Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Use and Audience of Research

Purpose of Research

Within or across Cases

Single or Multiple Points in Time

Data Collection Techniques

Conclusion

What Are the Major Types

of Social Research?

The objective of academic research, whether by sociologists, political scientists,

or anthropologists, is to try to find answers to theoretical questions within

their respective fields. In contrast, the objective of applied social research

is to use data so that decisions can be made.

—Herbert J. Rubin,Applied Social Research,pp. 6–7

Three years after they graduated from college, Tim
and Sharon met for lunch. Tim asked Sharon,
“So, how is your new job as a researcher for Social
Data, Inc.? What are you doing?” Sharon answered.
“Right now I’m working on a cross-sectional sur-
vey of teachers as part of an applied research project
on six day care centers to provide descriptive
data that we can use in an evaluation study being
prepared for a nonprofit foundation.” Sharon’s
description of her research project on the topic of
day care touches on dimensions of social science
research. In this chapter, you will learn about the
dimensions and get a “road map” of the types of
social research.
Social research comes in many shapes and
sizes. We can organize research in several ways:
experimental versus nonexperimental, case study
versus cross-case research, or qualitative versus
quantitative.^1 We can organize the many kinds of
studies along five dimensions (see Chart 1). The di-
mensions include how we use a study’s findings
and its primary audience; why we conduct a study;
the number of cases and how we examine them;

how we incorporate time; and decide which tech-

niques we deploy to gather data. You can position

a single research study on each of the dimensions

of social research.

You will find learning the dimensions and their

interrelationships to one another useful. First, they

make it easier to understand research reports

that you hear about or read in scholarly journals.

After you recognize a study’s dimensions, you can

quickly grasp what a study says and how it was

conducted. Second, when you conduct your own

study, you must make many decisions. You can

think of the dimensions as decision points you will

encounter as you develop a specific research plan.

To make good decisions, you should be aware of

trade-offs and the strengths and weaknesses at each

decision point. Additionally, the dimensions are

interrelated. Some dimensions tend to go together

(e.g., study goal and a data collection technique).

As you learn about the dimensions, you can begin

to see how best to combine dimensions to address

specific research questions of interest.

From Chapter 2 ofSocial Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches,7/e. W. Lawrence Neuman.
Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education. Published by Allyn & Bacon. All rights reserved.