METHODOLOGY MATTERS: DOING RESEARCH IN THE BEHAVIORAL and SOCIAL SCIENCES

This chapter focuses on the tools with which researchers in the social and behavioral sciences go about doing research and presents some of the inherent limits, as well as the potential strengths, of various features of the research process by which behavioral and social scientists do research.

Abstract

Doing research simply means the systematic use of some set of theoretical and empirical tools to try to increase understanding of some set of phenomena or events. In the social and behavioral sciences, the phenomena of interest involve states and actions of human systems—of individuals, groups, organizations, and larger social entities—and the by-products of those actions. The meaning of research evidence, in any area of science, is inherently tied to the means or methods by which that evidence was obtained. Hence, to understand empirical evidence, its meaning, and its limitations, requires having an understanding of the concepts and techniques on which that evidence is based. This chapter focuses on the tools with which researchers in the social and behavioral sciences go about doing research. It discusses issues about strategy, tactics, and operations and presents some of the inherent limits, as well as the potential strengths, of various features of the research process by which behavioral and social scientists do research.