copyright ©2011 by pearson education, inc. all rights reserved. chapter 1: why do research? man-10...

Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Why Do Research?

MAN-10Research Methods

InstructorErlan Bakiev, Ph. D.


Non-Scientific Production of Knowledge

• Personal Experience and Common Sense1) Overgeneralization

2) Selective Observation

3) Premature Closure

4) Halo Effect

5) False Consensus


Non-Scientific Production of Knowledge

• Experts and Authority– Someone in power says so..

• Popular and Media messages– Window into a distorted reality

– Road Rage

– Holiday Havoc

• Ideological beliefs and values– “it’s the way things have always been”


What Research Involves:A Scientific Approach

• Enlightenment

• Industrial Revolution

• Science– Natural Sciences vs. Social Sciences

– Social Theory

– Data

– Empirical


What Research Involves:A Scientific Approach

• Pseudoscience

• Junk Science

• Scientific Community– Innumeracy

– Scientific Literacy


What Research Involves:

• Universalism

• Organized Skepticism

• Disinterestedness

• Communalism

• Honesty

Norms of the Scientific Community


What Research Involves: A Scientific Approach

• Scientific method

• Scientific attitude

• Scientific orientation

• Journal articles– Blind review

• Transformative process


Steps in the Research ProcessQuantitative Approach


Quantitative Example 1

Lowery and colleagues (2007)• Select a topic

• Priming and academic performance• Focus the question

• Do students who are primed improve academic performance• Design the study

• experiments• Collect the data

• Collected data from social psychology courses• Analyze the data

• Statistical analysis employed• Interpret the data

• Students who were primed scored higher on exams• Inform others

• Published in Applied Social Psychology


Steps in the Research ProcessQualitative Approach


Qualitative Example 1

McCammon and colleagues (2008)

• Select a topic– Women gaining full citizenship

• Socio-cultural context/ Adopt perspective– Women gained citizenship differently in different states

• Design the study– State archives, local newspapers and magazines, legal and

political documents• Collect and analyze data

– Analysis of when and how women gained citizenship in each state

• Interpret the data• Inform others

– American Journal of Sociology


Varieties of Social Research

Quantitative• Objective observation

• Focus on variables

• Reliability

• Separation between theory and data

• Generalizable

• Large N

• Statistical analysis


Approaches to Social Research

Qualitative• Cultural meanings

• Focus on events

• Authenticity

• Merging between theory and data

• Situational

• Small N

• Thematic analysis

copyright ©2011 by pearson education, inc. all rights reserved. chapter 1: why do research? man-10...

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