LESSON 2

Doing Research in
the Social Sciences
SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE

People
commonly
ask?????
 “Are poor people really lazy?”
“Are Chinese- Filipinos better in Math
than average Filipinos?”
“Will it rain tomorrow?”
Common sense is prone to overgeneralization,
inaccurate observation, and illogical
reasoning.
Example: Are poor people really lazy?
 Common sense is the bedrock of science.
Science starts with common sense, but goes
beyond common sense.
To be scientific, one need not only observe
meticulously and without prejudice.
 Prejudice is an unfair feeling of dislike for a
person or group of persons because of race, sex,
religion, etc.
One must learn how to observe and what to
observe.
This is where common sense and science
diverge.
For an instance, before the birth of medicine
and the invention of germ theory, many
people believed in the “spiritual” causes of
diseases.
Today, through Science, we know that infectious
diseases are caused by specific microorganisms.
 This trend applies equally to the social sciences.
For an instance, it was generally believed that
women are incapable of higher education because
of their weak intellectual and physical nature.
 TWO (2) BASIC
METHODS IN THE SOCIAL
SCIENCE 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.
 QUANTITATIVE METHOD

refers to research 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 general population. The defining
factor is that numbers result from the process.
It commonly uses SURVEY as the most
popular method of collecting data.
 QUALITATIVE METHOD

Refers to research that investigates aspects of

social life which are not amenable to
quantitative measurement.
It 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 this research are to understand
processes , experiences, and meanings people assign
to things.
 It uses interviews, participant observations,
focused group discussion, textual and discourse
analysis, oral history, biographies, and other forms
of humanistic techniques.
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.
 ETHICAL AND POLITICAL
CONSIDERATIONS IN
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
“Can science be free of values and
prejudices?”
“Should social research be politically
neutral?”
 Today, many social scientists believe that the
personal and political values of the social scientists as
well as the community to which they belong to have a
great impact on the formulation, analysis, and
interpretation of research.