Social Research Part B (W1) | Word

• All research activity is guided by assumptions about reality and how we can learn about it.
• Ontology refers to what are the things that exist.
• Objectivism is the social world exists independently of us.
• Constructivism is the idea that we can create and redefine the social world.
• Positivism is achieved via empirical and objective scientific method.
• Realism is similar to positivism, but acknowledges a gap between things and concepts.
• Interpretivism is achieved via understanding the motivation and meaning of actions for social actors.
• The research process consists of theory (paradigm and concepts), research question, operationalisation, analyses, and conclusions.
• Research methods include collection (archives, observations, interviews, surveys, and experiments), data (variables (numbers), written text, and audio-visual text), analysis (critical discourse, narrative, semiotic, thematic, and statistics), and data analysis methods (descriptive and inferential).
• Data analysis methods refer to systematic procedures for analysing quantitative or qualitative data once it has been collected, including descriptive analysis (first level of analysis, which helps researchers find absolute numbers to summarize individual variables and find patterns such as mean, mode, frequency, range etc) and inferential analysis (complex analyses that show the relationship between multiple variables to generalise results and make predictions such as correlations and regressions).
• Experiments are used to study causes, effects, and impact.
• Ontology: Objectivism - the social world exists independently of us; Constructivism - we can create and redefine the social world.
• Epistemology: Positivism - via empirical and objective scientific method; Realism - similar, though we may acknowledge a gap between things and concepts; Interpretivism - via understanding the motivation and meaning of actions for social actors.
• The research process overview includes theory, research question, operationalization, analyses, and conclusions.
• Research methods include collection (archives, observations, interviews, surveys, and experiments), data (variables, written text, and audio-visual text), and analysis (critical discourse, narrative, semiotic, thematic, and statistics).
• Data analysis methods include descriptive analysis (summarizing individual variables and finding patterns) and inferential analysis (showing the relationship between multiple variables to generalize results and make predictions).
• Surveys are used for population differences, relationships, and generalization; experiments for causes, effects, and impact; interviews for experience, complexity, and depth; ethnography for reality, social life, culture, and community practices; content analysis to determine the presence of certain words, discourses, framings, and/or images in large bodies of textual data; visual methods for complex constructs and experience; mixed methods for triangulation, collection, and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.