Building A Social Science

Author : Pamela J. Shoemaker,James William Tankard, Jr.,Dominic L. Lasorsa
Publisher : SAGE Publications
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2003-12-10
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781452210438

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How to Build Social Science Theories by Pamela J. Shoemaker,James William Tankard, Jr.,Dominic L. Lasorsa Pdf

Click ′Additional Materials′ to read the foreword by Jerald Hage As straightforward as its title, How to Build Social Science Theories sidesteps the well-traveled road of theoretical examination by demonstrating how new theories originate and how they are elaborated. Essential reading for students of social science research, this book traces theories from their most rudimentary building blocks (terminology and definitions) through multivariable theoretical statements, models, the role of creativity in theory building, and how theories are used and evaluated. Authors Pamela J. Shoemaker, James William Tankard, Jr., and Dominic L. Lasorsa intend to improve research in many areas of the social sciences by making research more theory-based and theory-oriented. The book begins with a discussion of concepts and their theoretical and operational definitions. It then proceeds to theoretical statements, including hypotheses, assumptions, and propositions. Theoretical statements need theoretical linkages and operational linkages; this discussion begins with bivariate relationships, as well as three-variable, four-variable, and further multivariate relationships. The authors also devote chapters to the creative component of theory-building and how to evaluate theories. How to Build Social Science Theories is a sophisticated yet readable analysis presented by internationally known experts in social science methodology. It is designed primarily as a core text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in communication theory. It will also be a perfect addition to any course dealing with theory and research methodology across the social sciences. Additionally, professional researchers will find it an indispensable guide to the genesis, dissemination, and evaluation of social science theories.

Author : Anol Bhattacherjee
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2012-04-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 1475146124

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Social Science Research by Anol Bhattacherjee Pdf

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

Author : Bent Flyvbjerg
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2001-01-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 052177568X

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Making Social Science Matter by Bent Flyvbjerg Pdf

New approach demonstrating how social science can be successful, focusing on context, values, and power.

Author : Matt Grossmann
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2021-07-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780197518991

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How Social Science Got Better by Matt Grossmann Pdf

It seems like most of what we read about the academic social sciences in the mainstream media is negative. The field is facing mounting criticism, as canonical studies fail to replicate, questionable research practices abound, and researcher social and political biases come under fire. In response to these criticisms, Matt Grossmann, in How Social Science Got Better, provides a robust defense of the current state of the social sciences. Applying insights from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science and providing new data on research trends and scholarly views, he argues that, far from crisis, social science is undergoing an unparalleled renaissance of ever-broader understanding and application. According to Grossmann, social science research today has never been more relevant, rigorous, or self-reflective because scholars have a much better idea of their blind spots and biases. He highlights how scholars now closely analyze the impact of racial, gender, geographic, methodological, political, and ideological differences on research questions; how the incentives of academia influence our research practices; and how universal human desires to avoid uncomfortable truths and easily solve problems affect our conclusions. Though misaligned incentive structures of course remain, a messy, collective deliberation across the research community has shifted us into an unprecedented age of theoretical diversity, open and connected data, and public scholarship. Grossmann's wide-ranging account of current trends will necessarily force the academy's many critics to rethink their lazy critiques and instead acknowledge the path-breaking advances occurring in the social sciences today.

Author : Tamás Rudas,Gábor Péli
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2021-01-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783030549367

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Pathways Between Social Science and Computational Social Science by Tamás Rudas,Gábor Péli Pdf

This volume shows that the emergence of computational social science (CSS) is an endogenous response to problems from within the social sciences and not exogeneous. The three parts of the volume address various pathways along which CSS has been developing from and interacting with existing research frameworks. The first part exemplifies how new theoretical models and approaches on which CSS research is based arise from theories of social science. The second part is about methodological advances facilitated by CSS-related techniques. The third part illustrates the contribution of CSS to traditional social science topics, further attesting to the embedded nature of CSS. The expected readership of the volume includes researchers with a traditional social science background who wish to approach CSS, experts in CSS looking for substantive links to more traditional social science theories, methods and topics, and finally, students working in both fields.

Author : Alexander L. George,Andrew Bennett
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2005-04-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780262262897

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Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences by Alexander L. George,Andrew Bennett Pdf

The use of case studies to build and test theories in political science and the other social sciences has increased in recent years. Many scholars have argued that the social sciences rely too heavily on quantitative research and formal models and have attempted to develop and refine rigorous methods for using case studies. This text presents a comprehensive analysis of research methods using case studies and examines the place of case studies in social science methodology. It argues that case studies, statistical methods, and formal models are complementary rather than competitive. The book explains how to design case study research that will produce results useful to policymakers and emphasizes the importance of developing policy-relevant theories. It offers three major contributions to case study methodology: an emphasis on the importance of within-case analysis, a detailed discussion of process tracing, and development of the concept of typological theories. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences will be particularly useful to graduate students and scholars in social science methodology and the philosophy of science, as well as to those designing new research projects, and will contribute greatly to the broader debate about scientific methods.

Author : R. Hegselmann,Ulrich Mueller,Klaus G. Troitzsch
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2013-03-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789401586863

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Modelling and Simulation in the Social Sciences from the Philosophy of Science Point of View by R. Hegselmann,Ulrich Mueller,Klaus G. Troitzsch Pdf

Model building in the social sciences can increasingly rely on well elaborated formal theories. At the same time inexpensive large computational capacities are now available. Both make computer-based model building and simulation possible in social science, whose central aim is in particular an understanding of social dynamics. Such social dynamics refer to public opinion formation, partner choice, strategy decisions in social dilemma situations and much more. In the context of such modelling approaches, novel problems in philosophy of science arise which must be analysed - the main aim of this book. Interest in social simulation has recently been growing rapidly world- wide, mainly as a result of the increasing availability of powerful personal computers. The field has also been greatly influenced by developments in cellular automata theory (from mathematics) and in distributed artificial intelligence which provided tools readily applicable to social simulation. This book presents a number of modelling and simulation approaches and their relations to problems in philosophy of science. It addresses sociologists and other social scientists interested in formal modelling, mathematical sociology, and computer simulation as well as computer scientists interested in social science applications, and philosophers of social science.

Author : Stoker, Gerry,Evans, Mark
Publisher : Policy Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2016-09-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781447329374

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Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences by Stoker, Gerry,Evans, Mark Pdf

This book gathers an expert group of social scientists to showcase emerging forms of analysis and evaluation for public policy analysis. Each chapter highlights a different method or approach, putting it in context and highlighting its key features before illustrating its application and potential value to policy makers. Aimed at upper-level undergraduates in public policy and social work, it also has much to offer policy makers and practitioners themselves.

Author : Carol Mershon,Olga Shvetsova
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2019-09-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780472054237

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Formal Modeling in Social Science by Carol Mershon,Olga Shvetsova Pdf

A formal model in the social sciences builds explanations when it structures the reasoning underlying a theoretical argument, opens venues for controlled experimentation, and can lead to hypotheses. Yet more importantly, models evaluate theory, build theory, and enhance conjectures. Formal Modeling in Social Science addresses the varied helpful roles of formal models and goes further to take up more fundamental considerations of epistemology and methodology. The authors integrate the exposition of the epistemology and the methodology of modeling and argue that these two reinforce each other. They illustrate the process of designing an original model suited to the puzzle at hand, using multiple methods in diverse substantive areas of inquiry. The authors also emphasize the crucial, though underappreciated, role of a narrative in the progression from theory to model. Transparency of assumptions and steps in a model means that any analyst will reach equivalent predictions whenever she replicates the argument. Hence, models enable theoretical replication, essential in the accumulation of knowledge. Formal Modeling in Social Science speaks to scholars in different career stages and disciplines and with varying expertise in modeling.

Author : James Mahoney
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2021-08-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691214955

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The Logic of Social Science by James Mahoney Pdf

"Mahoney's starting point is the problem of essentialism in social science. Essentialism--the belief that the members of a category possess hidden properties ("essences") that make them members of the category and that endow them with a certain nature--is appropriate for scientific categories ("atoms", for instance) but not for human ones ("revolutions," for instance). Despite this, much social science research takes place from within an essentialist orientation; those who reject this assumption goes so far in the other direction as to reject the idea of an external reality, independent of human beings, altogether. Mahoney proposes an alternative approach that aspires to bridge this enduring rift in the social sciences between those who take a scientific approach and assume that social science categories correspond to external reality (and thus believe that the methods used in the natural sciences are generally appropriate for the social sciences) and those who take a constructivist approach and believe that because the categories used to understand the social world are humanly-constructed, they cannot possibly follow the science of the natural world. As the name suggests, scientific constructivism brings in aspects of both views and attempts to unite them. Drawing from cognitive science, it focuses on using the rational parts of our brain machinery to overcome the limitations and deeply seated biases (such as essentialism) of our evolved minds. Specifically, Mahoney puts forth a "set-theoretic analysis" that focuses on "sets" of categories as they exist in the mind that are also subject to the mathematical logic of set-theory. He spends the first four chapters of the book establishing the foundations and methods for set-theoretic analysis, the next four chapters looking and how this analysis fits with the existing tools of social science, and the final four chapters focusing on how this approach can be used to study and understand cases"--

Author : Mark Solovey,Christian Dayé
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 413 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2021-05-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783030702465

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Cold War Social Science by Mark Solovey,Christian Dayé Pdf

This book explores how the social sciences became entangled with the global Cold War. While duly recognizing the realities of nation states, national power, and national aspirations, the studies gathered here open up new lines of transnational investigation. Considering developments in a wide array of fields – anthropology, development studies, economics, education, political science, psychology, science studies, and sociology – that involved the movement of people, projects, funding, and ideas across diverse national contexts, this volume pushes scholars to rethink certain fundamental points about how we should understand – and thus how we should study – Cold War social science itself.

Author : Herbert B. Asher
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 453 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 087049399X

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Theory-building and Data Analysis in the Social Sciences by Herbert B. Asher Pdf

Author : David Lee Featherman,Maris Arvids Vinovskis
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2009-12-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780472023318

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Social Science and Policy-Making by David Lee Featherman,Maris Arvids Vinovskis Pdf

This collection of essays examines how the social sciences in America were developed as a means of social reform and later, especially after World War II, as a tool in federal policymaking and policy analysis. It also uses arenas of policymaking, such as early childhood education and welfare and its reform, as case studies in which social research was used, in policy decisions or in setting and evaluating policy goals. The book is written to aid students of public policy to appreciate the complex relationship of information--principally, of social science research--to policymaking at the federal level. David L. Featherman is Professor of Sociology and Psychology, Director and Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Maris A. Vinovskis is Bentley Professor of History, Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Social Research, Faculty member, School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.

Author : Heinz-Jurgen Niedenzu,Tamas Meleghy,Peter Meyer
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2015-11-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317255482

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New Evolutionary Social Science by Heinz-Jurgen Niedenzu,Tamas Meleghy,Peter Meyer Pdf

Social scientists have long declared their autonomy from the natural sciences, and in doing so have tended to neglect important biological constraints on human nature. Many sociological theories have suggested a nearly complete malleability of patterns of social life. The New Evolutionary Social Science challenges this view by building on Stephen K. Sanderson's 'Darwinian conflict theory' which sets out to synthesise sociological theories with key findings from biology into an overarching scientific paradigm. Configuring and expanding this groundbreaking theory, the contributors to this volume are well-known European and American experts in evolutionary science. The New Evolutionary Social Science develops a new basis for understanding social change and the world's future through a better integration of the natural and social sciences.

Author : Johannes Wheeldon,Mauri K. Ahlberg
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2011-07-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781452239552

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Visualizing Social Science Research by Johannes Wheeldon,Mauri K. Ahlberg Pdf

This introductory text presents basic principles of social science research through maps, graphs, and diagrams. The authors show how concept maps and mind maps can be used in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, using student-friendly examples and classroom-based activities. Integrating theory and practice, chapters show how to use these tools to plan research projects, "see" analysis strategies, and assist in the development and writing of research reports.