Understanding Social Science Research: Research Methods
Summary
TLDRThis video distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative social science research methods. Qualitative research, which is inductive and focuses on understanding people's experiences in depth, often involves small sample sizes and data collection through interviews, observations, and focus groups. Quantitative research, on the other hand, is deductive, aiming to test hypotheses with large sample sizes and using statistical methods for analysis. Tools like NVivo for qualitative and R for quantitative analysis are recommended for researchers.
Takeaways
- 🔍 Social science research involves gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about human behavior across disciplines like education, anthropology, psychology, and economics.
- 📊 Research methods in social sciences are primarily divided into qualitative and quantitative approaches.
- 🌟 Qualitative research is inductive, focusing on understanding the meaning of people's experiences within specific cultures or settings, often with smaller sample sizes.
- 🔢 Quantitative research is deductive, starting with a hypothesis that is tested through data analysis, typically involving larger sample sizes for more generalizable results.
- 🎯 Qualitative data is descriptive, sourced from interviews, observations, and focus groups, and often requires the researcher to identify patterns manually.
- 📈 Quantitative data is numerical and analyzed using statistical methods, with findings presented in statistical reports.
- 💻 Tools like NVivo support qualitative researchers in organizing and analyzing textual data.
- 📊 For quantitative research, software such as Excel, Stata, SPSS, and R are used for data management and statistical analysis, with R being recommended for its free availability and programming capabilities.
- 🔧 Mixed methods research combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the research topic.
- 📝 Qualitative research reports are often narrative, while quantitative research reports are presented in a more statistical format.
Q & A
What is social science research?
-Social science research is the activity of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information related to human behavior across various disciplines such as education, anthropology, psychology, and economics.
How are social science research methods classified?
-Social science research methods are classified into two main categories: qualitative and quantitative.
What is the focus of qualitative research?
-Qualitative research focuses on exploring the meaning of people's experiences in particular cultures or settings, emphasizing in-depth information on relatively few individuals or within a limited setting.
What is the methodological approach of qualitative research?
-The methodological approach of qualitative research is inductive, starting with particular cases and arriving at a general conclusion.
How does quantitative research differ from qualitative research?
-Quantitative research focuses on specific behaviors that can be quantified and uses a deductive method, starting with a hypothesis that is then tested through data analysis.
What is the typical sample size in quantitative research?
-Quantitative research often includes very large samples to achieve more accurate results.
Can you provide an example of a mixed methods study in social science?
-A mixed methods study combines both qualitative and quantitative research approaches to study issues related to human behavior.
What types of data does qualitative research typically collect?
-Qualitative research collects descriptive data from interviews, observations, and focus groups, often taking the form of long written notes.
How does the data collection method change in qualitative research?
-In qualitative research, the method may change during the same research as different kinds of data may be decided to be collected based on the evolving understanding of the research.
What is a popular tool for supporting qualitative data analysis?
-NVivo is a popular computer software that allows researchers to store, organize, and categorize qualitative data.
How is data analyzed in quantitative research?
-Data in quantitative research is analyzed using statistical methods, with findings usually presented in a statistical report.
What are some software tools recommended for quantitative data analysis?
-Excel is great for data management and simple analysis, but for more complex analysis, specific statistical software like Stata, SPSS, and R are recommended, with R being a free option that allows saving data analysis programs.
Outlines
🔍 Introduction to Social Science Research
This paragraph introduces the concept of social science research, which involves the study of human behavior through various disciplines such as education, anthropology, psychology, and economics. It explains that there are two main categories of research methods: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is inductive, focusing on understanding the meaning of people's experiences in specific cultural or environmental contexts, often with small sample sizes. It involves collecting in-depth information and may use data collection methods like interviews, observations, and focus groups. On the other hand, quantitative research is deductive, starting with a hypothesis that is tested through analysis of data, often requiring large samples for more accurate results. The paragraph also mentions that some studies use mixed methods, combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Social science research
💡Qualitative research
💡Quantitative research
💡Inductive method
💡Deductive method
💡Hypothesis
💡Data analysis
💡NVivo
💡Statistical methods
💡R (programming language)
💡Mixed methods
Highlights
Social science research involves gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information related to human behavior.
Disciplines within social sciences include education, anthropology, psychology, and economics.
Social science research methods are classified into qualitative and quantitative categories.
Qualitative research focuses on the meaning of people's experiences in specific cultures or settings.
Qualitative research uses an inductive method, starting with particular cases to arrive at general conclusions.
Qualitative researchers collect in-depth information on relatively few individuals or within limited settings.
Quantitative research focuses on specific, quantifiable behaviors based on theory and hypotheses.
Quantitative research uses a deductive method, starting with a general idea and confirming or refuting it with data analysis.
Quantitative research often includes large samples for more accurate results.
Mixed methods research combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Data in qualitative research is descriptive, coming from interviews, observations, and focus groups.
Qualitative research methods may change during the research, and data collection can be flexible.
Qualitative data is often presented in narrative form, with tools like NVivo aiding in analysis.
Quantitative data is expressed in numerical form and analyzed using statistical methods.
Statistical software like Excel, Stata, SPSS, and R are used for managing and analyzing quantitative data.
R is recommended for statistical analysis due to its free availability and capability to save analysis programs.
The next video will continue the discussion on social science research methods.
Transcripts
In this short video, I'm going to describe the main difference between two
broad types of social science research. Social science research is the activity
of gathering analyzing and interpreting information related to human behavior.
There are several disciplines that are part of social sciences such as
education, anthropology, psychology and also economics. There are a variety of
methods to study issues related to human behavior. These methods can be classified
into two main categories--qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research
explores the meaning of people's experiences in particular cultures or
settings so it focuses on how people behave in their natural environment.
These researchers don't start with a clear theory from particular cases. They
arrive to a general conclusion so we can say that its method is inductive.
Qualitative researchers emphasize collecting in-depth information on
relatively few individuals or within a limited setting so for these samples tend
to be small. Quantitative research tends to focus on specific behaviors that can
be quantified. Based on theory, researchers develop an hypotheses
which then is accepted or refuted through the analysis of the data so we
can say that the method is deductive because it starts from a general idea
and then it is confirmed or not. To be able to get more accurate results,
quantitative research frequently includes very large samples. Some studies
also use mixed methods combining both types
of research. In qualitative research, data is descriptive and comes from interviews
of resources, focus groups and/or observations. In qualitative
research, method may change during the same research and different kind of data
may be decided to be collected. The data usually takes the form of long written
notes. In this case, the same researcher needs to organize the data and look for
patterns and identify specific things or topics. Reports from qualitative research
are usually narrative although it is not essential. There are some tools that can
support researchers in the analysis of these kind of data for example. NVivo
is a popular computer software that allows you to store organize and
categorize your data in quantitative research. Data are measurable and are
expressed in numerical form. To analyze this data statistical methods are used.
The findings from this type of research are usually presented in a statistical
report to compute these calculations. There are different softwares that can
facilitate this process Excel for example is great for data management and
also to run some simple analysis but it is better to learn to use a specific
statistical software as soon as you can since it will be essential for more
complex analysis. There are a number of easy-to-use statistical software such as
Stata SPSS and R. We recommend you use R since it is free and allows you to
save data analysis programs. In our next video,
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