SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODS

Introduction to Social Research Methods

 Introduction to Social Research
• What is a research/social research
• Why do we have to engage in research
• What are the processes and stages in research
• How do we evaluate research findings/key issues in
research: Validity, Reliability, Bias, Objectivity etc.
• Difference between quantitative and qualitative
data, and between primary and secondary data.
• The role of Values in research: Value-free vs. Value-
laden.
 Processes and Stages of Sociological
Research
Research in general and social research in particular
is circular or cyclical in nature with defined stages.
Researchers adopt systematic and logical ways of
arriving at their findings and conclusions.
Even though the processes or stages vary slightly
depending on the field or perspective of the
researcher, there are fundamental principles or
stages that are common to every researcher.
 Research Process/Stages
1. Identification of a problem:
The research process begins with a sociological issue
or problem (not a social problem) or a puzzle that
requires some understanding. Ex. Why do more men
commit crime than women.

The first stage is made up of the following: topic or

title, statement of research problem, objectives or
aims of the research.
 How to identify a problem/select a
topic
Sociologists are influenced by several factors in the
selection of a research problem or topic such as:
Theoretical factors: perspective of the researcher
Practical factors: possibility to gain access to data or
the intended respondents
Ethical issues: whether or not the research ethical
issues such as harm or invasion of privacy.
Personal interest, observation or experience
Cost; availability & source of funding (gate-keepers)
Social changes: new things in society. Ex. Covid19.
 Research Process/Stages
2. Review of literature:
After the identification of a problem, the researcher
must review available evidence or literature on the
topic chosen. The aim of literature review is to;
 find out what is already been done or known about
the topic (to avoid repetition and plagiarism)
identify how similar topic(s) was/were investigated
(methods used and the findings arrived at)
help clarify issues and decisions on how to proceed.
 Research Process/Stages
3. Setting Hypothesis or research questions:
A hypothesis is a tentative statement that a
researcher wants to test. It’s a scientific guess about
the relationship between two or more variables that
can be supported or disproved.
It often suggest a cause and effect relationship or a
correlation between variables.
Ex. ‘the higher the level of poverty, the higher the
rate of crime’.
Positivists often use hypothesis in their research
 Setting Hypothesis or research questions:
A research question is ‘a question that a researcher
or a research project sets to answer by collecting
evidence as data’.
Ex. ‘Why do more men commit crime than women’?
The use of research questions is mostly preferred by
interpretivists.

Both hypothesis and research questions aim to gain

evidence to address research aims or objectives.
 Research Process/Stages
4. Choosing research methods:
The next thing for a searcher to do is to select from
a pool of methods, the appropriate method(s) to
collect data. Methods must be carefully selected to
gather the right evidence.
Selecting a method(s) is/are influenced by:
Practical
Theoretical
Ethical factors
 Research Process/Stages
5. Selecting a sample/Sampling:
It’s practically and theoretically impossible most
often to conduct a whole population study by
collecting data from every member of the survey
population.
An appropriate sample (part of the population) is
often chosen to represent the population through
the process of sampling (the process of selecting
part of the survey population for a study)
There are different sampling techniques in sociology
 Selecting a sample/Sampling:
There are probability & non-probability techniques
Simple random, systematic random, stratified,
quota, opportunity/accidental, snowball etc.
The choice of a sampling technique by a research
depends on factors such as: theoretical, practical
and source of funding.

NB: SAMPLING will be fully treated later.

 Research Process/Stages
6. Pilot study:
It’s a small-scale test of a piece of a research project
before the main research. It’s a trial run.
Pilot study helps to:
determine the appropriateness of a chosen method
overcome potential problems such wrong wording of
questions or ambiguity
check the feasibility (practical) of the research such as
cost, time, sampling technique etc.
check the validity, reliability etc. of the research
 Research Process/Stages
7. Data collection and Analysis:
 at this stage, the research must decide on the type
of data to be collected, taking into consideration
the research aims, methods chosen, cost, time,
hypothesis etc.
Different types of include; primary or secondary
and quantitative or qualitative.
Data collected must be analyzed, interpreted and
findings or results presented in quantitative data
(numerical) or qualitative data (text/words).
 Research Process/Stages
8. Publication of results/findings:
The final stage is for researchers to report/publish
their results to be read by others, used for further
research or for implementation in the case of action
research by governments or funding agencies.
Findings are usually published in academic journals
or books.
HOMEWORK
Mention any ten sociology related journals that a new
sociologist can publish his or her work in.
 Key Concepts/Issues in Research
Validity
Reliability
Objectivity
Subjectivity
Triangulation
Research Bias
Generalizability
Representativeness
Ethical considerations
 Ethical Issues in Research
• Informed consent
• Anonymity of identity
• Confidentiality of information
• Respect for rights and privacy
• Be objective and non-biased
• Report information or findings accurately
• Don’t let personal beliefs influence the study
• Be mindful of the sensitivities of the respondents
• Cause no harm to respondents (physical/psychological)
 Types of Data
• Primary data: sources, strengths & limitations

• Secondary data: sources, strengths & limitations

• Quantitative data: Sources, strengths & limitations

• Qualitative data: Sources, strengths & limitations

 Quantitative data
Definition: data that is measurable and is normally
expressed in the form of statistics or numerical form.

Sources:
Social surveys and Internet surveys
Questionnaires (Postal, Telephone etc.)
Interview (structured and semi-structured)
Census and opinion polls
Official statistics
Experiments
 Strengths of Quantitative data
• Quicker than other non-positivist method
• Cheap to collect data from a large group of people
• Less need to recruit or train interviewers
• Data is easier to quantify and interpret
• More reliable (easy to replicate)
• Easier to standardise questions
• More likely to be representative (large-scale study)
• Possible to make generalisations
• Objective (positivists methods avoids/reduces bias)
 Limitations of Quantitative data
• Lack validity
• Lack insight (unable to gain a fuller picture)
• Costly and time consuming to each a large sample
• Unable to establish social meaning (researchers are
unable to understand the thought and feelings of
the respondents)
• Low response rate may decrease representativeness
• Methods lack flexibility (researcher is unable to ask
further questions because they are standardized)
 Qualitative data
• Definition: information in the form of words, rather
than numbers, which provides an in-depth account
of people’s meanings and understandings.
(information/data collected and expressed in words
and not in numerical form).

Sources:
Interviews (semi-structured & unstructured), Historical
documents, observation (all types), Open questions,
personal documents, biographies, auto-biographies,
media sources, photographs etc.
 Strengths of Qualitative data

• They offer greater insight

• They have more depth and detail
• They generally have greater validity
• They help to establish verstehen
• They allow researchers to understand the thought
and feelings of the research subjects (social reality)
 Limitations of Qualitative data
• They may be unrepresentative (small samples)
• They may be biased (subjective interpretations)
• It may not be possible to generalise the results for
the rest of the population
• May be unreliable & almost impossible to replicate
• More expensive (comparative to other research
methods)
• More time consuming relative to other research
methods
 Triangulation
It’s when a researcher uses two or more methods in
the same piece of research. (Methodological pluralism).

 Ex. Combining qualitative method such as observation and

a quantitative method such as closed questionnaire.

 Using both primary source such as unstructured interviews

and a secondary source such as official statistics and or
historical documents.
 Strengths of Triangulation
• To provide a check on the findings of different types of
method/data.
• To overcome/compensate for the limitations of one
method by the strengths of other methods.
• To check the validity and reliability of the research
• Produces the best fit (practically) for the subject being
studied whether they be quantitative or qualitative.
(difficult to study some groups using 1 method )
• To build up a fuller picture of the study group.
• Theoretical position adopted by realist.
• Increases representativeness & allow generalisation
 Limitations of Triangulation
• Time consuming and economically expensive to use
several methods. Ex. Printing questionnaire plus the
cost of travelling for participant observation/interviews
• Difficult to be used by inexperienced researchers as the
researcher needs to be skilled/experienced in using
different methods.
• Difficult to apply several methods in one piece of
research due to differences in perspectives or approach
to research. (Positivist and interpretivist have different
views and approaches to the nature of society)