There are fundamental differences between natural sciences and social sciences. Natural sciences study natural processes such as chemistry and biology, whereas social science studies human behaviors and societies. Essentially, social scientists ask how and why questions about humans, behaviors, and cultures. Despite these fundamental differences between natural sciences and social sciences, they do share some common standards to be considered “sciences”. Both use verifiable data that is systematically collected and analyzed. Additionally, logical reasoning is used to move between theory and data. The standards of research, or the scientific method, also requires both sciences to follow a process and series of steps in order to make sure that research is done properly.
We must keep in mind however, that social science is a product of where and when scientists live. Because society is constantly shifting and cultures can define the way that humans interpret events, we must be cognizant of how research is a product of time and space and how it may change in the future.
Slide 2: Why do research?
There are various reasons that researchers are motivated to do research, including influencing policy, academic inquiry, and personal interests and motivations.
When researchers are motivated by influencing policy, they are generally conducting research in order to assess programs and determine their success. It is especially important for criminology and criminal justice that the policies and programs we are implementing are unbiased and effective, so this research motivation is very valuable.
Various academic trends may also influence research. Academic motivations are often based on what we as academics and researchers want to learn more about or better understand. For example, as new theories become more popular, a researcher may be academically motivated to study their empirical nature in order to better support or disprove said theories.
Lastly, and individual researchers interests often motivate what research they decide to do. Personal motivations may determine why researchers do research if they want to improve society or solve a personal problem. Researchers who are passionate about gendered violence may do research on sexual assault and domestic violence in order to improve the way that society addresses these issues or reduce the rates of gendered violence.
Slide 3: Types of Research
There are three common types of research that will influence the type of methodology used to perform studies. These types of research are descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, and evaluation research.
Descriptive research asks questions such as who, what, where, when, and how many. It is a form of research that attempts to define, describe, or count observed social phenomena. An example of descriptive research may be defining property crime and then providing data that describes and counts the rates of different types of property crime in the United States.
Exploratory research attempts to find there meaning behind actions and how people get along. It has the goal of answering the question: what is going on? An example of exploratory research may be thinking that the reason women commit petty theft may be different than the reasons why males commit petty theft. A researcher may conduct interviews with women and male offenders convicted of petty theft in order to increase their understanding of the motivations behind why said female or male offenders committed their crimes.
Explanatory research seeks to identify the causes and effects beyond social phenomenon, or predict how when phenomenon will change or vary the response of other phenomena. An example of explanatory research may be the implementation of a mandatory arrest policy for police in domestic violence situations. Explanatory research may examine how this arrest policy effects the rates of domestic violence in a community.
Evaluation research is related to explanatory research, because it deals with cause and effect, but it is unique due to its focus on implementation and social policy outcomes. It seeks to determine the effects of social programs or other types of interventions. A form of evaluation research may be looking at how a prison rehabilitation program is implemented and whether or not it decreases recidivism.
Slide 4: Types of Research Methods
Most broadly, research methods are separated into quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Quantitative methods use numbers to describe social phenomena while qualitative research uses written or spoken words with no direct numerical interpretation to achieve the same goal of describing or explaining social phenomena. Quantitative and qualitative methods may be achieved with a variety of different methods, but the most common are experiments, asking questions via surveys or interviews, using participant or field observations, and using secondary data.
Experiments are a research method that manipulates specific variables in a controlled environment in order to observe changes in behavior. Additionally, experiments require a group where no manipulations occurred in order to compare their reactions to the group that was affected.
Surveys are a research method that includes forms of questions that can be distributed to large populations. Interviews are an alternative method that asks populations questions face-to-face, and is often only achievable on smaller groups of people.
Participant and field observations are a research method that focuses on observing people in order to develop non-numerical data.
Lastly, secondary data analysis is a methodology that allows researchers to use data not gathered by the researcher that they can manipulate or analyze in order to answer their own research question.
Slide 5: Research Concerns
When conducting research, there are various concerns that researchers must acknowledge when choosing the methodology and interpreting their results. The first concern is validity, or whether or not the measurement we are using measures what we think it measures. For example, if we are using a scale to measure self-control, we want to be sure that the questions making up the scale are actually measuring self-control and not obedience.
A second concern is generalizability, or the concern of whether or not our conclusions hold up in different environments. The image on this slide shows a representation of two generalization concerns, overgeneralization and selective observation. Overgeneralization is when a researcher bases a conclusion on too few observations and tries to apply them to the entire population. Alternatively, selective observation is when a researcher puts too much focus on a specific or biased group of people or person and uses those observations to interpret an entire population. The best method to increase generalizability is to study or get data from diverse individuals that are representative of the population you are attempting to study.
The last concern is causality. Causality is the assumption that A causes B. If researchers erroneously assume or conclude that an event A causes event B when in reality this is not the true relationship, they can unintentionally negatively affect their conclusions.
Slide 7: Key Aspects of Research Methods
Before doing research, you must understand what these concepts of theory, hypothesis, independent and dependent variables, and operational definitions are.
Theories consist of interconnected sets of propositions that show how or why something occurs. Theories cannot be proven, but research can disprove alternatives and thus show support for theory.
Data is any information that is recorded from an observation. Data can be both numerical or non-numerical.
A hypothesis is an expected buy uniformed relationship among two or more phenomena. A hypothesis is essentially an educated guess of what will happen when a change in one variable is related to a change in a second variable.
The independent variable in a study is a variable that is hypothesized to cause variation in another variable whereas the dependent variable is a variable that is hypothesized to vary depending on the independent variable.
So for example, if we are hypothesizing that increased school attendance results in a higher GPA, the independent variable would be school attendance (the thing that is changing) and the dependent variable would be GPA (the thing affected by the changing variable).
Lastly, operationalization is the process of identifying empirical indicators and procedures for applying them to measure a concept, thus the operational definition is a detailed description of the research procedures necessary to assign units of analysis to variable categories. For example, if we were to create an operational definition for temperature, it would be how much a column of mercury or alcohol expands in a tube that has increments of the temperature you are trying to measure. If that temperature is Fahrenheit, a research would explain that the increments on the thermometer were defined by Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1917, with 32 degrees as the temperature at which water freezes with any increment above or below relative to that temperature.
Slide 8: Research Strategies
Research can be done using two methods of reasoning: inductive and deductive.
Deductive is reasoning in which the conclusion a researcher makes follows collected evidence. Inductive reasoning is when conclusions are implied, but go beyond the evidence at hand. The scientific method used to conduct research is going to be affected based on whether or not a researcher uses deductive or inductive research.
Slide 9: Deductive Research
In deductive research, questions are asked about some aspect of crime and processes or method are used to create unbiased research. In deductive research, a researcher starts with a pre-established theory, and moves to a specific reality where a hypothesis can be formulated, variables are formulated to collect data, and specific processes are used to analyze data. Lastly, a conclusion is drawn based on the data that supports or does not support the hypothesis and the theory which was used to develop the hypotheses and research questions.
The majority of quantitative is deductive. Researchers start with a theory, such as routine activities theory which believes that for a crime to occur, there needs to be a motivated offender, vulnerable victim, and a lack of a guardian. Based on this theory, a research question can be formed, such as: how long does a house need to be vacant before it is vulnerable to burglary? To answer this research question, a hypothesis is created. In this case, the hypothesis could be: Victims of burglary are more vulnerable when their homes are abandoned for longer periods of time. Data can then be collected using surveys to measure how long people who were burglarized were absent prior to the burglary occurring. The conclusion of this survey would then support or not support the theory.
Slide 10: Inductive research
Inductive research begins with a specific set of data, and analysis of said data leads to a theory being developed. Patterns represented within data are summarized into generalizations. This is often part of exploratory research, and is common in qualitative research as well. After a theory has been developed using the inductive approach, it can then be tested using deductive methods.
An example of inductive research is having a data set consisting of pre-trial probation officer reports. These reports may include information about the defendant’s lifestyle as well as information provided by interviews with various members of the defendant’s family or authority figures such as teachers. Content analysis of these forms may display a pattern that defendants consistently had behavior problems as a child and often took risks. These actions may be both criminal and simply deviant or risky in nature. After considering these forms and the patterns that emerged, you could conclude that self-control influences whether or not a person commits a crime. Tests can then be developed deductively to test this theoretical conclusion.
Slide 11: Module 1 Wrap Up
After reading the texts and listening to the lecture prepared for this module, you should be confident in your ability in completing the learning objectives from the unit.
In particular, you should be able to explain how social science is empirical and what being empirical means. Social science is empirical because it bases research off of experiences, and the methods researchers use to study these experiences is scientific in order to reduce biases and increase objectivity. Researchers should always consider the scientific method and their research methodologies in order to reduce the issues of bias they may encounter throughout the research process.
The four types of research are descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, and evaluation. Due to the differences in goals that these types of research have, different methods of research may be more appropriate for each type of research.
You should be able to define and identify the various key aspects of research methods including theory, data, hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, and operational definitions. Your first assignment which will be due at the end of this module, will require you to apply these various aspects of research methodology when developing your own research question and project for the semester. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these terms, please ask your professor for further explanations and examples.
Lastly, you should be able to differentiate between inductive and deductive research and apply when using these two methods is most appropriate for the type of research being conducted. For example, when conducting exploratory research, inductive reasoning may be more appropriate, but when conducting explanatory or evaluation research, deductive methods may be a better fit.
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