Download The Basics of Social Research 2/e

The Practice of
Social Research 10/e
Earl Babbie
Chapman University
Chapter 1
Human Inquiry and
Science
Chapter Outline
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Looking For Reality
The Foundations of Social Science
Some Dialectics of Social Research
The Ethics of Social Research
How We Know What We Know
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Direct Experience and Observation
Personal Inquiry
Tradition
Authority
Looking for Reality
Two Criteria
 Logical support - must make sense
 Empirical support - must not contradict actual
observation
Ordinary Human Inquiry
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Humans recognize that future circumstances
are caused by present ones.
Learn that patterns of cause and effect are
probabilistic in nature.
Aim to answer both “what” and “why”
questions, and pursue these goals by
observing and figuring out.
Things “Everyone Knows”
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Sources of our secondhand knowledge:
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Tradition
Authority
Both provide a starting point for inquiry, but can
lead us to start at the wrong point and push us
in the wrong direction.
Errors in Inquiry and Solutions
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Inaccurate observations
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Measurement devices guard against inaccurate
observations and add a degree of precision.
Overgeneralization
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Commit to a representative sample of observations
and repeat a study to make sure the same results
are produced each time.
Errors in Inquiry and Solutions
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Selective observation
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Make an effort to find “deviant cases” that do not fit
into the general pattern.
Illogical Reasoning
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Use systems of logic consciously and explicitly.
Views of Reality
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Premodern - Things are as they seem to be.
Modern - Acknowledgment of human
subjectivity.
Postmodern -There is no objective reality to
be observed.
Foundations of Social Science
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Theory - logic
Data collection - observation
Data Analysis - comparison of what is logically
expected with what is actually observed
Social Regularities
Examples of Patterns in social life:
 Only people aged 18 and above can vote.
 Only people with a license can drive.
Aggregates
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The collective actions and situations of many
individuals.
Focus of social science is to explain why
aggregated patterns of behavior are regular
even when individuals change over time.
Variables and Attributes
Variable
Attribute
Age
young, middle aged, old
Gender
female, male
Occupation
doctor, laborer, teacher
Social Class
upper, middle, lower
Education and Racial Prejudice
Percent saying BlackAmericans have less in-born
ability to learn
Level of Education
Less than high school
graduate
High school graduate
27%
Junior college
9%
Bachelor’s degree
5%
Graduate degree
2%
13%
Approaches to Social Research
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Idiographic - Seeks to fully understand the
causes of what happened in a single instance.
Nomothetic - Seeks to explain a class of
situations or events rather than a single one.
Approaches to Social Research
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Induction – Moves from specific observations
to the discovery of a pattern that represents
order among all the given events.
Deduction - Moves from a pattern that might
be logically or theoretically expected to
observations that test whether the expected
pattern occurs.
Approaches to Social Research
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Qualitative Data – Nonnumerical data
Quantitative Data -Numerical data, makes
observations more explicit and makes it easier
to aggregate, compare, and summarize data.
Approaches to Social Research
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Pure Research - Sometimes justified in terms
of gaining “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”
Applied Research – Putting research into
practice.