Before going over this module, the learner must answer the PRE-TEST in order for the teacher
to assess
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and pinpoint specific topics that need emphasis during the discussion.
PRE-TEST
Essential Questions for Consideration
What are the methods for doing social research?
How do social scientists carry out social research?
What are the uses of social research?
How do political issues and ethical considerations influence social research?
Pre-Lesson Assessment Activities
Distinguish common sense way of knowing from scientific way of knowing by differentiating
superstitious beliefs from science (e.g., astrology and horoscope from astronomy). Write your answers on the
board by making two columns: one for scientific research and one for common sense. After the activity,
discuss why you believe in superstitions and explain how you got to know these (for example, by jumping
during New Year's eve, one will grow taller). Then discuss how superstitions can be explained scientifically.
Building Vocabularies People to Remember
Eurocentrism Earl Babbie
Open System Roy Bhaskar
Positivism Galileo Galilei
Qualitative Method Claudius Ptolemy
Quantitative Method
Reflexivity
Scientific Method
Social Research
MODULE #2
Doing Research in the Social Sciences
Learning Outcome(s):
At the end of the lesson, the learner is able to:
identify the subjects of inquiry and goals of Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology:
explain the nature of social research and its importance to society;
distinguish scientific method from common sense;
discus some of the major methods used in the social sciences; and
explore the political and ethical issues in social research.
Science and Common Sense
People often do inquiries to answer specific questions like, "Are poor people
really lazy?" or, "Are Chinese-Filipinos better in Math than average Filipinos?" We often experience predicting
the future like, "Will it rain tomorrow?" To answer these questions, many people turn to common sense or the
prevailing opinion among the people. Common sense is prone to overgeneralization, inaccurate observation,
and illogical reasoning.
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Yet, common sense is considered to be the bedrock of science. Science starts with common sense, but
goes beyond common sense. However, to be scientific one need not only observe meticulously and without
prejudice. Philosophers of science point out that in order to observe scientifically one has to learn the culture
of
science (Chalmers 1997, p. 27). One must learn how to observe and what to observe. A microbiologist looking
at the lens of a microscope sees differently from a student who has not yet learned the proper use of a
microscope. An anthropologist has a distinct explanation of certain rituals of a community different from the
participants explanation.
This is where common sense and science diverge. In most cases, the scientific method debunks
common sense. In science, there is more to "seeing" than meets the eyes. For instance, before the birth of
medicine and the invention of germ theory, many people believed in "spiritual" causes of diseases. Today,
thanks to scientific advancement, we know that infectious diseases are caused by specific microorganisms.
Another famous example is the claim of the medieval theologians that the center of the solar system is the
earth, which is known as the geocentric or Ptolemaic theory (named after the famous Alexandrian
astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (c. AD 90 c. 168). Later, Galileo Galilei and other astronomers showed the
falsity of this theory by substituting it with the heliocentric theory. People found it difficult to accept the
Copernican revolution because the Ptolemaic theory overwhelmingly supports the commonsense observation
that the earth is fixed and the sun goes around it. To understand it, one has to have the scientific concept of
inertia.
This trend applies equally to the social sciences. For instance, it was generally believed that women
are incapable of higher education because of their weak intellectual and physical nature. Today, however, such
claim is considered as discriminatory against women. It was also believed for a long time that poverty is a
result of divine predestination to which the poor must resign themselves. Many religious reformers cited the
words of Christ, "The poor you shall always have with you. Today, social scientists have established that
poverty is a structural problem arising from economic inequality. It was also believed that homosexuality is an
abnormality, but in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association's Board of Trustees removed
homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual (Rosario 2002, p.114).
The Emancipatory Potential of the Social Sciences
Based on the preceding section, by using scientific method, the social sciences can contribute greatly
to the elimination of prejudices against certain groups of people such as racism, sexism, and cultural
ethnocentrism. It can also enable people to become open minded and welcoming of other beliefs and practices
no matter how foreign or alien. They can also help predict future events that would allow people to mitigate
dangers, risk, and casualties. It also helps people to better understand other people's way of life. By studying
events scientifically, people may come to realize that society can be controlled to a certain degree. This
provides greater freedom for people in planning their future. It is transformative insofar as it allows the social
scientists to imagine an alternative way of life or direction for the future. In this sense, social sciences like the
natural sciences are revolutionary. They challenge the common sense beliefs and refuse to follow unexamined
traditions and claims based on authority (Bhaskar 2002).
The Open System of the Social Sciences
But what constitutes the scientific method? What makes the study of society, politics, and culture
scientific is that social scientists employ the method of science. Scientific method, however, does not mean the
rigid application of the methods of physical sciences such as physics and chemistry. Unlike the natural
sciences, social sciences are confronted with an open system-that applies to society, politics, culture, and the
world. Open systems, unlike the close systems of the natural world such as laboratory or aquarium, cannot be
totally controlled (Bhaskar 1979). The variables that affect the system of society are enormous compared with
the aquarium model. Added to this difficulty is the importance of meanings and values that inform human
actions. The diversity of culture and social structures that define human meanings make it challenging for
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social scientists to study culture, society, and politics. Human beings are endowed with free will and decision
making, unlike atoms and insects. Nevertheless, it does not mean that there are no uniformities and
regularities in society,
culture, and politics. Regularities are what the social scientists are interested in. Of course, social scientists are
also interested in particular cases, or the exceptional. This is often the case in anthropology. Hence, some
social scientists reject the very idea of a scientific “social science.” They prefer the more humanistic tradition
that sees society, culture, and politics as unique in their own right. Students, however, need not choose
between the humanistic and the scientific conception of the social sciences. Today, social scientists recognize
that social sciences cannot be as hard and rigorous as the natural sciences. Gone are the days when social
scientists dreamt of creating their disciplines according to the model of physics (like Comte), but it does not
mean that social sciences cannot be a science. Even the definition of science is subject to debate. If by
science, one means the search for enduring uniformity in nature such as gravity, then, the social sciences have
not found anything to this date. But if by science one means the capacity to base one’s tentative
generalization, no matter how crude and simple, on empirical observation guided by a set of theory, then the
social sciences can be scientific. The humanistic side of the social sciences are shown in their capacity to
emphasize the particular, the admission of probabilistic generalization (that one’s prediction is based on
statistical probability and not 100% accurate), the acknowledgment of the role of values and ethical
considerations as well as the power in formulating and interpreting social scientific findings.
Two Basic Methods in the Social Sciences
To find out about social phenomena and events, social scientists often employ the methods of social
research. Social research refers to the methods and techniques that go into the investigation of social
phenomena in order to understand and interpret the occurrence of such phenomena. In general, there are two
methods employed by social scientists.
Quantitative Method
According to Jeanette Garwood (2006), quantitative method refers to “[r]esearch involving the
collection of data in numerical form for quantitative analysis. The numerical data can be durations, scores,
counts of incidents, ratings, or scales. Quantitative data can be collected in either controlled or naturalistic
environments, in laboratories or field studies, from special populations or from samples of the general
population. The defining factor is that numbers result from the process, whether the initial data collection
produced numerical values, or whether non-numerical values were subsequently converted to numbers as part
of the analysis process, as in content analysis” (Jupp 2006, p. 251).
Quantitative research allows the researcher to familiarize herself with the problem or concept to be
studied, and perhaps generate hypotheses to be tested. Quantitative methods are often used to do large-scale
social investigation involving representatives of the population, with survey being the most popular method. A
quantitative researcher attempts to delimit phenomena into measurable or common categories that can be applied
to all of the subjects or wider and similar situations. Quantitative methods are often very useful in predicting and
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describing the general topography and demographic distribution of a given population. It is also able to establish
the strength of the effects of independent variables (like education) on specified dependent variables (like income).
However, its
strength is also its weakness, by looking at aggregate data, quantitative research cannot capture the richness of
data in terms of meanings and exceptionality of certain cases.
Qualitative Method
According to Maggie Sumner (2006), qualitative research method refers to "Research that investigates
aspects of social life which are not amenable to quantitative measurement. Associated with a variety of theoretical
perspectives, qualitative research uses a range of methods to focus on the meanings and interpretation of social
phenomena and social processes in the particular contexts in which they occur." The goals of qualitative research
are to understand processes, experiences and meanings people assign to things. Under qualitative research, there
are a variety of methods that include interviews, participant observations, focused group discussion, textual and
discourse analysis, oral history, biographies, and other forms of humanistic techniques. Qualitative methods are
often used to study meanings embedded in a certain organization or practices occurring in a community. Its
primary purpose is to understand the meanings attached by the actors to what they are doing. Thus, the subject
matter of most qualitative research is how people construct their understanding of the social world and how they
make sense of everyday life. Reality is seen as subjective and variable across individuals, and a major goal is to
understand how these views of reality differ across space and time.
Ethics and Politics of Social Science Research
In the past, social scientists have debated among themselves and even outside their disciplines the
question of political nature of doing research. They asked controversial questions like, “Can science be free of
values and prejudices?” “Should social research be politically neutral?” Traditionally, the answers to these
questions were provided by those who work within the positivist tradition in the social sciences. Positivists
advocate for the mainstreaming of the social sciences according to the method and rigor of the “hard” sciences.
Hence, many traditional social scientists and researchers believed in the objectivity and neutrality of social science
research. They believed that social research should not criticize existing social beliefs and practices; instead it
should only focus on describing accurately what is happening in the world. A sociologist, for instance, should only
describe accurately the culture of the poor families in slums but should not use his/her research for criticizing the
larger inequalities in society. Others argue that gender and power relations that foreground the research should
not be taken into account when doing research. Social scientists who belong to this tradition strongly advocated
the use of quantitative method as it is not easily manipulated and influenced by the prejudices and biases of the
researcher. Their main goal is to establish, through statistical analysis, the relationships among different variables.
POST-TEST
Read the newspapers. Based on the headlines, what particular social issue do you think is worth
researching using the method of the social sciences? Write a one-page presentation of the issue using
the following outline:
Topic or issue (Title)
Background of the study (Why did you choose the topic?)
Method (The techniques and processes that will be used to gather data, whether survey or not, qualitative
or quantitative, the sample size, respondents, etc.)
Analysis (How to interpret and analyze the data; statistics, qualitative analysis, etc.)
Ethical considerations (What are the ethical problems that will have an impact on the suggested research
topic?)
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