Unit One Section Three Pg 2

The Scientific Revolution helped generate the Enlightenment in the Western world. This was a revolution in the social and political order that resulted in the American and the French Revolutions of the eighteenth century. The key question was if everything in the natural world was knowable, why not "Dare to Know" about the social world of humans? Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, there developed the disciplines of a Social Science. However, because human beings are not as predictable and uniform as the natural sciences, there is a difficulty often in getting theories popularized or understood in the social sciences. Social sciences involve the systematic collection and analysis of data, but the method differs:

The Social Science Method
1. Define the Problem	A definition of terms, and a delineation of what social issue(s) and dimension(s) you are focusing on will enhance your objectivity, clarity of research design, and usually will save you work and time.
2. Review the literature	You must assume that others have worked in this area. You need to be aware of the research so that you can learn from it and not duplicate already duplicated experiments.
3. Develop a theoretical framework & formulate a hypothesis	How do you conceive of the central issue in your upcoming research? What is your basic idea that has engaged you, for example, is your theory that "money equals power" or "alcoholism is hereditary?"
4. Choose the research design	How are you going to approach the subject and attempt to prove your hypothesis? Are your methods going to include the need to interview people, survey archives, research old newspapers, or conduct a survey? Will you collect both qualitative and quantitative data? Will you use a case study, historical, comparative or cross-cultural approach?
5. Collect the necessary data	This step is essential in determining the quality of your results. If you are conducting a general survey of the population, but just interview people who vote in one party or come from one economic strata, how objective is your research to the general whole?
6. Analyze the results	This the step where you collect your research raw data into a coherent set of results. For example, if you surveyed the economic background of U.S. Senators, just listing all the information would not be too helpful. You would want to organize some tables and charts giving various categories. You might even want to show some correlations between dimensions such as region and economic levels.
7. Draw conclusions	You have observed, thought about, researched, collected information, and analyzed a problem. What does it mean? Was your hypothesis correct or not? What other conclusions could you draw about your area of study? This step of the social science method is where you draw it together.

2. Social Science & Scientific Methodology

The Social Science Method