Social sciences refer to business, commerce, demography, psychology, sociology, etc. Social sciences directly involve people. Research in social sciences arena deals with the behavior of people in their different roles, such consumers, competitors, producers, executives, salespersons, leaders, workers, followers, teachers, students, opinion-makers, etc. Research in social sciences deals with the systematic method of discovering new facts or of verifying old facts, their sequence, inter-relationship, casual explanations and the natural laws which cover them. The importance that social science research wields today is immeasurable and enlarging. As social, business and economic problems abound, the significance of social research gets enhanced as it provides workable solutions. We know the objectives of social research are elaborate. From these emanate the significance of research. The following points bring out the significance of research in social sciences. Problems solving is the thrust of most researches. Social problems are felt directly by people and that research Continue reading
Research Basics
Basic Principles of Experimental Design
Experimental research designs, which can otherwise be called hypothesis-testing research designs, were originally made by R.A. Fisher in agricultural research in England. Experimental designs are generally used in experimental studies where hypothesis are tested. Experimental designs are now used in almost all the areas of scientific studies. Professor Fisher has enumerated three principles of experimental designs: 1. The principle of replication: The experiment should be reaped more than once. Thus, each treatment is applied in many experimental units instead of one. By doing so, the statistical accuracy of the experiments is increased. For example, suppose we are to examine the effect of two varieties of rice. For this purpose we may divide the field into two parts and grow one variety in one part and the other variety in the other part. We can compare the yield of the two parts and draw conclusion on that basis. But if we Continue reading
Documentary Sources of Information in Research
The documentary source is an important source of information for a researcher. A document is anything in writing a record, files or diaries, published or unpublished which can be extracted and used in research. It is a very valuable source of information for a research either in management or in social sciences. It may comprise office files, business and legal papers, biographies, official and unofficial records, letters, proceedings of any courts, committees, societies, Assemblies, and Parliaments, enactments, constitution, reports of surveys, or research of commissions, official statistics, newspaper editorials, special articles, company news, cases or company directors’ reports, etc. Documentation is the process of collecting and extracting the documents which are relevant to research. Documents may be classified into: Personal documents; Company documents; Consultants’ report and published materials; and Public documents. Personal documents are those that are written by or on behalf of individuals. They may include autobiographies, biographies, diaries, Continue reading
Basic Laws of Sampling
Sometimes it is possible to obtain sufficiently accurate results by studying a part/a segment of the population. Thus the few items are selected from the population in such a way that they are the representative of the universe and these representatives in research are called as ‘sample’. The process of selecting the representatives from the population is called ‘sampling’. Thus sampling is simply the process of learning about population on the basis of sample drawn from it. Under this method a small group of universe is taken as the representative of the whole mass and the results are drawn. It is the method to make social/business investigation practicable and easy. Sampling is, therefore, resorted to when either it is impossible to enumerate all the units in the whole population or when it is too costly to enumerate in terms of time and money or when the uncertainty inherent in sampling Continue reading
Social Research – Definition, Steps and Objectives
Definitions of Social Research The term ‘social research’ has been defined by different scholars differently. The few definitions are as follows: Prof. C.A. Moser defined it as “systematized investigation to give new knowledge about social phenomena and surveys, we call social research”. Rummel defined it as “it is devoted to a study to mankind in his social environment and is concerned with improving his understanding of social orders, groups, institutes and ethics”. M.H. Gopal defined it as “it is scientific analysis of the nature and trends of social phenomena of groups or in general of human behavior so as to formulate broad principles and scientific concepts”. Mary Stevenson defined it as “social research is a systematic method of exploring, analyzing and conceptualizing social life in order to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether that knowledge aid in the construction of a theory or in the practice of an art. A Continue reading
Systematic Random Sampling in Research
In cluster sampling the population again is subdivided into subgroups termed clusters instead of strata. The term cluster means a bunch of similar things. Suppose the thousand employees of a factory in our example comprise of teams each consisting of one supervisor and nine workers, and we choose these teams at random, it is a cluster sample, because we have taken one hundred clusters as our sample. One popular type of cluster sample is the systematic random sample also called quasi-random sample. Suppose the thousand employees of the factory are listed alphabetically and numbered serially to form the sample frame. (The alphabetical order is usually a random arrangement with respect to most characteristics and so forms an unbiased sample frame). As twenty employees are to be chosen from the thousand, it is a one in fifty sample. So, here, 50 is the sampling interval or ‘skip factor’. Now choose a Continue reading