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Quantitative Techniques-II

Notes Research involves an eclectic blending of an enormous range of skills and activities. To be a
good social researcher, you have to be able to work well with a wide variety of people, understand
the specific methods used to conduct research, understand the subject that you are studying, be
able to convince someone to give you the funds to study it, stay on track and on schedule, speak
and write persuasively, and on and on.

3.1 Construct

1. Theoretical and Empirical: A research might be theoretical or empirical depending on the
way it is written and the objective it needs to follow.

If much of a research is concerned with developing, exploring or testing the theories or ideas
that social researchers have about how the world operates, then it is known as theoretical
research. But sometimes, the research can also be empirical, meaning that it is based on
observations and measurements of reality – on what we perceive of the world around us.
You can even think of most research as a blending of these two terms – a comparison of our
theories about how the world operates with our observations of its operation .
2. Nomothetic and Idiographic: The word nomothetic comes perhaps from the writings of
the psychologist Gordon Allport. It refers to laws or rules that pertain to the general case
(nomos in Greek) and is contrasted with the term “idiographic” which refers to laws or
rules that relate to individuals (idios means ‘self’ or ‘characteristic of an individual in
Greek).

Notes In any event, the point is that most social research is concerned with the nomothetic–
the general case – rather than the individual. We often study individuals, but usually we
are interested in generalizing to more than just the individual.

3. Probabilistic and Realistic: In our post-positivist view of science, we no longer regard
certainty as attainable. Thus probabilistic as a term represents much contemporary social
research which is most often than not, based on probabilities. The inferences that we make
in social research have probabilities associated with them – they are seldom meant to be
considered covering laws that pertain to all cases. Part of the reason we have seen statistics
become so dominant in social research is that it allows us to estimate probabilities for the
situations we study.

3.2 Definitions/Concept

Every research involves certain mandatory concepts that have to be understood and well applied
by every researcher.

3.2.1 Types of Questions

There are three basic types of questions that research projects can address:
1. Descriptive: When a study is designed primarily to describe what is going on or what
exists. Public opinion polls that seek only to describe the proportion of people who hold
various opinions are primarily descriptive in nature.

Example: If we want to know what percent of the population would vote for a Democratic
or a Republican in the next presidential election, we are simply interested in describing something.

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