What is Research,lecture points ,13/06/2012, III B A Political science,Givt Brennen college

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[1]. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media, (Routledge 2017)

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[2]. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017).

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Biju P R

Author, Teacher, Blogger

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Government Brennen College

Thalassery

Kerala, India

bijugayu@gmail.com (primary)

My Books
1. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media,
(Routledge 2017), Amazon https://www.amazon.in/Political-InternetStatePoliticsSocialebook/dp/B01M5K3SCU?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&ref_=tmm_kin_swatch_0&sr=   

 

2. Intimate Speakers: Why Introverted and Socially Ostracized Citizens Use Social Media, (Fingerprint! 2017)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/8175994290/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487261127&sr=1-2&keywords=biju+p+r 

We must first understand what research is ? 

Social research are carried out for various reasons

-The flora and fauna we have needs to be improved and maintained.

-The social world we are born need to be qualified and enhanced, so we need information. 

-The more information we have, the closer we get of making our social life. 

-There are people from all walks of life that contribute to gathered or research information. 

-These are ordinary people and extraordinary people. 

-They include, teachers, students, scientists, professors, scholars, business owners, librarians, book keepers, writers, politicians and many more unknown out there. 

-These are everyday citizens we interact with.

They all contributors to research. 

-They all help with the flow information that people use for self help.

-Most people make action without gathered or research informations to back them up.

-The problem is most people aren't patient enough to put in the effort. 

-The question is how much information is enough? 

-How much information can you afford? 

-Information obesity can be research problem.

-Research plus action will most likely guarantee a successful research. 

-But be careful though, becasue too much research without action on what you are learning is not good either. 

-Research requires time, effort, and sometimes money to have the evidence you need to make a sound theory that's why many avoid research.

-Research is important to your success as you take on life's challenges and new avenues of social life.

WHAT IS MEANT BY RESEARCH?

-It is another word for gathering of information.

-Research is a logical and systematic search for new and useful information

-Research is the result of advancing knowledge created in the past.   

-It is an investigation of finding solutions to and social problems through objective, subjective  and systematic analysis.

-It is a search for knowledge, that is, a discovery of hidden truths.

-Here knowledge means information about social world.

-The information might be collected from different sources like experience, human beings, books, journals, nature, etc.

-A research can lead to new contributions to the existing knowledge.

-Only through research it is possible to make progress in a field.

-Research is done with the help of study, experiment, observation, analysis, comparison and reasoning.

Research is in fact ubiquitous.

-For example, we know that cigarette smoking is injurious to health but we need to learn why political class is not legislating against tobacco use-heroine is addictive but why the political system is not able to prevent its production,transport and use

-cow dung is a useful source of biogas but it is also a source of violence in India

-Why the parliamentarians not legislating the 33 per cent reservation to women in parliament

How did we know all these? We became aware of all these information only through research. More precisely, it seeks predictions of events and explanations, relationships and theories for them.

How research is Defined

Word research is derived from French Researcher meaning to search or seek again.

It means intensive search to becoming certain.

An endeavour to discover facts by scientific study of a subject,case or course

The systematic process of collecting and analyzing information

Research is a process of investigation

An examination of a subject from different points of view

Research is a hunt for the truth

It is composed of two words-re and search

A critical and exhaustive investigation of experimentation having as its aim the revision of accepted conclusions in the light of new discovered facts-the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences.

A systematic enquiry seeking facts through objective verification methods inorder to discover the relationship among them and to reduce from them broad principles or laws-M H Gopal.

Research is a careful inquiry or examination seeking facts or principles, a diligent investigation to ascertain something-Clifford Woody.

Research is sufficiently objective and systematic to make possible classification,generalization and verification of data observed-Lundberg.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RESEARCH

WHAT IS RESEARCH ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY?

·         Increasing our understanding of how and why we behave the way we do!!

Research is A THEORY-

•          Organizes information

•          Helps explain past events

•          Predicts new events

RESEARCH IS BASED ON THE WORK OF OTHERS

•          Past research guides new research

•          Research is NOT copying the work of others

RESEARCH CAN BE REPLICATED

•          Repeatability is a sign of credible science

•          Replication guides future research

RESEARCH IS GENERALIZABLE

•          Research should apply to situations outside of the study setting

RESEARCH IS NOT DONE IN INTELLECTUAL ISOLATION

•          It is based on some logical rationale

•          It is tied to theory

RESEARCH IS ONGOING

·         Research generates new questions

• Research is incremental

RESEARCH IS APOLITICAL

•          Research should have the betterment of society as its ultimate goal

C C Crawford of University of Southern California identifies characteristics of research

•          It centres round a problem

•          Involves original work

•          It rests up on an attitude of curiosity

•          It requires an open mind

•          Rests upon assumption that everything is subject to law and order

•          Its object is to find laws and generalization

•          It’s a study of cause and effect

•          Its based on measurement

•          Involves conscious techniques

Importance of research

-understanding the social phenomenon and to communicate others.

-induces to action-poverty eradication,displacement and rehabilitation,human rights protection,legal and institutional reforms,strengthening democratic process etc.,

-to solve a particular existing problem-caste,racial discrimination,apartheid,

-to understand how social factors impact the way we live-gender influencing political justice,caste affecting dalit justice, 

-The research you do and evidence you gathered will have impact on future-history of world is history of class struggle,authoritarian  order like Fascism,Nazism,Tyranny,Despotism etc will not survive the test of time,Pakistan didn’t learn from  history  despite seen many military dictators

-Research is very vital to our everyday decision making-

-it arms you from wrong informations and save time and money. 

-Research is important both in scientific and nonscientific social world-be it economical,political,sociological,anthropological etc

-In our life, new problems, events, phenomena and processes occur every day.

-Practically implementable solutions and suggestions are required for tackling new problems that arise.

-Social Scientists have to undertake research on them and find their causes, solutions, explanations and applications.

-Precisely, research assists us to understand social world phenomena.

Some important avenues for research are:

(1) A research problem refers to a difficulty which a researcher or a social science community or an industry or a government organization or a society experiences.

It may be a theoretical or a practical situation.It calls for a thorough understanding and possible solution.

(2) Research on existing theories and concepts help us identify the range and applications of them.

(3) It is the fountain of knowledge and provides guidelines for solving problems.

(4) Research provides basis for many government policies.

For example, research on the needs and desires of the people and on the availability of revenues to meet the needs helps a government to prepare a budget.

(5) It is important in social life for higher learning and to improve the quality of life.

(6) It leads to the identification and characterization of social trends, new life styles, etc.

(7)Only through research can social world  be made and understood

(8) Social research helps find answers to social problems. They explain social phenomena and seek solution to social problems.

(9) Research leads to a new style of life and makes it delightful and glorious .

-Guide to social planning and social engineering

-greater and first hand information through research offers prominenet control over social phenomenon

-research is enlightenment and oofers a solution to our superstitiuons and irrational world views

-social welfare

-charged with considerable basis for prediction

What are the Objectives of Research?

The prime objectives of research are

(1) to discover new facts-

(2) to verify and test important facts

(3) to analyse an event or process or phenomenon to identify the cause and effect relationship

(4) to develop new scientific tools, concepts and theories to solve and understand scientific and nonscientific social problems

(5) to find solutions to scientific, nonscientific and social problems and

(6) to overcome or solve the problems occurring in our every day life.

Why People Research

Curiousity is a crucial part of the human condition and social life.

There is infinite conflict and tensions in the socio-political interaction of people

Many people want to know more about something that interests them.

Do anthropologists use government information?

How many advanced societies have solved unemployment and poverty ?

Where did violence and conflict come from?

Are men more in the public spaces than women?

What does youth think about society and politics and of future?.

There is an excitement in the discovery of new information and knowing more about some topic than anyone else.

There is joy in sharing newly gathered and previously unavailable information.

Why people rise against governments in Middle East area,

Why people like Anna Hazare protest and plead for Lokpal

Why Narmada Movement takes place in India?

The social life is too much under trouble

We need solution to most of these problems we face

Research is so unavoidable.

Social science research or soft science studies the human aspects of the world.

It includes an in-depth study and evaluation of human behavior by using scientific methods in either quantitative or qualitative manner.

The subject matter of the soft science can be subjective or objective.

In contrast to hard science or natural science, social science reveals subjective, objective, inter-subjective and structural aspects of the society.

In simple words, it measures the social developments of the society and finds the emerging drawbacks too.

The work of social science is to watch where the society has been heading and what more can be done to benefit the entire race.

If we dig out the historical evidences, we will find that social science has been a constant part of the development of the human race.

It is interesting to know that great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were advocates of social science and their philosophies are based on the objectives of social sciences only.
So, social science is very much present into our day-to-day life and has a pivotal role in the societal growth and development.

This is a fundamentally important question. No person would like to do research unless there are some motivating factors.

Some of the motivations are the following:

(1) to get a research degree (Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)) along with its benefits like better employment, promotion, increment in salary, etc.

(2) to get a research degree and then to get a teaching position in a college or university or become a scientist in a research institution

(3) to get a research position in countries like U.S.A.,Canada, Germany, England, Japan, Australia, etc. and settle there

(4) to solve the unsolved and challenging problems

(5) to get joy of doing some creative work

(6) to acquire respectability

(7) to get recognition

(8) curiosity to find out the unknown facts of an event

(9) curiosity to find new things

(10) to serve the society by solving social problems.

Some students undertake research without any aim possibly because of not being able to think of anything else to do. Such students can also become good researchers by motivating themselves toward a respectable goal.

Teaching oints prepared by Biju P R,Assitant Professor,Dept.of Political Science,GBC,Tly.

Social research

-refers to research conducted by social scientists primarily within sociology, social anthropology/Cultural Anthropology and social psychology ,social policy, human geography, political science, and education. Sociologists and other social scientists study diverse objects: from census data derived from hundreds of thousands of human beings, to the in-depth analysis of one individual social life; from monitoring what is happening on a street today, to the historical analysis of what was happening hundreds of years ago.

In contemporary usage, "social research" is a relatively autonomous term, encompassing the work of practitioners from various disciplines which share in its aims and methods. Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyse a vast breadth of social phenomena; from census survey data derived from millions of individuals, to the in-depth analysis of a single agents' social experiences; from monitoring what is happening on contemporary streets, to the investigation of ancient historical documents. The methods originally rooted in classical sociology and statistical mathematics have formed the basis for research in other disciplines, such as political science, media studies, and market research.

Social scientists use many different methods in order to describe, explore and understand social life. Social methods can generally be subdivided into two broad categories.

Social research methods may be divided into two broad schools:

• Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable evidence, and often rely on statistical analysis of many cases (or across intentionally designed treatments in an experiment) to create valid and reliable general claims.

• Qualitative designs emphasize understanding of social phenomena through direct observation, communication with participants, or analysis of texts, and may stress contextual and subjective accuracy over generality

Social scientists will commonly combine quantitative and qualitative approaches as part of a multi-strategy design.

Quantitative methods are concerned with attempts to quantify social phenomena and collect and analyse numerical data, and focus on the links among a smaller number of attributes across many cases. Common tools of quantitative researchers include surveys, questionnaires, and secondary analysis of statistical data that has been gathered for other purposes (for example, censuses or the results of social attitudes surveys).

Qualitative methods, on the other hand, emphasise personal experiences and interpretation over quantification, are more concerned with understanding the meaning of social phenomena and focus on links among a larger number of attributes across relatively few cases. While very different in many aspects, both qualitative and quantitative approaches involve a systematic interaction between theories and data. Commonly used qualitative methods include focus groups, participant observation, and other techniques.

Foundations of social research

Social research (and social science in general) is based on logic and empirical observations. Charles C. Ragin writes in his Constructing Social Research book that "Social research involved the interaction between ideas and evidence. Ideas help social researchers make sense of evidence, and researchers use evidence to extend, revise and test ideas". Social research thus attempts to create or validate theories through data collection and data analysis, and its goal is exploration, description and explanation. It should never lead or be mistaken with philosophy or belief. Social research aims to find social patterns of regularity in social life and usually deals with social groups (aggregates of individuals), not individuals themselves (although science of psychology is an exception here). Research can also be divided into pure research and applied research. Pure research has no application on real life, whereas applied research attempts to influence the real world.

There are no laws in social science that parallel the laws in the natural science. A law in social science is a universal generalization about a class of facts. A fact is an observed phenomenon, and observation means it has been seen, heard or otherwise experienced by researcher. A theory is a systematic explanation for the observations that relate to a particular aspect of social life. Concepts are the basic building blocks of theory and are abstract elements representing classes of phenomena. Axioms or postulates are basic assertions assumed to be true. Propositions are conclusions drawn about the relationships among concepts, based on analysis of axioms. Hypotheses are specified expectations about empirical reality which are derived from propositions. Social research involves testing these hypotheses to see if they are true.

Social research involves creating a theory, operationalization (measurement of variables) and observation (actual collection of data to test hypothesized relationship).

Social theories are written in the language of variables, in other words, theories describe logical relationships between variables. Variables are logical sets of attributes, with people being the 'carriers' of those variables (for example, gender can be a variable with two attributes: male and female). Variables are also divided into independent variables (data) that influences the dependent variables (which scientists are trying to explain). For example, in a study of how different dosages of a drug are related to the severity of symptoms of a disease, a measure of the severity of the symptoms of the disease is a dependent variable and the administration of the drug in specified doses is the independent variable. Researchers will compare the different values of the dependent variable (severity of the symptoms) and attempt to draw conclusions.

Types of inquiry

Social research can be deductive or inductive.The inductive inquiry (also known as grounded research) is a model in which general principles (theories) are developed from specific observations. In deductive inquiry specific expectations of hypothesis are developed on the basis of general principles (i.e. social scientists start from an existing theory, and then search for proof). For example, in inductive research, if a scientist finds that some specific religious minorities tend to favor a specific political view, he may then extrapolate this to the hypothesis that all religious minorities tend to have the same political view. In deductive research, a scientist would start from a hypothesis that religious affiliation influenced political views and then begin observations to prove or disprove this hypothesis.

Quantitative / qualitative debate

There is usually a trade off between the number of cases and the number of their variables that social research can study. Qualitative research usually involves few cases with many variables, while quantitative involves many phenomena with few variables.

There is some debate over whether "quantitative research" and "qualitative research" methods can be complementary: some researchers argue that combining the two approaches is beneficial and helps build a more complete picture of the social world, while other researchers believe that the epistemologies that underpin each of the approaches are so divergent that they cannot be reconciled within a research project.

While quantitative methods are based on a natural science, positivist model of testing theory, qualitative methods are based on interpretivism and are more focused around generating theories and accounts. Positivists treat the social world as something that is 'out there', external to the social scientist and waiting to be researched. Interpretivists, on the other hand believe that the social world is constructed by social agency and therefore any intervention by a researcher will affect social reality. Herein lies the supposed conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches - quantitative approaches traditionally seek to minimise intervention in order to produce valid and reliable statistics, whereas qualitative approaches traditionally treat intervention as something that is necessary (often arguing that participation can lead to a better understanding of a social situation).

However, it is increasingly recognised that the significance of these differences should not be exaggerated and that quantitative and qualitative approaches can be complementary. They can be combined in a number of ways, for example:

Qualitative methods can be used in order to develop quantitative research tools. For example, focus groups could be used to explore an issue with a small number of people and the data gathered using this method could then be used to develop a quantitative survey questionnaire that could be administered to a far greater number of people allowing results to be generalised.

Qualitative methods can be used to explore and facilitate the interpretation of relationships between variables. For example researchers may inductively hypothesize that there would be a positive relationship between positive attitudes of sales staff and the amount of sales of a store. However, quantitative, deductive, structured observation of 576 convenience stores could reveal that this was not the case, and in order to understand why the relationship between the variables was negative the researchers may undertake qualitative case studies of four stores including participant observation. This might abductively confirm that the relationship was negative, but that it was not the positive attitude of sales staff that led to low sales, but rather that high sales led to busy staff who were less likely to be express positive emotions at work!

Quantitative methods are useful for describing social phenomena, especially on a larger scale. Qualitative methods allow social scientists to provide richer explanations (and descriptions) of social phenomena, frequently on a smaller scale. By using two or more approaches researchers may be able to 'triangulate' their findings and provide a more valid representation of the social world.

Lecture notes prepared by Biju P R,Assistant Professor in Political Science,Govt Brennen College Thalassery