As a social science student, it is vitally important that you become an educated consumer of social science research, even if you never get to conduct an actual research study.

You need to have a basic understanding of the steps in the scientific process, a familiarity with commonly used social science research designs and methods, and a knowledge of procedures for collecting and analyzing social science data.

This module provides very basic information about these topics. It addresses the following subjects:

· the scientific method

· qualitative and quantitative research

· data analysis and presentation

· discipline-specific research designs and methods

The Scientific Method
The scientific method is a form of inquiry that was originally developed to answer questions in the natural sciences. The scientific method uses systematic observation and measurement to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses that most often are derived from underlying theories.

When a hypothesis is confirmed, it lends support to the underlying theory. When it is not confirmed, researchers must reformulate the theory and come up with other explanations. Scientists share their findings by presenting at conferences or publishing in peer-reviewed journals. Sharing results with the research world is an important part of the scientific method because science is an iterative activity.

As social scientists, we have a great challenge. Because we cannot exert complete control over human behavior, it is not possible to conduct true experiments. Real life cannot be captured in a lab, and human behavior cannot be explained by one or even two causes. This makes it difficult to determine “cause and effect.” For example, if we are interested in knowing why poor people have compromised health outcomes, we would need to account for an impossibly large number of factors or variables such as race, ethnicity, genetic markers, income, education level, access to health care services, and living conditions.

Steps for Conducting a Research Study
Figure 4.1 Steps for Conducting a Research Study

Steps in the Scientific Methods

Source: UMUC PSYC 100.

The use of the scientific method allows researchers to develop explanations of social science phenomena. The steps of the research process are explained from a psychological perspective in this tutorial (Bradley, 2000).

Step 1: Make an Observation

The starting place for any research study is an observation (idea) regarding a topic of interest to you, the researcher. It may come from a conversation with a friend, a book or television program, or the conclusion of a related research project. All that is needed at this point is your interest in pursuing the topic further.

Let’s take an example that we will use for all of the steps in the process. You observe that you are able to memorize items such as telephone numbers better when you eat candy. Because of this, you wonder if there is a connection between the primary component of candy (sugar) and memory.

Step 2: Propose a Hypothesis to Explain the Observation

Once you have your idea, the next step is to turn it into a statement called a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a testable prediction/belief of what will happen in some circumstance. Developing a good hypothesis requires an examination of the literature on that topic. Your research will help you to learn how other researchers have conceptualized and tested the hypothesis.

Example: You research the topic of memory enhancement and see that other researchers have looked at how certain herbs and a healthy diet can improve memory. However, no one* has examined the effect of sugar on memory. On the basis of your review of the literature, you formulate the following hypothesis:

“College students who ingest two grams of sugar before a memorization task will perform better than college students who do not ingest sugar.”

(*Keep in mind that this is just an example and does not accurately reflect the research literature on memory enhancement.)

Step 3: Test the Hypothesis

In this step, you perform two important tasks:

1. You define all important terms and variables in your study.

As the researcher, you need to create an operational definition of all important terms in your study so that others can replicate it.

Example: “Sugar” and “memory” are terms that need to be defined. Sugar could be defined as the substance in white sugar cubes, while memory could be described as a score on a specific memorization test.

Since you control the amount of sugar ingested by subjects in this experiment, sugar is the independent variable. Scores on the memorization test are the dependent variable. Preexisting factors or characteristics can also be independent variables. For example, if some of the subjects in the study have Type II diabetes and others do not, diabetes could be an additional independent variable.For this discussion, you will demonstrate that you know how to analyze a social science research article/ This requires that you have a solid understanding of research methods/

First, find a social science research article on the topic you have selected for Gang culture among disenfranchised youth/The article must describe an actual study and it must have been written within the past 5 years/ Do not select a review article or theoretical piece/

Next, answer the following questions/ If you don’t know the answer, take your best guess/ Since this is a discussion, you should review the answers of some of your classmates and help them out as needed/
· What is the research problem being explored in this article?
· Is the literature review current and relevant? How do you know?
· Is the research grounded in theory? If so, what theory?
· Does the article explain why this research is important? How?
· Is the study qualitative or quantitative in nature? How do you know?
· What sampling technique was used?
· Who are the participants?
· How did the researcher address the ethical treatment of human participants and their data?
· What measures and methods were used? Are they appropriate for the research question being asked?
· What were the procedures used to collect data?
· How was data analysis addressed?
· What were the primary findings (results)?
· What were the major conclusions?
· What were identified weaknesses or limitations of the research?

Finally, post a /pdf or permalink (PURL) of your article so that others can view the actual source/

(Text resource) Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices
This textbook by Bhattacherjee (2012) is a good resource for answering any questions you may have about research methods in the social sciences/
http://scholarcommons/usf/edu/cgi/viewcontent/cgi?article=1002&context=oa_textbooks