Foundations of Social Science Research Notes

What is the difference between validity and reliability?

Validity - are our results valid for what we are trying to use them for?

Reliability - are our results reliable based on the methods and methodology that we used?

What is pseudoscience?

When people come up with statements that they say are true and backed by science, but the science is based on non scientific principles and therefore not accurate

What are the 5 common types of thinking errors when it comes to analysing things, both day to day and in research?

1. Overgeneralisation - taking some evidence and over-extrapolating the results

2. Selective observation

3. Premature Closure

4. False Consensus

5. Halo Effect

What is overgeneralisation, give an example?

Taking some evidence for something and over-extrapolating the results to something else.

E.g. We see that some homeless people drink alcohol so think all homeless people must be alcoholics

What is selective observation, give an example?

Like confirmation bias - where we take a belief and then subconsciously alter our interpretation of all the empirical evidence we have about that belief to fit our thinking

E.g. We think all leafs are green, so when we see brown leafs we think they’re not leafs because they’re dead, and that yellow or red leafs are special types of leafs that are separate to normal leafs

What is premature closure, give an example?

When we don’t quite finish researching something and decide to draw a conclusion anyway

E.g. we are researching the best microwave, and we’ve looked at a few and find one with excellent reviews and that ticks all our boxes. We don’t keep researching and look at any others and conclude this is the best one

What is false consensus, give an example?

This is where we extrapolate our thinking onto others

E.g. I think that tractors are great machines so everyone else must too

What is halo effect, give an example?

This is where we have a positive association with something, and because of that, we extrapolate the positivity to other things that one thing did

e.g. I think the UN writes excellent special reports into situations, I therefore extrapolate that to every UN report and assume they will all be as high quality, unbiased, and objective. I might also extrapolate this to decisions the UN makes, thinking they will put as much work into these as their reports.

What are 3 common social cognition biases that also occur when we analyse evidence in life

1. Belief perseverence

2. COnfirmation Bias

3. Availability heuristic

What is belief perseverance? Provide an example.

This is where even though we have evidence against a belief we hold, we maintain this belief anyway. 

E.g. We believe the world is flat, years later overwhelming evidence supports it is round, we however, continue to believe it is flat because we hold the belief so strongly.

What is belief confirmation bias? Provide an example.

This is similar to selective observation, and is where we pay special attention to, and search for things that confirm our existing beliefs subconsciously.

E.g. We think that cars are causing climate change, we then start to pay special attention to the evidence that supports this, and change or disregard other evidence. E.g. looking at articles on climate change being caused by vehicle emissions, ignoring any critique’s of this as deniers, and thinking that the article you did read rejecting it was actually more evidence for it, as it didn’t categorically say the cars weren’t causing the climate change.

What is availability heuristic? Provide an example.

This is where we overestimate the amount something does happen due to experiencing a memorable event of it. 

E.g. we see a memorable movie about nuclear disasters, and think they must occur a lot

What makes the research process strong evidence, and a strong way of knowing that something is true?

• Consistently, we use the same term to describe the same thing across literature

• We follow carefully made step by step procedures to gather data and analyse it

• Multiple observers are used to increase objectivity in analysis of what is happening

• Conclusions are all based on data

• Our work is carefully documented and can be repeated with the same results

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative data?

Both are equally important and useful forms of data, however, are best used in different situations

Quantitative:

• Excellent for when we have little knowledge about why something may be happening, and need to develop an understanding from very little

• Uses words, experiences, anything that isn’t numerically recorded essentialy

• Usually inductive, meaning we come up with new theories from the research rather than apply current ones

• E.g. can be used to find why people think a certain way, what factors usually make up how they feel about something (such as their happiness), what they were thinking, how they understand things, etc

Qualitative:

• Excellent for when we have an idea about how something may be happening, and we want to drill further into what that is.

• Quite specific, and useful for testing specific hypotheses.

• Uses numeric data which is statistically analysed to find meaning

• Usually deductive rather than inductive, meaning we apply the results ot current theory rather than make new theory

• E.g. can be used to test whether homelessness is caused by a certain theory, to measure the effectiveness of interventions against homelessness, to identify different categories of homeless trajectories, etc

What is scientific literacy?

The ability to understand and use scientific processes, principles, and techniques

What is the difference between methodology and methods?

Methodology refers to the research as a whole, what was our idea, what are the ethical considerations, what is our strategy to do this? E.g. are we using qual or quant research designs, what are our research questions, etc

Methods refers to the specific tools and techniques that we use in our investigations to answer the research question and align with our methodology E.g. where are participants coming from, what will we use for data analysis, what type of design are we using

What is an RCT?

Randomised Control Trial/Test

This is where you randomly allocate participants to categories, with at least one control and experimental category to determine the effectiveness of treatments

What does a P value show

What percentage we are pretty sure the data is different from the other category without being by chance

What determines which approach we take to research?

What we are trying to find out, e.g. are we trying to find the nitty gritty answer to a specific question and are linking to existent theory, or are we trying to find information on something we don’t no a lot about, and therefore actually need to make theory on.

What does ontology mean?

Ontology refers to what exists, and what the fundamental categories of reality are

What are the 2 positions to ontology?

Realist and normalist

How does a normalist see ontology?

A normalist approach to ontology sees what the world is as being dependant on peoples subjective views, and therefore different for different people

(think normalist = normal, and it is normal for people to interpret things differently)

How does a realist perspective see ontology?

A realist sees that what we see in the world is what there is, as these things are objective.

(Think realist = what is real and the approach is all about what is real being what is there)

What is epistomology?

Epistomology looks at how we know what we think exists actually exists. How do we know what we think is happening is happening.

What is a paradigm

A ridiculous word

In reality it is another word for framework, and refers to the framework in which people are looking at things.

What is a positivist framework?

This is a framework which is trying to find the objective truth about one specific thing

Who were key influencers of positivist frameworks and what did they do?

Comte came up with it, and believed the best way to identify if something was true was to continue testing, and if the results consistently proved it, it was likely to be true.

Popper however, refined this theory by saying that a faster method would be to try to disprove something, and if it couldn’t be disproved then it was likely to be true.

What is an interpretivist framework?

This is a framework looking to understand how people feel about things and make sense of their world.

Who was influential in creating interpretivism?

Max Weber came up with interpretivisim because as a social scientist he wanted to understand the nature of our world and what people thought of it. He decided that the meaning and nature of the world was based on peoples subjective experiences. 

Therefore, he said that theories are only true if the people they apply to perceive them to be, and that theories had to be constantly built on to find the “truth”

What is a critical framework?

These are frameworks that combine positvism and interpretivism to expose injustices in marjinalised and oppressed groups and challenge peoples thinking about these groups

What is transferrence?

This is when we transfer our perspective of one thing onto something else.

E.g. we meet someone who reminds us of our Grandfather and consequently transfer his personality onto them by thinking about them in the same way we thought about our Grandfather, and treat them similarly.

What is the difference between analytico inductive and hypothetical deductive reasoning?

Analytico inductive reasoning is where theories are produced based on research, and research has the aim of producing these theories. 

Hypothetical deductive reasoning is where research is applied to existing theories to try to drill down on them and the reasoning behind something.