5. Finding Answers: Theories and How to Apply Them

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-158
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter shows how to develop an answer to a particular research question. It first considers the requirements and components of an answer to a research question before discussing the role of ‘theory’ in social science research, what a ‘theoretical framework’ is, and what a hypothesis is. It then explores the three components of a hypothesis: an independent variable, a dependent variable, and a proposition (a statement about the relationship between the variables). It also looks at the different types of hypotheses and how they guide various kinds of research. It also explains why conceptual and operational definitions of key terms are important and how they are formulated. Finally, it offers suggestions on how to answer normative questions.

5. Finding Answers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Halperin ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter shows how to develop an answer to a particular research question. It first considers the requirements and components of an answer to a research question before discussing the role of ‘theory’ in social science research, what a ‘theoretical framework’ is, and what a hypothesis is. It then explores the three components of a hypothesis: an independent variable, a dependent variable, and a proposition (a statement about the relationship between the variables). It also looks at the different types of hypotheses and how they guide various kinds of research. It also explains why conceptual and operational definitions of key terms are important and how they are formulated. Finally, it offers suggestions on how to answer normative questions.

Housing Segregation and School Desegregation

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Armor
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
School Segregation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Housing Segregation ◽  
The Relationship

The issue of residential segregation has had a long history in the development of school desegregation laws and policies. Most social scientists and jurists would agree that school segregation is closely associated with racial segregation in housing, particularly in larger school systems. Residential segregation can give rise to school segregation between school systems, such as that existing between a predominantly minority city school system and its predominantly white suburban systems, and within a single school system when a neighborhood school policy reflects segregated residential patterns. The debate over the relationship between housing and school segregation arises, however, not from the mere fact of association, but from the causal interpretations applied to this association. Two major issues have framed the debates over this relationship. One issue concerns the causes of housing segregation itself, whether it arises primarily from discriminatory actions, either public or private, or from a complex set of social, economic, and demographic forces in which discrimination plays only a secondary role. The second issue focuses on the causal connections between school segregation and housing segregation and the direction of the causal relationship: the extent to which a neighborhood school policy actually contributes to housing segregation (rather than simply reflecting it) and the extent to which school desegregation contributes to integrated housing choices. On these points there is sharp disagreement between and within the social science and legal communities. The debates within the social science and legal communities have had reciprocating influences. On the one hand, a considerable amount of research on housing segregation has been generated by school desegregation litigation. On the other, a number of court decisions about the role of housing in school desegregation cases have been influenced by social science research and expert testimony. Thus the relationship between judicial policy and social science research is well illustrated by the housing segregation issue. The role of residential segregation in school desegregation law has itself passed through several stages during the past thirty years of school desegregation litigation.

scholarly journals Social Science Research on Technology and the Elderly - Does it Exist?

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Britt Östlund
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Old People ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Relationship

Despite the fact that old people´s technological needs have been given much attention to in the last decennium, especially old users of information- and communication technology, technology has not found its natural place in research on ageing in modern societies. This article examines to what extent social science research exist in the field of ageing and technology and where we can find the interface between technological and social science expertise. Scientific publications during the period 1983-2002 are analysed in terms of theoretical content, the role of the elderly as being regarded as objects or subjects, and if technology is called into question in any respect. Scientific well-grounded knowledge exist besides less well-substantiated assumptions regarding the effects of technology and a premature body of thoughts on the relationship between technology and the elderly.

Politics and Research: Epistemological Moments

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 149-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adelaide H. Villmoare
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In reading the essays by David M. Trubek and John Esser and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, I thought about what I call epistemological moments that have provided contexts within which to understand the relationship between social science research and politics. I will sketch four moments and suggest that I find one of them more compelling than the others because it speaks particularly to social scientists with critical, democratic ambitions and to Trubek and Esser's concerns about politics and the intellectual vitality of the law and society movement.

How much would you like to pay? Trust, reciprocity and prosocial motivations in El trato

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J León ◽  
José A Noguera ◽  
Jordi Tena-Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Sales Strategy ◽  
Pay What You Want ◽  
Natural Settings

Prosocial motivations and reciprocity are becoming increasingly important in social-science research. While laboratory experiments have challenged the assumption of universal selfishness, the external validity of these results has not been sufficiently tested in natural settings. In this article we examine the role of prosocial motivations and reciprocity in a Pay What You Want (PWYW) sales strategy, in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. This article empirically analyses the only PWYW example in Spain to date: the El trato (‘The deal’) campaign launched by the travel company Atrápalo, which offered different holiday packages under PWYW conditions in July 2009. Our analysis shows that, although the majority of the customers did not behave in a purely self-interested manner, they nonetheless did so in a much higher proportion than observed in similar studies. We present different hypotheses about the mechanisms that may explain these findings. Specifically, we highlight the role of two plausible explanations: the framing of the campaign and the attribution of ‘hidden’ preferences to Atrápalo by its customers, which undermined the interpretation of El trato as a trust game.

scholarly journals The role of administrative data in the big data revolution in social science research

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxanne Connelly ◽  
Christopher J. Playford ◽  
Vernon Gayle ◽  
Chris Dibben
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research

scholarly journals Erasing the Social from Social Science: The Intellectual Costs of Boundary-Work and the Canadian Institute of Health Research

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katelin E. Albert
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Boundary Work ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Canadian Institute ◽  
The Social

In 2009, Canadian social science research funding underwent a transition. Social science health-research was shifted from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), an agency previously dominated by natural and medical science. This paper examines the role of health-research funding structures in legitimizing and/or delimiting what counts as ‘good’ social science health research. Engaging Gieryn’s (1983) notion of ‘boundary-work’ and interviews with qualitative social science graduate students, it investigates how applicants developed proposals for CIHR. Findings show that despite claiming to be interdisciplinary, the practical mechanisms through which CIHR funding is distributed reinforce rigid boundaries of what counts as legitimate health research. These boundaries are reinforced by applicants who felt pressure to prioritize what they perceived was what funders wanted (accommodating natural-science research culture), resulting in erased, elided, and disguised social science theories and methods common for ‘good social science.’

Principled Machine Learning Using the Super Learner: An Application to Predicting Prison Violence

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 698-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerio Baćak ◽  
Edward H. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Adaptive Methods ◽  
Prison Violence ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Super Learner ◽  
Data Adaptive

A rapidly growing number of algorithms are available to researchers who apply statistical or machine learning methods to answer social science research questions. The unique advantages and limitations of each algorithm are relatively well known, but it is not possible to know in advance which algorithm is best suited for the particular research question and the data set at hand. Typically, researchers end up choosing, in a largely arbitrary fashion, one or a handful of algorithms. In this article, we present the Super Learner—a powerful new approach to statistical learning that leverages a variety of data-adaptive methods, such as random forests and spline regression, and systematically chooses the one, or a weighted combination of many, that produces the best forecasts. We illustrate the use of the Super Learner by predicting violence among inmates from the 2005 Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities. Over the past 40 years, mass incarceration has drastically weakened prisons’ capacities to ensure inmate safety, yet we know little about the characteristics of prisons related to inmate victimization. We discuss the value of the Super Learner in social science research and the implications of our findings for understanding prison violence.

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