Week 1, Introduction Flashcards
Naturalism
Model of qualitative research
Focuses on factual characteristics
Overlooks how people create meaning, respondents are treated as data.
Based on people’s perceptions, meanings, or lived experience.
Ethnomethodology
Model of qualitative approach
Study of people’s methods of constructing their own realty.
Models
Overall framework of how we look at reality, telling us what reality is like and the basic elements it contains.
Concepts
Clearly specified ideas deriving fro a particular model and ways of looking at the world which are essential to defining a research problem.
Theories
Arrange sets of concepts to define, predict, or explain some phenomenon
Provide the impetus for research
Neither right nor wrong
Hypothesis
Statements of claim that can be tested and verified by research.
Methodology
General approach to studying a research topic
2 perspectives to take: qualitative and quantitative
Not to be confused with methods
Methods
Research techniques
Research
A systematic process of collecting and analyzing information/data in order to increase our understanding of a phenomenon that we are interested in.
3 main stages of research
Planning
Data collection
Analysis
Social Research
Generally not setting out to prove anything, instead trying to understand something in great detail.
Understanding how a phenomenon means.
Research Process
Originates with a question or problem (thesis).
Requires clear articulation of a goal.
Follows specific plan of procedure.
Usually divides principle problems into more manageable sub problems (hypotheses) which guide the research.
Accepts critical assumptions.
Requires collection and interpretation of data to answer original research question.
How is social research a scientific process?
It involves systematic, methodological processes that produce knowledges.
It consists of theory and observation.
Social Research: Basic/Pure Research
Constructing, testing and refining theory.
Coming to understand human social behaviour by empirical means and application of theoretical concepts.
Often done by academics.
Success = Peer Reviewed.
Social Research: Applied Research
Provides research that can be used to influence social policy.
Often conducted by social researchers employed by sponsors.
Influence change or policy.
Epistemology
Concerned with what is or is not considered knowledge.
What is knowledge?
Positivism
Belief that science can uncover the truth or the what of social questions we might have had about events and things we observe.
Often qualitative, associated with natural sciences.
Belief that there is an objective truth that we can uncover.
Phenomenology
To know the social world we must understand social processes.
The how of a social phenomenon.
Critical
Desire to understand structural relationships and contexts of a social phenomenon.
Data is historical and comparative.
The why of a social phenomenon.
Social constructionism
Interpretive… reality is created by the people in it.
No truth to be uncovered, reality is co-created among community.
Ontology
Study what is real or the nature of things.
Objectivism
Opposite of constructionism.
Organizations and phenomenon are said to exist beyond people who inhabit them.
Humans have no role in shaping social world, they inhabit and internalize its values, assumptions, and beliefs.
Constructionism
Opposite of objectivism.
The social world is constantly being created by individuals.
The world is i a constant state of evolution and change.
Goals of social research
Exploratory: Generate ideas, formulate questions
Descriptive: Describe present, contextualize insight
Analytical: Develop a model, test a theory
Evaluation: Measure something (like effectiveness)
