Social Research Methods Essay

In a basic and natural sense, humans were created as social beings. They purportedly mutually interdepend on each other thus interact and build a relationship amongst other individuals and groups. These interactions are dynamic because human behavior changes as the environment around them vary be it in economic, socio or political aspect. Researchers in sociology have made a tremendous effort in attempting to understand, explain, and allow for prediction of human behavior in varying social environment. One among the scholars is Dalton Colney who in a series of scholarly works have tried to elaborate complex sociological issues what is regarded as simple narrative manner. From Dalton's work, I find the topic "The Future of Families" in chapter 12 to be most interesting in the way that social issues like divorce, blended families, and multiracial families are explored. This paper proposes to identify various types of research questions explored by researchers, highlight research methods, and evaluate their applicability in social sciences.

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Research based in social sciences involves four distinguishable types of research questions which may be described as a casuist, difference, descriptive, or relational problems. Casuist research problems focus on the determination of correctness or lack of it in social conduct by effecting analysis of controversial moral issues. Difference research problems are employed when a researcher intends to compare different phenomenon and are mostly adopted for research in clinical and behavioral sciences. Descriptive research questions, on the other hand, seek to describe significance or existence of a certain phenomenon and reveal information gaps. Lastly, relational research questions propose a relationship between variables and seek to study qualities that might be related. A feasible research question should be original, it should clarify the main focus of a research, and should be significant to the field of study.

While pursuing the above-mentioned research questions, researchers in social sciences apply either of the two conventional research methods which are qualitative, and quantitative. As highlighted by Family Health International (3), qualitative research method basically seeks to explore phenomena using semi-structured approaches like observation, interviews, and case studies. A distinguishing characteristic is that qualitative methods deal with data that is generally textual and similar observations are classified together and used to develop generalized trends. On the other hand, quantitative research methods aim at confirming or disputing a hypothesized argument using structured approaches like closed questionnaires, structured observations, and field survey. Quantitative methods are unique in that they deal with numeric data and the design of a study remains stable throughout the process without being influenced by the nature of the subject under study. Also, quantitative methods involve designs that are conditioned by statistical assumptions.

If a researcher employed quantitative research method to study a social issue like increased cases of divorce in modern society, the researcher would most likely invoke a casuist research question which would seek to assess the acceptability of divorces in the society. The researcher would develop a hypothetical argument either justifying or condemning the trend in divorce then employ structured data collection methods like administering closed questionnaires to victims of divorces and as well respondents from the general populace. Else, the researcher would conduct a survey to collect statistical data which would indicate say how many divorce cases exists in every ten or a hundred families, depending on the scope of the study. Findings from such a study would be used to accept or reject the pre-defined hypothesis.

On the other hand, if the researcher adopted qualitative research method to study the same divorce issue, it's probable that the research problem would still be a casuist because the ideal social view favors endurance of marriage institutions. However, unlike in quantitative method, there would be no declaration of any null or alternate hypothetical premise. This method would be more of an exploratory study seeking to identify issues causative factors that could be leading to increased cases of divorce in the modern society. Relevant data for such a study would be collected through approaches that allow room for flexibility such as administering open-ended questionnaires, conducting in-depth, or gathering responses from a focus group, for example, a group of divorced men or women. The gathered information would comply in a classified manner so that the most eminent responses can be sorted and be used to justify the findings of the study provides information about the issue under study.

In the research context, there exist various relationships between variables or phenomena under study. Among these relationships are correlation and causation. Correlation refers to a statistical measure which tells of the magnitude and direction of relationships between variables. In contrast, causality is attributed to an indication that an event is a resultant of the occurrence of another event. In consideration of divorce as a social issue, findings might show that most highly educated women end up with divorced marriages. From this premise, it can be said that divorces are correlated to high levels of education among women. This correlation would be confused for causation if a person argued that high level of education among women was the cause of increased divorce in the modern society.

Conclusion

In reaction to the fourth question, I would advocate for a researcher to consider collecting data through a focus group. This would involve a case study involving a purposive sample where a considerate number of respondents would be asked to participate in the study. These participants would be individual who is victims of divorce or individuals who have been directly or indirectly been affected by a divorce that relates to a close member of their family, for example, a parent or sibling. The researcher or the research team would interact directly with the group under study and collect their views regarding various opinions about divorce issues as may be considered fit by the researcher. The participants would be allowed to express their views beyond the framework of the research so that the research may capture sensitive aspects and unique perspectives that could not have been predetermined when designing the study. The data so gathered would then be compiled and analyzed on basis of similarity and interrelations in arguments and thus aid in the determination of a generalized argument that can be applied in such divorce cases.

Works Cited

Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist., 2017. Print

Family Health International. "Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector's Field Guide". 2017. Family Health International. website: http://www.fhi.org/training/en/RETC