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1.4: Summary of Introduction to Research Methods of the Social Sciences

  • Page ID
    240696
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    Key Takeaways

    • There are different ways to gather knowledge, and some are better than others.
    • You were introduced to this textbook, your course, and research methods in the social sciences.

    What's next?

    Now that you have a sense of what research methods might cover and why it's important, we'll get more in-depth information on the scientific method.

    Exercises
    • Practice: Consider three things you know and determine how you acquired that knowledge (authority, intuition, rationalism, empiricism, the scientific method, Indigenous ways of knowing).
    • Practice: Try to generate different research questions to describe, predict, and explain a phenomenon that interests you.
    • Practice: List three empirical questions about human behavior. List three nonempirical questions about human behavior.
    • Practice: For each of the following intuitive beliefs about human behavior, list three reasons that it might be true and three reasons that it might not be true:
      • You cannot truly love another person unless you love yourself.
      • People who receive crisis counseling immediately after experiencing a traumatic event are better able to cope with that trauma in the long term.
      • Studying is most effective when it is always done in the same location.
    • Discussion: Consider the following psychological claim. “People’s choice of spouse is strongly influenced by their perception of their own parents. Some choose a spouse who is similar in some way to one of their parents. Others choose a spouse who is different from one of their parents.” Is this claim falsifiable? Why or why not?
    • Discussion: People sometimes suggest that psychology cannot be a science because either (a) human behavior cannot be predicted with perfect accuracy or (b) much of its subject matter (e.g., thoughts and feelings) cannot be observed directly. Do you agree or disagree with each of these ideas? Why?
    • Watch the following video by PHD Comics for an overview of open access publishing and why it matters:

    Open Access Explained! https://youtu.be/L5rVH1KGBCY

    • Discussion: Some clinicians argue that what they do is an “art form” based on intuition and personal experience and therefore cannot be evaluated scientifically. Write a paragraph about how satisfied you would be with such a clinician and why from each of three perspectives:
      • a potential client of the clinician
      • a judge who must decide whether to allow the clinician to testify as an expert witness in a child abuse case
      • an insurance company representative who must decide whether to reimburse the clinician for their services
    • Practice: Create a short list of questions that a client could ask a clinician to determine whether they pay sufficient attention to scientific research.


    References

    Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 317, 82.

    Gladwell, M. E. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (9th ed.). New York: Little, Brown & Co.

    Simonds, V. W. & Christopher, S. (2013). Adapting western research methods to Indigenous ways of knowing. American Journal of Public Health, 103(12), 2185-2192.


    This page titled 1.4: Summary of Introduction to Research Methods of the Social Sciences is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Rajiv S. Jhangiani, I-Chant A. Chiang, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.