Neuman CH 02

Getting Started: How to Plan
a Social Research Study
Chapter 2
This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are
prohibited by law:
•any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network;
•preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images;
•any rental, lease or lending of the program.
Picking a Study Topic
 A topic appropriate for social research is
one that
 you generalize
 about social patterns
 that operate in aggregates and
 are empirically observable.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 Generalize – the topic is beyond one
isolated unique instance; it is likely to
reappear and applies to a broad scope of
people, places, times or events.
 Social pattern – the topic has regularity or
structure/form describing interconnections
among events, situations or relationships
in a condensed way.

 Aggregates – the topic applies to a
collection of people or other units (e.g.,
families, businesses, schools, hospitals, or
neighborhoods).
 Empirically observable – the topic
appears in the observable world in a way
that we can detect and observe it using
our senses (sight, sound, touch, smell)
directly or indirectly.
 Research Proposal = a detailed plan for
conducting a study on a specific research
question, that includes a literature review
and specific technique to be used.

Conducting a Review Past Studies
 Literature Review = a summary of

previously conducted studies on the same
topic or research question.

 A Literature Review Search Plan:
 Evaluate resources
 Select and narrow the topic
 Learn to use literature search tools
 Plan to locate and scan read articles
 Allow time to extract the major findings
 Final Stage—synthesize

 Where do you find the research literature?
A Special Type of Periodical: Scholarly Journals
 Peer-reviewed = A scholarly publication that has
been independently evaluated for its quality and
merits by several knowledgeable professional
researchers and found acceptable.
 Article Search tool = an online service or
publication that provides an index, abstract database
with which you can quickly search for articles in
numerous scholarly journals by topic, author or
subject area.

 Periodicals
 Popularized social science magazines for general public
 Practitioner advice/opinion/news
 Opinion magazines
 “Mass market” or “trade” magazines for general public
 Scholarly Journals
Peer-reviewed = A scholarly publication that has been

independently evaluated for its quality and merits by
several knowledgeable professional researchers and
found acceptable.




 Books
 Monographs
 Readers
 Edited Collections
 Dissertations
 Government Documents
 Policy Reports
 Presented Papers
How to Conduct a Literature Review:
A Six Step Process
 STEP 1: Refine the Topic
 Go from research question to narrowed topic
 STEP 2: Design Your Search
 Decide on the review’s extensiveness
 Decide which article search tools to use
 Decide how to record bibliographic information and
take notes
 STEP 3: Locate the Research Reports
 Articles in scholarly journals
 Books
 Other outlets
How to Conduct a Literature Review:
A Six Step Process
 STEP 4: Read & Take Notes on the Reports
Found
 Create source and content files
 What to record in notes
 STEP 5: Organize Notes, Synthesize & Write
the Review
 STEP 6: Create the Reference List

Focusing On A Research Question
 Inductive = research in which you start
many specific observations and move
toward general ideas or theory to capture
what they show.
 Deductive = research in which you start
with a general idea or theory then move to
test it by looking at specific observations.

Focusing On A Research Question
IDEAS IDEAS
Observed Observed
data data

The Research Proposal
 Research Proposal = a detailed plan for
conducting a study on a specific research
question, that includes a literature review
and specific techniques to be used.

 A Proposal for Quantitative or Qualitative
Research
 1. When do you focus the research question?
 2. To what universe can you generalize from a
study’s findings?
 Universe = a broad category of cases or units to
which the study findings apply.

Research
 3. Which type of research path do you follow?
 Linear path = a relatively fixed sequence of steps
in one forward direction, with little repeating,
moving directly to a conclusion.
 Nonlinear path = advancing without fixed order
that often requires successive passes through

previous steps and moves toward a conclusion
indirectly.

Research
 4. What do you examine?
 Variable = a feature of a case or unit that
represents multiple types, values or levels.
Independent Variable = the variable of factors,
forces, or conditions acting on another variable to
produce an effect or change in it.
Dependent Variable = the variable influenced by and
changes as an outcome another variable.
Intervening Variable = a variable that comes
between the independent and dependent variable in a
causal relationship.
Research
 4. What do you examine?
 Hypothesis = a statement about the relationship
of two (or more) variables yet to be tested with
empirical data.
 Null hypothesis = a hypothesis that there is no

relationship between two variables, that they do
not influence one another.

Research
 5. How to Look for Patterns in the Data
 Quantitative data: rearrange, examine, and discuss
numbers by using charts, tables and statistics to
see patterns.
 Qualitative data: rearrange, examine, discuss
textual or visual data.


Research
 6. What type of explanation will you use?
 Causal explanation = a type of research
explanation in which you identify one or more
causes for an outcome, and place cause and effect
in a larger framework.
 Has three elements:
Time order
Association
Alternative causes ruled out

Research
 6. What type of explanation will you use?
 Grounded Theory = ideas and themes that are built
up from data observation.
 7. What are the Units of Analysis in your
study?
 Unit of Analysis = the case or unit on which you
measure variables or other characteristics.

Research
 8. What is the Level of Analysis of your study?
 Level of Analysis = The level of reality to which
explanations refer, micro to macro.
Micro-Level: small-scale (a few friends, a small group)
 Macro-Level: large-scale (entire civilizations or a major
structure of a society).
 Warning: Avoid Spuriousness
Spuriousness = when two variables appear to be causally
connected but in reality, they are not because an unseen
third factor is the true cause.

Neuman CH 02

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Neuman CH 02

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Getting Started: How to Plan

a Social Research Study

 that operate in aggregates and

 are empirically observable.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 Literature Review = a summary of

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 Learn to use literature search tools

 Plan to locate and scan read articles

 Allow time to extract the major findings

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 “Mass market” or “trade” magazines for general public

Peer-reviewed = A scholarly publication that has been

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 Where do you find the research literature?

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

that often requires successive passes through

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 Null hypothesis = a hypothesis that there is no

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

textual or visual data.

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

 A Proposal for Quantitative or Qualitative

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2009

You might also like