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examples of empirical research and ethics Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by

Be able to: - Distinguish between good and bad practices - Relate empirical research results to research questions. - Illustrate and explain how theory and research methods impact each other. - Give an example of how theory choices might raise issues of research ethics. - Identify and describe the key ethical issues in social research. - Give examples of how political issues can influence social research. - Explain why specific research is ethically controversial (or not).

This is a draft cheat sheet. It is a work in progress and is not finished yet.

Paradigms and Theory

social research is always based on underlying assumption (= paradigms) about the nature of social reality
→ paradigms cannot be true or false, but are more or less useful
→ paradigms guide social theories and social research
→ in a way, paradigms are second­-order (more abstract) theories

theories: logical explan­ations of social reality and help answer the ‘why’ question

social research does not necess­arily assume that there is an objective, social reality out there
→ subjec­tivity is indivi­dual; it concerns individual experi­ences
→ object­ivity is social; people look for common ground in their subjective experi­ences - it is a matter of agreement expressed in shared paradigms and theories
When critically assessing the outcome of social research we need to look for the underlying paradigm

Political Consid­era­tions

political vs. ethical consid­era­tions:
- ethical consid­era­tions: deal mostly with the methods employed and the execution of the research
- political consid­era­tions: deal mostly with the topics, contents and use of the research and the research findings

social research inevit­ably:
- has a political dimension (results can be used for political purposes)
- Is always informed by ideology via the underlying paradigm (for instance the conflict paradigm)
- Should be inters­ubj­ective to prevent personal biases to influence the research

Hypotheses

The importance of hypotheses concern bridging the gap from paradigm to theory.
→ a hypotheses can do this by, i.e. formul­ating testable expect­ations about empirical reality

a hypotheses can be formed induct­ively or seduct­ively.

Testing hypotheses supposes operat­ion­ali­sation of the main concepts, which means that the concepts should be made observable in concrete and specific measures approp­riate for the population and circum­stances of the study
 

Deduction & Induction

deduction and induction concerns the place or function of theory, and the type of theore­tical reasoning in social research
- the tradit­ional model of science is deductive
→ theory from which a hypothesis is derived
→ operat­ion­ali­zation to enable the observ­ation of variables
→ observ­ation is the actual measur­ement of variables
reasons from general to specific

- induction reasons from specific to general

deduction and induction is not a matter of “either or”
when critically assessing the (outcomes of) social research we need look at the soundness of the underlying inductive or deductive reasoning

Ethical Consid­eration

three ethical issues concerning partic­ipa­nts­/re­pon­dents:
- voluntary partic­ipa­tions
- no harm to people → harm (i.e. disres­pect, injustice, cruelty) can be preventing by debriefing
- deception

the milgram experi­ment:
- artici­pants recruited for an experiment on learning (ethical aspect: deception)
- Partic­ipants were the ‘teacher’, confed­erate was the ‘student’, and there was an ‘exper­ime­nter’
- Partic­ipants were told to administer an electric shock every time the student made a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. Phony shocks ranged from 15 to 450 volts
- During and after the experiment partic­ipants suffered and became upset and nervous (ethical aspect: no harm to people)

anonymity; when a researcher cannot link a response with a given respondent
→ is impossible for interview studies

condfi­den­tti­ality: when the researcher can identify a given person's response but essent­ially promises no to do so publicly
→ issue: compliance