ResearchMethods/ResearchDesign/PoliSciNatSci

Assumptions and definitions in social science move to week 1

If you've done scientific research, you would be used to relying on common definitions. Nobody is going to argue with you as to what a carbon molecule is.

However, in the social sciences you may be researching, thinking and writing about feminism, or poverty or identity or nationalism. These are terms which are contested and which you are going to have to state your definition, and rationale for that definition. You are going to have to state your assumptions and make clear 'where you are coming from'.

• tweak the following and trim if possible to provide rationale for the above. Again, quote some papers 'the theoretical underpinnings' sections that say.... i'm taking this approach, for these reasons, i'm using these definitions. or alternatively, I'm NOT using this because.'

Differences between social sciences and the natural sciences ==

As explained, the social science method is the effort to explain empirical phenomena by developing and testing hypotheses.

Why not drop the word "social" from the expression "the social science method"? Because there are important differences between the social sciences, including political science, and the natural sciences. They are summarised in the table below, and discussed next.

Natural vs. Social science
	Natural sciences	Social sciences
Research design (typical)	Experiment	Observation
Field consensus	Consensus on important concepts	Debate over concepts' definitions and importance
Predictability of research subjects	Mostly consistent and predictable	Unpredictable

• The natural sciences rely much more heavily on 'experimental design, in which subjects are assigned randomly to groups and in which the researcher is able to manipulate the independent variable in order to measure its impact on the dependent variable. Often, when people think about the scientific method, what they have in mind are these sorts of controlled experiments. In political science, we for the most part are not able to carry out experimental designs. If, for example, we wish to study the impact of party affiliation on decisions by judges, we cannot very well assign judges to different parties, but rather have to take the data as they come to us from observing judges in their natural setting.

Experimental design, however, does not define the natural sciences, nor does its absence define the social sciences. Astronomy, for example, must of necessity rely on observation of things that cannot be manipulated. “Epidemiological” medical research relies on non-experimental data. Conversely, the social science discipline of social psychology has been built in large part from experiments in small group laboratories. In political science, a great deal of laboratory research on the impact of campaign commercials has been carried out in recent years. Field experiments are also common, as when survey researchers test the impact of alternative question wordings by splitting their sample and administering different questionnaire forms to different subsets of respondents. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that experimental designs are much less common in the social sciences, including political science, than in the natural sciences. Most of our research design is, in effect, an effort to approximate the logic of experimental design as closely as possible.

Other differences, also differences in degree, have to do with lower levels of consensus in the social sciences.

• There is less consensus as to what concepts are important. If you are about to take an introductory chemistry class, you are going to have to learn about molecules. It will not make any difference whether the instructor is a liberal or a 'greeny'. If you are about to take an introductory political science course, you can be much less confident about what concepts you will study. Consider “power.” Some regard this as the central concept that distinguishes political science from other disciples, but others see it as of much more peripheral importance. In a sense, it is literally true that we do not know (or at least do not agree on) what we are talking about!
• There is less consensus about conceptual definition. Even if we agree that power is a key concept for the study of politics, we may not agree on what power means. Chemists, on the other hand, not only agree that molecules are important, they also all mean pretty much the same thing when they use the term.
• There is less consensus about operational definition. Chemists agree on how to measure the atomic weight of a module. Social scientists are far from unanimous in the ways they go about measuring power.

These differences, keep in mind, are just differences in degree. In the natural sciences there are also disputes at the frontiers of the various disciplines about what concepts are important, what they mean, and how they should be measured. In the social sciences, however, consensus is likely to break down from the start.

Even if we can agree that a particular concept is important, on what it means, and on how it should be measured, we will usually encounter far larger problems of measurement error than those in the natural sciences, where measurement is not without error, but is typically much more precise.

Finally, remember that we are involved in trying to explain human behavior. People do not seem to behave as well as molecules. It may be that human behavior is inherently less predictable.

Credits

John L. Korey 2013, POLITICAL SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE, Introduction to Research Methods in Political Science: The POWERMUTT* Project, [1]