social Science Research •

Over the next few pages, we’ll examine these components one by one.

Theory Regularities Aggregates

Variables & Attributes

Scientific Method:

Theory •

We will talk more about theory as we proceed in this course, but basically this refers to the foundation in which your work is grounded. It is a logical explanation for a given set of observations or social facts.

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Theory can be formal and broad-based, as in sociological Marxist theories or criminology's strain theories of criminal behavior, or it can be less formal.

Scientific Method:

Regularities •

We test theory or develop theory by looking for patterns or regularities that would confirm or call into question the theory. This means that EXCEPTIONS are allowable and do not totally negate that validity of a theory.

Scientific Method:

Aggregates, Not Individuals •

Social science research generally is interested in studying and understanding groups of people rather than individuals. If the subject of interest is a single individual, we are then talking about a case study, biography, or oral history, which are usually not within the realm of social science research.

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So while the unit of analysis may be individuals, the findings generated by social science research are about groups or categories of individuals.

Scientific Method:

Variables •

Variables form the building blocks for designing research--they are those things that you are interested in studying. Simply put, variables are categories of things under study whose qualities or attributes vary.

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So in a study of the effect of gender on death penalty attitudes, the two variables of interest are gender and death penalty attitude.

Scientific Method:

Variables •

Variables are large categories, and those units within the variable are termed attributes. So, depending on how you decide to measure your variables, you have subsets of possible attributes.

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On gender, the two common attributes are man or woman. On the attitude variable, you might have attributes that range from strong opposition to the death penalty to strong support for death.

Relationships •

The primary goal in research is to study the relationships between two or more variables of interest.

Does smoking cause emphysema?

Causal

Associative Are religious beliefs and political attitudes correlated?

Differing Kinds of Scientific Inquiry •

Not all social science research has the same goals, so therefore there are different ways of thinking about and categorizing research. The diagram below shows two kinds of inquiry:

Nomothetic

Ideographic

Ideographic •

Ideographic explanations are individual, unique, usually detailrich explanations of a phenomenon. For example, sociologist Terry Williams studied a small ring of juvenile cocaine dealers using ethnographic field methods, hanging out with them, taking notes, interviewing them, and learning about their lives. He published his findings in a book called Cocaine Kids. The study provided incredibly detailed, complex, and subtle information

about this individual group, yet it did not and could not explain other drug dealer cliques. The insights it offered had to do with depth and detail, not breadth and generalizability.

Nomothetic •

On the other hand, nomothetic explanations generally sacrifice detail and depth for broader explanatory power over a larger set of groups under study. The explanations tend to be simpler, and provide a partial rather than full explanation of a given phenomenon. So if you survey a sample of Californians about our budget situation, you might use a series of forced choice questions to quantify their relative optimism/pessimism about the

situation, approval of legislators’ and the governor’s handling of the problem, and so on. •

You would likely administer this questionnaire to hundreds of people and would be able to state with some accuracy the rates of approval and degree of pessimism, but you would not know the in-depth, complex details of any one person’s view of the situation.

Inductive vs. Deductive Reasoning •

Another type of scientific inquiry has to do with the nature of one’s reasoning: inductive or deductive.

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Inductive reasoning relies on specific details, observations, and factors to come to a general understanding of a problem or issue. It is in some ways additive, in that you put together all the specific details in order to come to a general understanding of something.

Inductive Reasoning •

For example, let’s say I apply for a job and don't get it. In order to figure out why I didn't get it, I look at all the specifics surrounding this job search. I notice that I misspelled a word in my resume and I arrived 2 minutes late for the interview. My shoes were really scuffed and worn, and everyone else at the site was very well dressed. I analyze these job search details and come to the general conclusion that I did not make a good impression as a

punctual and detail-oriented person.

Deductive Reasoning •

In contrast, deductive reasoning starts with the general: the testable theory, and moves to the specific. So in this case, I am on my job search and based on my reading of a career "how-to" book, I expect that I will make the best impression to most potential employers by demonstrating myself as a punctual and detail-oriented person.

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So my general "theory" for my job search is that job candidates who are punctual and detail-oriented are more likely to get job offers than those who are not.

Deductive Reasoning •

I used spell-check on my resume, but it didn't pick up that I used "their" for "there" since the word wasn't misspelled, it was just misused. On my way out the door to the interview, the heel of one of my brand new shoes gets caught in a sewer hole cover and breaks as I am getting to my car; as a result I was delayed when I had to scramble to figure out which of my other shoes looked the least beat up. I arrived 5 minutes late, instead of 5 minutes early as

I had planned. •

I therefore inadvertently tested my theory by not being detailoriented (resume typos and scuffed shoes) or punctual (arriving late), and by the time I reached the interview, I predicted I would not get the job. My theory was confirmed when I was turned down for the position.

Review •

In general, ideographic explanations are more likely to use qualitative, non-numerical data, and nomothetic explanations are more likely to use quantitative data.

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Inductive reasoning moves from specific details and observations to a general explanation or theory, and deductive reasoning begins with a general explanation or theory, which is tested through specific observations to see if it holds up.

II. USING LIBRARY DATABASES

Overview •

It is extremely important for you to get comfortable with our library and the resources it offers. If you have trouble finding and effectively using the recommended databases, you must take the responsibility to go to the library and seek help from one the reference librarian. You can access all of the library databases from home if you have VPN set up. In order to continue with this lecture, you should either turn on the VPN on your computer or

get connected on campus so you can access the databases. •

Right now, I want to introduce you to the library as a resource for finding peer reviewed, scholarly journal articles. These are the kinds of sources you will be required to use in this class for your research project. Please look at the file under this week’s materials called “Finding Scholarly Articles” to learn about the peer review process.

Overview •

There are numerous scholarly journals that cover topics appropriate to Social Ecology. For example, in criminology there is: Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Crime and Delinquency, Theoretical Criminology, and the British Journal of Criminology. For more law related empirical research, some of the major journals are: Law and Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, and Law and Human Behavior. In PSB, there are many, many

journals. Some of the biggest names include Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychologist, Psychological Bulletin, and Psychological Review. Urban Studies journals include: Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, and Planning Practice and Research. There are lots and lots more peer reviewed journals in all of those areas as well.

Overview •

The kinds of publications that are NOT SCHOLARLY are professional magazines, newspapers (even specialized newspapers), popular magazines, textbooks, and most websites (although some may link to scholarly articles). Specific titles that would NOT be considered scholarly include: Law Enforcement Bulletin, Corrections Today, Time, Newsweek, People, Psychology Today, any newspapers, textbooks, and most internet only

sources. •

For developing the research sources for your project, I generally advise against using whole books, mainly because they are unwieldy, and there are many that are not scholarly. You can use chapters from scholarly edited collections, and these are often very good sources, and you can use some governmental research reports, if you get prior approval by me.

Tutorial •

Let's begin by going to the library home page. It is at: http://www.lib.uci.edu/. Spend some time poking around on the page. Go to the catalog for looking up the UCI library holdings and try to find a book that Craig Haney wrote about the death penalty. Does UCI have it?

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Next, go to the A-Z list of resources, broken down by areas of interest at http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/browse.php. You can find links there for Criminology, Law and Society; Psychology; and Planning, Policy & Design. You can also find these through going to the Social Ecology library website at: http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/social_ecology.

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These will then bring you to individual pages with lists of relevant journal databases, advice on finding sources, and some external sources. These individual pages will also introduce the reference librarian for each area of study. Spend some time looking over the page for your area(s) of interest within Social Ecology.

Tutorial •

Some of the best electronic databases across all areas of Social Ecology are: Sociological Abstracts, PsychINFO, Criminal Justice Abstracts, and JSTOR. Here is a big TIP for accessing multiple databases at once: When you go to Sociological Abstracts, PsychINFO, or Criminal Justice Abstracts, you can change the databases on the initial search page from the specific database to “Social Sciences” and that will look at all databases at once

on your search. Note that the search choices include a whole lot of possibilities, including keywords, author name, journal name, title, and so on. So there are lots of options depending upon your search needs and kinds of information you have. •

See if you can find each of the data base links and try doing some subject searches on a few of them. While exploring the data bases, see if you can find the article for our first assignment: Cross, J., Zimmerman, D. & O’Grady, M. (2009). Residence hall room type and alcohol use among college students living on campus. Environment & Behavior, 41, 583-60. Is it available for electronic download?

Now, go to the discussion activity and follow the instructions for doing a guided library search in your major. Please feel free to ask me for more advice on what qualifies as scholarly or not. Also, you should feel free to utilize the research/reference librarians in the Social Ecology areas—they are really helpful!...