Summary
Summary SPS5034 rd online exam 1
- Module
- SPS5034 Research Design
- Institution
- University Of Glasgow
SPS5034 rd online exam 1
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Research design exam 1Week 2
● How do we know that we know?
● What is knowledge production?
We will discuss the diversity of social research and how this diversity originates in epistemology and ontology.
Given the fundamental role that these philosophical underpinnings play in doing research, you will start locating
your epistemological/ontological position. Intended learning outcomes:
● know the meaning of and the different theories of epistemology/ontology
● be able to consider the importance of these philosophical underpinnings for doing research
● know how epistemological/ontological enrich social research
Week 3 / Do men earn more than women? How has the experience of poverty changed since the introduction of
Universal Credit? Are democratic countries less likely to go to war with each other? How do Facebook posts
influence politics? The social world is full of questions, and you probably have your own interests and things that
you think should be researched. Research aims, research questions and hypotheses are tools meant to translate
what interests us into a research project. Either by clearly (one may say strictly) structuring a question and
predictions about potential empirical findings, or my formulating a broad research aim. For social scientific research
all three - question, hypothesis and aim - need be placed within a theoretical context and/or existing empirical
findings. This session introduces students to techniques for structuring and focusing their interests into research
question/aims/hypotheses. This is followed by considering the role of past research and “theory” (in the broadest
sense) in setting up a research question. Finally, the session will consider “justifications” for research
questions/aims/hypothesis. Learning outcomes:
● know the differences between research question/aims/hypotheses and how these link to different
research processes
● have a critical awareness of the link between research question/aims/hypotheses and theories/prior
research
● have a critical awareness of the role and importance of formulating research question/aims/hypotheses.
● know approaches for structuring research questions and hypotheses.
● be able to apply literature search strategies
Week 4/ The lecture will discuss the research cycle from choosing a topic to designing, conducting and delivering
the results of your research. This session provides an overview of the challenges in designing research and
introduces key forms of research design.Questions to consider:
- The research cycle: What is the difference between inductive and deductive research?
- What is inference and what is the difference between descriptive and causal inference?
- How can we distinguish different research designs?
- What role do validity, reliability and replicability play in choosing research designs.
Learning outcomes:
● know the elements and stages of inductive and deductive research
● know key research designs and their strengths: descriptive/causal; cross-section/longitudinal,
primary/secondary/meta-research
● know the meaning of validity, reliability and replicability
● develop the ability to link questions and research designs
● develop the ability to critically choose designs and defend “non-ideal” choices.
● The last two outcomes have prominence in this session, but run through the whole course.
, Week 2, reading 1: Bryman (2012/2016): Ch 2. /Social research strategies: quantitative research and qualitative
research
Key concepts part 1:
● Deductive approach: when pre-existing theory guides research.
● Inductive approach: when theory is an outcome of research.
● Epistemological issues: issues to do with what is regarded as appropriate knowledge about the social
world. (Eg. whether a natural science model of the research process is appropriate for the study of the
social world.)
● Ontological issues: issues to do with whether the social world is regarded as something external to social
actors or as something that people are in the process of creating.
What we see here is a distinction between theories of the former type, which are often called theories of the
middle range (Merton 1967), and grand theories, which operate at a more abstract level. According to Merton,
grand theories offer few indications to researchers as to how they might guide or influence the collection of
empirical evidence. So, if someone wanted to test an aspect of a grand theory or to draw an inference from it that
could be tested, the level of abstractness is likely to be so great that the researcher would find it difficult to make
the necessary links with the real world. There is a paradox here, of course. Even highly abstract ideas, such as
Parsons’s notions of ‘pattern variables’ and ‘functional requisites’, must have some connection with an external
reality, in that they are likely to have been generated out of Parsons’s reading of research or his reflections upon
that reality or others’ writings on it. However, the level of abstractness of the theorizing is so great as to make it
difficult for these notions to be deployed in research. For research purposes, then, Merton argues that grand
theories are of limited use in connection with social research, although an abstract concept such as social capital
(Bourdieu 1984) can have some pay-off in research terms. Instead, middle-range theories are ‘intermediate to
general theories of social systems which are too remote from particular classes of social behavior, organization and
change to account for what is observed and to those detailed orderly descriptions of particulars that are not
generalized at all.’
Deductive theory: the researcher draws on what is known about in a particular domain and on relevant theoretical
ideas in order to deduce a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that must then be subjected to empirical scrutiny.
Revision of theory, involves a movement that is in the opposite direction from deduction—it involves induction,
as the researcher infers the implications of his or her findings for the theory that prompted the whole exercise. The
findings are fed back into the stock of theory and the research findings associated with a certain domain of enquiry.
However, just as deduction entails an element of induction, the inductive process is
likely to entail a degree of deduction. Once the phase of theoretical reflection on a
set of data has been carried out, the researcher may want to collect further data in
order to establish the conditions in which a theory will and will not hold. Such a
general strategy is often called iterative: it involves a weaving back and forth
between data and theory. It is particularly evident in grounded theory, but in the
meantime the basic point is to note that induction represents an alternative strategy
for linking theory and research, although it contains a deductive element too.
Different epistemological positions in social sciences
What method to acquire knowledge is acceptable ?
Von Wright (1971) has depicted the epistemological clash as being between
positivism and hermeneutics. This clash reflects a division between an emphasis
on the explanation of human behaviour, which is the chief ingredient of the positivist approach, and the
understanding of human behaviour. The latter is concerned with the empathic understanding of human action
rather than with the forces that are deemed to act on it. This contrast reflects long-standing debates that precede
the emergence of the modern social sciences but that find their expression in such notions as the advocacy by Max
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