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Research Methodology and Data

Processing: Types of Research
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BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH

Social research has two wings or orientations. There is a somewhat detached scientific
or academic orientation and a more activist, practical, and action-oriented orientation.

This is not a rigid separation. Many researchers work in both, or they move from one
to the other at different career stages. The orientations differ in how to use findings
and who the primary audience is.

Basic Research

Basic research is also called academic research or pure research.

Basic research advances fundamental knowledge about the social world. It

builds/tests theoretical explanations by focusing on the ‘why’ question. It is the source
of most new scientific ideas and ways to think about social events. The scientific
community is its primary audience.

Researchers use basic research to support or refute theories about how the social
world operates and changes, what makes things happen, and why social relations or
events are a certain way.

Some people criticize the basic research orientation and ask, “What good is it?” They
consider basic research to be a waste of time and money because they cannot see an
immediate use for it or resolve a pressing with it.

While many practitioners want answers to questions that they can implement within
the next week, month, or year, a basic researcher might devote years to painstakingly
seeking answers to questions that could reshape thinking for many decades to come.

Much basic research lacks practical applications in the short term, but it builds a
foundation for knowledge and broad understanding that has an impact on many
issues, policy areas, or areas of study. Basic research is also the main source of tools –
methods, theories, and ideas – that all researchers use.
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Almost all of the major breakthroughs and significant advances in knowledge

originated in basic research. It lays a foundation for core understandings and may
even have implications for issues that do not even exist when a study is conducted.

Answering foundational questions stimulates new ways of thinking. The answers

might revolutionize and dramatically improve what practitioners do. Public policies
and social services can be ineffective and misguided without an understanding of core
causes of events or behaviors.

Basic research is essential to expand knowledge. Researchers working close to the

center of the scientific community conduct most basic research.

Applied Research

Applied research offers practical solutions to a concrete problem or address the

immediate and specific needs of clinicians or practitioners.

Applied research addresses a specific concern. It offers solutions to a question raised

by an employer, a local community, or a social cause. Only rarely applied research is
about building, testing, or making connections to a theory.

Most applied research studies are short term and small scale. They offer practical
results that can be used within a year or less.

Businesses, government offices, health care facilities, social service agencies, political
organizations, and educational institutions conduct applied studies and make
decisions based on findings.

Applied research findings shape many decisions. They might trigger the decision to
begin a program that will reduce the wait time before a client receives benefits.
Findings may help police decide whether to adopt a new police response to reduce
spousal abuse. Applied research findings may help a firm decide to market product
A to mature adults instead of teenagers.
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Active practitioners (e.g., teachers, doctors and nurses, sales representatives,

counsellors, judges, managers, supervisors, and city mangers) are the audience for
applied findings.

Many in this large diverse audience lack a background in research or a strong scientific
perspective. This can create complications.

Non-scientists evaluate findings on a non-scientific basis. They can misinterpret the

results and use evaluation standards that diverge from those of the scientific
community. They may accept findings from a study that does not meet basic scientific
criteria but reject findings from a study with the highest standards of scientific rigor.

Applied researchers must translate scientific-technical findings into the language of

lay decision makers. The researchers need to highlight strengths and limitations of a
study’s design or findings.

Basic and Applied Research: Comparison

Aspect Basic Applied

Primary Audiences Scientific community Practitioners,

(other researchers) participants, or
supervisors (non-
researchers)

Evaluators Research peers Practitioners, supervisors

Autonomy of Research High Low-moderate

Research rigor Very high Varies, moderate

Highest priority Verified truth Relevance

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Purpose Create new knowledge Resolve a practical

problem

Success Indicated By Publication and impact on Direct application to

knowledge/scientists address a specific
concern/ problem

EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

Exploratory research is used when the subject is very new, little or nothing is known
about it, and no one yet has explored it.

The goal of exploratory research is to formulate more precise questions that can be
addressed in future research. As a first stage inquiry, enough should be known after
the exploratory study so that a second, more systematic and extensive study can be
designed and executed.

Exploratory research rarely yields definitive answers. It addresses the “what”

question (What is this social activity really about?). It is difficult to conduct because it
has few guidelines, everything is potentially important, and the direction of inquiry
changes frequently.

Researchers who conduct exploratory research must be creative, open-minded, and

flexible; adopt an investigative stance, and explore all sources of information. They
ask creative questions, and take advantage of serendipity (i.e., unexpected or chance
factors that have large implications).
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DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH

A researcher may have a well-developed idea about a social phenomenon and want
to describe it.

Descriptive research presents a picture of the specific details of a situation, social

setting, or relationship. Much of the social research found in scholarly journals or used
for making policy decisions is descriptive.

Descriptive and exploratory research blur together in practice. A descriptive research

study starts with a well-defined issue or question and tries to describe it accurately.
The study’s outcome is a detailed picture of the issue or answer to the research
question.

A descriptive study presents a picture of types of people or of social activities and

focuses on “how” and “who” questions (How often does it happen? Who is involved?)

Exploring new issues or explaining why something happens is less of a concern than
describing how things are. A great deal of social research is descriptive.

Descriptive researchers use most data-gathering techniques – surveys, field research,

content analysis, and historical-comparative research.

EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH

Experimental research builds on the principles of a positivist approach more directly

than do the other research techniques. Researchers in the natural sciences (e.g.,
chemistry and physics), related applied fields (e.g., agriculture, engineering, and
medicine), and the social sciences conduct experiments.

The logic that guides an experiment on plant growth in biology or testing a metal in
engineering is applied in experiments on human social behavior. Although it is most
widely used in psychology, the experiment is found in education, criminal justice,
journalism, marketing, nursing, political science, social work, and sociology.
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The experiment's basic logic extends common-sense thinking. Common-sense

experiments are less careful or systematic than scientifically based experiments. In
common-sense language, an experiment is when one modifies something in a
situation, then compare an outcome to what existed without the modification. For
example, a person tries to start his car. To his surprise, it does not start. He
"experiments" by cleaning off the battery connections, then tries to start it again.

He modified something (cleaned the connections) and compared the outcome

(whether the car started) to the previous situation (it did not start).

He began with an implicit "hypothesis" - a build-up of crud on the connections is the

reason the car is not starting, and once the crud is cleaned off, the car will start.

This illustrates three things researchers do in experiments:

1. Begin with a hypothesis

2. Modify something in a situation

3. Compare outcomes with and without the modification

Compared to the other social research techniques, experimental research is the

strongest for testing causal relationships because the three conditions for causality
(temporal order, association, and no alternative explanations) are best met in
experimental designs.

A Short History of the Experiment

The social sciences, starting with psychology, borrowed the experimental method
from the natural sciences.

Psychology did not fully embrace the experiment until after 1900. Wilhelm Wundt
introduced the experimental method into psychology.
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During the late 1800s, Germany was the center of graduate education, and social
scientists came from all over the world to study there. Wundt established a laboratory
for experimentation in psychology that became a model for social research.

By 1900, universities in the United States and elsewhere established psychology

laboratories to conduct experimental research.

However, William James, did not use or embrace the experimental method. The
experimental method displaced a more philosophical, introspective, integrative
approach in psychology that was closer to interpretive social science approach.

From 1900 to 1950, social researchers elaborated on the experimental method until it
became entrenched in some areas.

The experiment’s appeal was its objective, unbiased, scientific approach to studying
mental and social life in an era when the scientific study of social life was just gaining
broad public acceptance.

Four trends sped the expansion of experimental research:

1. The rise of Behaviorism

2. The spread of Quantification

3. The changes in Research Participants

4. The Method’s practical applications

The Rise of Behaviorism

Behaviorism is an approach in psychology founded by the American James B. Watson

and expanded by B. F. Skinner. It emphasizes creating measures of observable
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behavior or outward manifestations of inner mental life and advocates the experiment
to conduct rigorous empirical tests of hypotheses.

The Spread of Quantification

Quantification, or measuring social phenomena with numbers, expanded between

1900 and 1950. Researchers conceptualized social constructs as quantified measures
and jettisoned other non-quantifiable constructs (e.g., spirit, consciousness, will) from
empirical research.

The Changes in Research Participants

Over time, the people used as participants changed. Every social research reports
contained the names of the specific individuals who participated in a study, and most
were professional researchers.

Later reports treated participants anonymously and reported only the results of their
actions.

Over time, there was a shift to use college students or school children as research
participants.

The relationship between a researcher and the people studied became more distant.
Such distancing reflected a trend for the experimenters to be more detached, remote,
and objective from the people under study.

Researchers saw reducing emotional engagement with research participants in their

studies as becoming more neutral or value-free and truly “scientific” in a positive
sense.
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The Method’s Practical Applications

As researchers became aware of an experiment’s practical applications, businesses,

governments, health care facilities, and schools increasingly used experimental
methods for applied purposes.

In the 1920s, educational researchers conducted many experiments on teaching

methods and the effect of class size on learning.

By the 1950s and 1960s, researchers became more concerned with possible sources of
alternative explanations, or confounding variables that might slip into experimental
design. Researchers designed experiments to reduce such potential errors and
increasingly used statistical procedures in data analysis.

By the 1970s, researchers increasingly evaluated the methodological rigor of studies.

A related trend was the increased use of deception and a corresponding rise in concern
about ethical issues. The now common practice of debriefing did not come into use
until the 1960s.

Over the last three decades, the trend has been to use more sophisticated experimental
designs and statistical techniques for data analysis.

The Language of Experiments

Experimental research has its own language or set of terms and concepts.

In experimental research the cases or people used in research projects and on whom
variables are measured are called the subjects, although in recent years, research
participant has been more commonly used.

Parts of the Experiment

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Experiments have seven parts. Not all experiments have all these parts, and some have
all seven parts plus others. The following seven parts make up a true experiment:

1. Treatment or independent variable

2. Dependent variable

3. Pre-test

4. Post-test

5. Experimental group

6. Control group

7. Random assignment

Treatment

In most experiments, a researcher creates a situation or enters into an ongoing

situation, then modifies it. The treatment (or the stimulus or manipulation) is what
the researcher modifies.

The term comes from medicine, in which a physician administers a treatment to

patients; the physician intervenes in a physical or psychological condition to change
it.

It is the independent variable or a combination of independent variables.

Researchers go to great lengths to create treatments. Some are as minor as giving

different groups of subjects different instructions. Others can be as complex as putting
subjects in to situations with elaborate equipment, staged physical settings, or
contrived social situations to manipulate what the subjects see or feel.

Researchers want the treatment to have an impact and produce specific reactions,
feelings, or behaviors.
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Dependent variables

Dependent variables or outcomes in experimental research are the physical

conditions, social behaviors, attitudes, feelings, or beliefs of subjects that change in
response to a treatment.

Dependent variables can be measured by paper-and-pencil indicators, observation,

interviews, or physiological responses (e.g., heartbeat or sweating palms).

Pre-test and Post-test

Frequently, a researcher measures the dependent variable more than once during an
experiment. The pre-test is the measurement of the dependent variable prior to
introduction of the treatment.

The post-test is the measurement of the dependent variable after the treatment has
been introduced into the experimental situation.

Experimental group and Control group

Experimental researchers often divide subjects into two or more groups for purposes
of comparison. A simple experiment has two groups, only one of which receives the
treatment.

The experimental group is the group that receives the treatment or in which the
treatment is present. The group that does not receive the treatment is called the control
group.

When the independent variable takes on many different values, more than one
experimental group is used.
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Random Assignment

A procedure to ensure that each participant has the same opportunity to be in any
group.

Laboratory Experiments

Strengths

1. The laboratory experiment has the inherent virtue of the possibility of relatively
complete control. The laboratory experimenter can, and often does, isolate the
research situation from the life around the laboratory by eliminating the many
extraneous influences that may affect the dependent variable.

2. In addition to situation control, laboratory experimenters can ordinarily use

random assignment and manipulate one or more independent variables.

3. The experimenter in most cases can achieve a high degree of specificity in the
operational definitions of the variables.

4. Laboratory experiments involve precision and replicability. Precise means

accurate, definite, and unambiguous.

Weaknesses

1. The lack of strength of independent variables. Since laboratory situations are,

after all, situations that are created for special purposes, it can be said that the
effects of experimental manipulation are usually weak.

2. The artificiality of the experimental research situation.

3. Laboratory experiments lack external validity.

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Purpose

1. They attempt to discover relations under “pure” and uncontaminated

conditions.

2. The testing of predictions derived from theory, primarily, and other research,
secondarily.

3. Refine theories and hypotheses, to formulate hypotheses related to other

experimentally or non-experimentally tested hypotheses, and, perhaps most
importantly, to help build theoretical systems.

The aim of the laboratory experiments, then, is to test hypotheses derived from theory,
to study the precise interrelations of variables and their operation, and to control
variance under research conditions that are uncontaminated by the operation of
extraneous variables.

Field Experiments

A field experiment is a research study in a realistic situation in which one or more

independent variables are manipulated by the experimenter under as carefully
controlled conditions as the situation will permit.

The contrast between the laboratory experiment and the field experiment is not sharp:
the differences are mostly matters of degree. Where the laboratory experiment has a
maximum control, most field experiments must operate with less control, a factor that
is often a severe handicap to the experiment.

Field experiments have values that especially recommend them to social

psychologists, sociologists, and educators because they are admirably suited to many
of the social and educational problems of interests to social psychology, sociology, and
education.
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Strengths

1. The variables in a field experiment usually have a stronger effect than those of
laboratory experiments. The effects of field experiments are often stronger to
penetrate the distractions of experimental situations. The principle is: the more
realistic the research situation, the stronger the variables. Realism increases the
strength of the variable. It also contributes to external validity, since the more
realistic the situation, the more valid are generalizations to other situations
likely to be.

2. Field experiments are appropriate for studying complex social influences,

processes, and changes in lifelike settings.

3. Field experiments are well suited both to the testing of theory and to the
solution of practical problems.

4. Field experiments are suited for testing broad hypothesis.

5. Flexibility and applicability to a wide variety of problems are important

characteristics of field experiments.

Weaknesses

1. Manipulation of independent variables and randomization are perhaps the two

most important problems. The manipulation of independent variables may be
conceivable, but not possible or practicable in many field situations because,
say, parents object when their children, who happen to have been randomly
assigned to a control group, will not get a desirable experimental treatment. Or
there may be an objection to an experimental treatment because it deprives
children of some gratification or puts them into conflict situations. There is no
theoretical reason why randomization cannot be used in field experiments.
Nevertheless, difficulties are frequently met. Unwillingness to break up class
groups or allow children to be assigned to experimental groups at random are
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examples. Even if random assignment is possible and permitted, the

independent variable may be seriously blurred, because the effects of the
treatments cannot be isolated from other effects.

2. A field investigator/experimenter has to be, to some extent at least, a socially

skilled operator. He/she should be able to work with people, talk to them, and
convince them of the importance and necessity of the research. He/she should
be prepared to spend many hours, even days and weeks, of patient discussion
with people responsible for the institutional or community situation in which
he/she is to work.

3. Field experiments lack precision. In the laboratory experiment it is possible to

achieve a high degree of precision or accuracy, so that laboratory measurement
and control problems are usually simpler than those in field experiments. In
realistic situations, there is always a great deal of systematic and random noise.
In order to measure the effect of the independent variable on a dependent
variable in the field experiment, it is not only necessary to maximize the
variance of the manipulated variable and any assigned variables, but also to
measure the dependent variable as precisely as possible. But in realistic
situations, such as schools and community groups, extraneous variables
abound. And measures of dependent variables, unfortunately, are sometimes
not sensitive enough to pick messages of the independent variables. In other
words, the dependent variable measures are often so crude that they cannot
pick up all the variance that has been engendered by the independent variables.
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CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH

There are psychological questions that ask about associations between naturally
occurring events or variables. To examine such relationships, scientists typically
conduct correlational research, which in its simplest form has three components:

1. The researcher measures one variable (X)

2. The researcher measures a second variable (Y)
3. The researcher statistically determines whether X and Y are related

Correlational research involves measuring variables, not manipulating them.

Naturalistic observation and surveys are methods frequently used not only to describe
events but also to study associations between variables.

Correlation Does Not Establish Causation

Diener and Seligman (2002) found that very happy people had stronger, more
satisfying social relationships than unhappy people. It is tempting to conclude from
these findings that stronger social relationships cause people to be happier, but Diener
and Seligman point out, correlational research does not allow to draw such a
conclusion.

First, the direction of causality could be just the opposite. Perhaps being happy causes
people to have stronger social relationships. For example, maybe happiness makes a
person more receptive to going out and forming relationships, or perhaps it makes it
easier to attract other people who are looking to form relationships.

In correlational research, the possibility must be considered that variable X (social

relationships) has caused variable Y (happiness), that Y has caused X, or that both
variables have influenced each other. This interpretive problem is called the
bidirectionality (i.e., two-way causality) problem.

Second, the association between social relationships and happiness may be artificial,
or what scientists call spurious (not genuine). Although social relationships and
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happiness are statistically related, it may be that neither variable has any causal effect
on the other. A third variable, Z, may really be the cause of why some people have
better social relationships and also why those people are happier. For example, Z
might be a certain personality style. Perhaps this personality style (outgoing, sociable)
makes it easier for people to establish good social relationships.

At the same time, this style may help people soak up more joy from life and therefore
feel happier. Thus, on the surface it looks as if social relationships and happiness are
causally linked, but in reality, this may only be due to Z (in this case, personality style).

This interpretive problem is called the third variable problem: Z is responsible for what
looks like a relation between X and Y. As Z varies, it causes X to change. As Z varies,
it also causes Y to change. The net result is that X and Y change in unison, but this is
caused by Z—not by any direct effect of X or Y on each other. In sum, we cannot draw
causal conclusions from correlational data, and this is the major disadvantage of
correlational research.

The Correlation Coefficient

A correlation coefficient is a statistic that indicates the direction and strength of the relation
between two variables. Variables can be correlated either positively or negatively. A
positive correlation means that higher scores on one variable are associated with higher
scores on a second variable. Thus, social relationships and happiness are positively
correlated such that more satisfying relationships are associated with higher levels of
happiness. Similarly, people’s height and weight are positively correlated (i.e., in
general, taller people tend to weigh more), as are hours of daylight and average daily
temperature (overall, the longer days of spring and summer have higher average
temperatures than do the shorter days of fall and winter).

A negative correlation occurs when higher scores on one variable are associated with lower
scores on a second variable. Job satisfaction and job turnover are negatively correlated,
which means that workers who are more satisfied with their jobs tend to have lower
rates of turnover (e.g., quitting, being fired). Likewise, students’ test anxiety and exam
performance are negatively correlated (students with higher levels of test anxiety tend
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to perform more poorly on exams), as are hours of daylight and time spent indoors
(overall, on the longer days of the year, we spend less time indoors).

Correlation coefficients range from values of -1.00 to +1.00. The plus or minus sign
tells the direction of a correlation (i.e., whether the variables are positively or
negatively correlated).

The absolute value of the statistic tells the strength of the correlation. The closer the
correlation is to +1.00 (a perfect positive correlation) or -1.00 (a perfect negative
correlation), the more strongly the two variables are related. Therefore, a correlation
of -.59 indicates a stronger association between X and Y than does a correlation of 0.37.
A zero correlation (0.00) means that X and Y are not related statistically: As scores on
X increase or decrease, scores on Y do not change in any orderly fashion.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Correlational Research

Why conduct correlational research if it does not permit clear cause-effect

conclusions? One benefit is that correlational research can help establish whether
relations found in the laboratory generalize to the outside world. For example,
suppose that laboratory experiments show that talking on a telephone while operating
a driving simulator causes people to get into more simulated crashes.

Correlational studies, while not demonstrating cause-effect, can at least establish

whether there is a real-world association between driver cellphone usage and
automobile accident rates

A second benefit is that correlational research can be conducted before experiments to

discover associations that can then be studied under controlled laboratory conditions.

Third, for practical or ethical reasons, some questions cannot be studied with
experiments but can be examined correlationally. It is not possible to experimentally
manipulate how religious someone is, but we can measure people’s religiousness and
determine if it is associated with other variables, such as personality traits.
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Another benefit is that correlational data allow us to make predictions. If two variables
are correlated, either positively or negatively, knowing the score of one variable helps
us estimate the score on the other variable.

References:

1. Kerlinger, F. N. (2004). Foundations of Behavioral Research. New Delhi: Surjeet

Publications
2. Neuman, W. L. (2015). Social Research Methods: Quantitative and Qualitative
Approaches. Noida: Pearson Education
3. Passer, M. W. & Smith, R. E. (2009). Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior.
New York: McGraw-Hill Education