Introduction to social research

Social Research

Effective and Ethical Theoretical Frameworks and Conceptual Underpinnings in Social Research

The scientific method, though not really codified and rendered explicit until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was a feature the investigation of the natural world from the time of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and arguably even prior to the scientific advancements of these civilizations. "Science" as it is though of today was practiced with highly varied degrees of integrity and vigor at different epochs of human history, it is true, and many assumptions were made and "proven" in decidedly unscientific ways even by some of history's greatest scientific thinkers and contributors, but the concepts of objectivity and open-mindedness that are the strict rules of modern scientific investigation have long been the hallmarks of successful and meaningful investigations of the world.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, following the major scientific advancements occurring in physics, chemistry, and eventually biology, certain members of the scientific community began applying the same methods of objective understanding to issues that are incredibly difficult to observe in any concrete and objective way. Specifically, the sciences of psychology and sociology began to emerge in an attempt to scientifically address human problems, the former on a larger societal scale and the latter on an individual level. In these sciences, there are few concrete phenomena to be measured, weighed, and analyzed, and so a more extensive codification and classification -- as well as some guesswork -- became necessary.

It is for this reason that the theoretical frameworks and basic conceptual underpinnings of conducting social research to address human issues are so important. Without initial agreement and shared perspectives, the results of social research would be at best meaningless and at worst easily manipulated into a series of politically motivated "facts" used to make sweeping social decisions. There are both practical and ethical reasons that the underlying theories and concepts of social research have been developed, and though there are competing theories that are in some ways mutually exclusive, the establishment of a common language and understanding is still key even in outlining these scientific disagreements. That is, it is only with defined theories and concepts that social research can be made meaningful and useful, as they provide a concrete lexicon for abstract investigations.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research

One of the most basic distinctions that has been necessarily made in the area of social research is the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research. This distinction is necessary because it makes clear exactly what is concretely measurable and measured -- that which can be termed quantitative data -- and what is somewhat more subjectively defined, implied, and understood, or the qualitative aspects of a given issue. This is not to suggest that qualitative research and data is somewhat less rigorously controlled or less scientific than quantitative data, but it does demand the use of different metrics and measuring tools as qualitative research generally involves issues that cannot be directly measured.

In a very basic sense, quantitative data and research can be understood as the type of scientific investigation that occurs in all branches of science, through direct measurement. Physicists, for example, use quantitative research to measure mass and energy; these aspects of a given scenario that can be given specific numbers that would be understood by other researchers. This is not to say that quantitative data provides cold, objective facts that are indisputable; there is still an epistemological assumption that such measurements are in fact accurate and meaningful, and thus even the most direct and concrete quantitative research depends upon the definition of terms and measurements, and requires a general consensus regarding these units if results are to be meaningful (Rist 1977).

The need to arrive at a consensus of the definitions of given terms is perhaps more pressing in social research than in the "hard" sciences such as physics, due to the fact that social issues tend to have more interrelated factors and complexities (the definition of "self" in social research, for instance, is bound to be more complex than the definition of "mass" in physics). Qualitative research and data has the same issues, but they are even more profound as the elements that are discerned and described in a qualitative manner cannot by their very nature be quantified at all, even when rigorously defined. Aspects of an issue such as how someone feels or a combination of life decisions that lead to a certain situation are qualitative research aspects, and they are of immense value in social research even if -- and perhaps because -- they tend to add more complexity to the issue than quantitative data.

Ultimately, the development of both qualitative and quantitative research frameworks -- and indeed, theoretical and research-based frameworks that manage to fully incorporate both types of research -- is essential to the continuing meaningful examination of social issues. Social research is concerned with developing understandings of society and the social world that are meaningful, relevant, and can be acted upon in specific ways with fairly definite effects, and in order to do this it must be built on valid constructs of reality that incorporate all needed elements, both quantitative and qualitative, of a given issue (Schutt 1966). The delineation between qualitative and quantitative research must be made in order to allow for the construction of truly meaningful constructs; without a specific delineation of the theoretical and practical differences between these two areas of research, any information obtained through social research would lack meaning due to a missing context.

The Practical Need for Strong Theoretical Frameworks

The above explanation for the difference between qualitative and quantitative data and research methods should begin to make it clear why having strong theoretical frameworks that are reached through a consensus of scientific minds is so essential to successful social research. Without a clear understanding of what is being studied and the purpose it is being studied for, any findings will be essentially meaningless as it will be impossible to communicate observations and findings to others. The practical need to define theories and parameters in social research extends even deeper than this, however, into more specific paradigms.

A paradigm is essentially a broad theoretical framework that informs decision about how research should be and is conducted, and how the results of that research should be analyzed and utilized. Two major paradigms in social research, for example, are the positivist and interpretivist paradigms. The former places a high emphasis on empirical evidence, stressing the scientific method and the belief that all knowledge must ultimately come from the senses, and that knowledge so derived can be correlated into various laws of behavior, nature, etc. -- only that which can be actually perceived can be actually studied, according to the tenets of positivism (Neuman 1997). Interpretivism, on the other hand, believes that careful observation leads to inferences of how people interact, and this true knowledge is not derived directly from the senses but rather through rational and necessarily subjective understandings of why people behave and interact in the ways they do (Neuman 1997).

Both of these major paradigms are immensely useful to social research, and though at times they may seem (and in fact are, to some degree) mutually exclusive, the understandings derived in each paradigm can be highly informative of each other. What is most important to note, however, is the fact that these paradigms have explicitly defined understandings of what knowledge is, how it should be obtained, and how it can be analyzed and/or utilized. Without this understanding, the researcher is left without any context from which to begin research or in which to place observations, and will thus lose sight of themselves as the researcher and lose what consciously limited objectivity there is (Cooper 2008).

The Ethical Need for Theory

The need for underlying theoretical frameworks or paradigms in social research is not limited to the practical concerns and efficacy of such research. There is also an ethical imperative for social researchers to codify their practices, concepts, and underlying assumptions in order to make research both relevant to the populations studied and beneficial to society at large. The issue here is somewhat more complex than it is when considering the practical implications of theoretical underpinnings in social research; it is not a matter of whether or not the research is useful or not, or even whether it is beneficial (or harmful) or not, but in fact the ethical issues of theoretical underpinnings go far deeper than this. Making research ethical (or failing to do so) has en effect on the researcher and on social research overall in addition to simply having implications on the research at hand, and understanding the influence that ethicality has on broader research is a definite necessity.