1. Theory and Research
Neuman and Robson Ch. 2

2. What is Theory? “a statement of relationships between concepts”
“a roadmap for organizing ideas and knowledge about the social world”

3. Theory Parts Concepts Relationships Can be represented by a model
Concept clusters
Classification concepts (ideal types)
Relationships
Can be represented by a model

4. Dimensions A. Empiricism vs. Rationalism B. Deductive vs. Inductive
C. Levels of Theory
Micro
Meso
Macro

5. Dimensions A. Empiricism vs. Rationalism B. Deductive vs. Inductive
C. Levels of Theory
Micro
Meso
Macro

6. Purpose of Theory
Explain
Predict
Establish causality

7. Types of Explanations:
Prediction and explanation
Causal explanations
Structural Explanations
Interpretive explanations

8. Paradigms:
A paradigm is a fundamental image of the subject mater within a science. It serves to define what should be studied, what questions should be asked, and what rules should be followed in interpreting the answers obtained.
The paradigm is the broadest unit of consensus within a science and serves to differentiate one scientific community (or sub-community) from another.

9. Paradigms:
It subsumes, defines and interrelates the exemplars, theories, and methods and tools that exist within it. [9] (1975)
A paradigm is the specific collection of questions, viewpoints and models that define how the authors, publishers, and theorists, who subscribe to that paradigm, view and approach the science. [10] (1990)

10. Major Approaches or Paradigms in Social Science
“Quantitative and qualitative research methods involve very different assumptions about how research should be conducted and the role of the researcher

11. Differences between qualitative and quantitative research
Involves unstructured interviews, observation, and content analysis.
Subjective
Inductive
Little structure
Little manipulation of subjects
Takes a great deal of time to conduct
Little social distance between researcher and subject
Involves experiments, surveys, testing, and structured content analysis, interviews, and observation.
Objective
Deductive
High degree of structure
Some manipulation of subjects
May take little time to conduct
Much social distance between researcher and subject

12. Quantitative Methodology
Associated with: Post/positivist paradigm
Key principle: Objectivity
Theory stated: before (‘a priori’) the study (theory verification)
Process: Deductive

13. Quantitative Methodology
Generally involves collecting numerical data that can be subjected to statistical analysis
Examples of data collection methodologies
Performance Tests
Personality Measures
Questionnaires (with closed-ended questions or open ended but transferred to quan data)
Content Analysis
The data is generally referred to as “hard” data

14. Qualitative Methodology
Associated with the Interpretive paradigm
Key principle: Subjectivity/interpretation
Theory developed: during and/or after (‘a posteriori’) the study (theory generation)
Process: Inductive

15. Qualitative Methodology
Generally involves listening to the participants’ voice and subjecting the data to analytic induction (e.g., finding common themes)
More Exploratory in nature
Examples of data collection methods
Interviews
Open-ended questionnaires
Observations
Content analysis
Focus Groups

16. Mixed Method
A mixed methods research design is a procedure for collecting, analyzing, and “mixing” both quantitative and qualitative research and methods in a single study to understand a research problem

17. Major Approaches or Paradigms in Social Science
“integrated set of assumptions, beliefs, models of doing good research, and techniques for gathering and analyzing data”
1. Positivism/Post positivism
2. Interpretive Social Science
3. Critical Social Science
4. Feminist and Postmodern Research
A paradigm is the theoretical framework and the methodology used to investigate the theory
Multiple or competing paradigms

18. Positivism
“The positivist paradigm of exploring social reality is based on the philosophical ideas of the French philosopher August Comte,
emphasized observation and reason as means of understanding human behavior.
True knowledge is based on experience of senses and can be obtained by observation and experiment.
Positivistic thinkers adopt his scientific method as a means of knowledge generation.
It has to be understood within the framework of the principles and assumptions of science.

19. Positivism
These assumptions, as Conen et al (2000) noted, are determinism, empiricism, parsimony, and generality.
‘Determinism’ means that events are caused by other circumstances; and hence, understanding such casual links are necessary for prediction and control. ‘
Empiricism’ means collection of verifiable empirical evidences in support of theories or hypotheses.

20. Positivism
Parsimony’ refers to the explanation of the phenomena in the most economic way possible.
‘Generality’ is the process of generalizing the observation of the particular phenomenon to the world at large.

21. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
It emphasizes that social reality is viewed and interpreted by the individuals according to the ideological positions they possesses.
Therefore, knowledge is personally experienced rather than acquired from or imposed from outside.
The anti-positivists believe that reality is multi-layered and complex (Cohen et al, 2000) and a single phenomenon is having multiple interpretations.

22. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
They emphasize that the verification of a phenomenon is adopted when the level of understanding of a phenomenon is such that the concern is to probe into the various unexplored dimensions of a phenomenon rather than establishing specific relationship among the components, as it happens in the case of positivism.

23. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
Anti-positivism is marked by three schools of thought in the social science research. These are 
phenomenology, 
ethnomethodology and 
symbolicinteractionism.
All the three schools of thought emphasise human interaction with phenomena in their daily lives, and suggest qualitative rather than quantitative approach to social inquiry.

24. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
Phenomenology’ is a theoretical view point which believes that individual behaviour is determined by the experience gained out of one’s direct interaction with the phenomena.
During interaction with various phenomena, human beings interpret them and attach meanings to different actions and or ideas and thereby construct new experiences.

25. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
Ethnomethodology’ deals with the world of everyday life.
According to enthomethodologists, theoretical concerns centres around the process by which common sense reality is constructed in everyday face-to-face interaction.
This approach studies the process by which people invoke certain ‘take-for-granted’ rules about behaviour which they interpret in an interactive situation and make it meaningful.
They are mainly interested in the interpretation people use to make sense of social settings.

26. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
Symbolic Interactionism emphasizes the understanding and interpretation of interactions that take place between human beings.
The peculiarity of this approach is that human beings interpret and define each other’s actions instead of merely reacting to each other’s actions.
Human interaction in the social world is mediated by the use of symbols like language, which help human beings to give meaning to objects. \

27. Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics
Symbolic interactionists, therefore, claim that by only concentrating attention on individuals’ capacity to create symbolically meaningful objects in the world, human interaction and resulting patterns of social organizations can be understood.

28. Critical theory
The main protagonist of this theory was Jurgen Habermas, who worked at the Frankfurt School in Germany to develop an approach of investigation and action in the social sciences, which could describe the historical forces that restrict human freedom and expose the ideological justification of those forces.
Critical theorists like Habermas were critical of the earlier paradigms as they were not tuned to question or transform the existing situation.
Critical theorists suggest two kinds of research methodologies, namely, ideology critique and action research, for undertaking research work.

29. Critical theory
The main protagonist of this theory was Jurgen Habermas, who worked at the Frankfurt School in Germany to develop an approach of investigation and action in the social sciences, which could describe the historical forces that restrict human freedom and expose the ideological justification of those forces.
Critical theorists like Habermas were critical of the earlier paradigms as they were not tuned to question or transform the existing situation