Page 33 - DLIS401_METHODOLOGY_OF_RESEARCH_AND_STATISTICAL_TECHNIQUES

Methodology of Research and Statistical Techniques

Notes

Task Compare research and hypothesis.

2.1.1 Science, Theory and Research

Research starts with the researcher, the position where you stand, the world around you, your
ethics, etc. The conceptions of the researcher influence the research topic and the methodology
with which it is approached. Research is not just a matter of technique or methods.
What is specific to social-science research, as compared to say journalism, is the quest to
examine and understand social reality in a systematic way. What is observed is as important
as how it is observed.
General outline of a research: theory, conceptualization of theoretical constructs into concepts,
formalization of relationships, operationalization, measurement or observation, data analysis
or interpretation, report.

1. Science and Reality
Science, as a system of propositions on the world, is a grasp of reality; it is systematic, logical,
and empirically founded. Epistemology is the science of knowledge (what is knowledge?), and
methodology is the science of gathering knowledge (how to acquire knowledge?). The inferences
from science can be causal or probabilistic, and/or it seeks to offer understanding of social
processes. Factors that intervene in the process of scientific inquiry include the available
tradition of research and the status of the researcher.
Scientific inquiry should reduce errors in observations (mistakes, incorrect inferences), and
avoid over-generalizations (e.g., selective observations, only studying that which conforms to
a previously found pattern).
Mistakes include : (a) ex-post facto reasoning: a theory is made up after the facts are observed,
which is not wrong as such, but the derived hypothesis still needs to be tested before it can
be accepted as an hypothesis; (b) over-involvement of researcher (researcher bias); (c) mystification:
findings are attributed to supernatural causes; in social-science research, while we cannot
understand everything, everything is potentially knowable.
Basically, the two necessary pillars of science are logics and observation (to retrieve patterns
in social life, i.e., at the aggregate level).

Notes People are not directly researched: social-science research studies variables and the
attributes that compose them.

A variable is a characteristic that is associated with persons, objects or events, and a variable’s
attributes are the different modalities in which the variable can occur (e.g., the attributes male
and female for the variable sex). Theories explain relationships between variables, in terms of
causation or understanding. Typically, this leads to identify independent and dependent variables
(cause and effect), or situation, actor, and meaning (interpretation).
2. From Theory to Research
Different purposes of social-science research can be identified: (1) to test a theoretical hypothesis,
usually a causal relationship (e.g. division of labor produces suicide); (2) to explore unstructured

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