Note: This is an introductory chapter, not intended to address topics in their full complexity. If you find that you wish you had more information about a topic or feel something was oversimplified, please continue reading this book.

Why is research important?

Have you ever taken medicine? or used electricity, attended school, toured a museum, read the news, or traveled on a road? By virtue of the fact that you are reading this, we can assume that at least one of those is true, so congratulations—you’re the beneficiary of research! Research is the reason we live in the world we live in today. Each generation conducts research—whether formally or informally—and advances the human race. Moving from bronze tools/weapons to iron was a major advancement based on geological and metallurgical research, which catapulted humanity forward. Certainly, the approach to research taken in 500 B.C. would be far less formal than this modern era, but those advancements in research methods are, in fact, a product of research itself.

Within the social sciences, “professionals must be able to read the research literature in the field and apply it in their professional lives” (Cozby, 2007, p. 2). From counselors to social workers to teachers, research should have a close relationship with the professional practices.

Research across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities drives us forward as a species. Those just starting their journey as researchers with this text and, perhaps, an associated class are joining an esteemed tradition of humanity that creates and curates new knowledge.

What is “research” in the social sciences?

Most research—whether in the natural sciences or social sciences—occurs informally (i.e., individual people making observations and gathering evidence about phenomena they witness). This text is about formal research, which is done systematically, intentionally, deliberately, with a set of recognized methods, and usually to be disseminated to a wider audience. Throughout the rest of this text, all references to “research” are about formal research.

Backing up though, what even are the social sciences? The Academy of Social Sciences (2024) defines them as, “…the study of people: as individuals, communities and societies; their behaviours and interactions with each other and with their built, technological and natural environments” (para. 1).

The social sciences include a variety of core academic disciplines focused on the application of a scientific approach to inquiry into social topics (exs., economics, sociology, and social psychology). However, the social sciences, broadly, also include professions that are extensions of such core fields, like the disciplines of business, education, and social work (as well as some disciplines like medicine and nursing that can include both natural and social science elements). These social science professions and the core disciplines share methods of inquiry (i.e., research) and are thus associated in this text.

Social science research generally tries to emulate natural science research. “The” scientific method is nearly ubiquitous in the natural science curriculum en route to a high school diploma: observe, develop a research question and/or hypothesis, design and perform an experiment to test said hypothesis, analyze data, and form tentative conclusions. This process then may repeat indefinitely. (Note: There is no single scientific method, though loosely the steps above are common across scientific research.) Social science, however, is more variable than the natural sciences in not only how to do research but also in defining what constitutes research.

A Plethora of Definitions

Consider some of the following definitions of social science research (sometimes using “science” as synonymous for “research” and then applying it to the social science context):

• “Research is a process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue” (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019, p. 3)
• “Research means a systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge” (Protection of Human Subjects, 2021, § 46.102(l))
  • “Human subject means a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) [is] conducting research” (Protection of Human Subjects, 2021, § 46.102(e)(1))
• “[to] gather information to answer a question that solves a problem” (Booth et al., 2003, p. 10)
• “the methods of scientific research in the behavioral sciences” (Cozby, 2007, p. 2)
• “Science refers to a systematic and organised body of knowledge in any area of inquiry that is acquired using ‘the scientific method’… Science can be grouped into two broad categories: natural science and social science… social science is the science of people or collections of people, such as groups, firms, societies, or economies, and their individual or collective behaviours” (Bhattacherjee, 2019, p. 2)
• “Science is an effort to understand (or improve our understanding) of the world, with observable evidence as the basis of that understanding… One of the most important things to keep in mind about social scientific knowledge creation is that social scientists aim to explain patterns in social groups. Most of the time, such a pattern will not explain every single person’s experience” (McKee, 2024, Section 1.1, paras. 4-5)
• “Research is the formal, systematic application of the scientific method to the study of problems; educational research is the formal, systematic application of the scientific method to the study of educational problems” (Mills & Gay, 2016, p. 5)
• “Research is ‘creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge’. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error” (“Research,” 2024, para. 1)
  • “Social research is research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative” (“Social research,” 2024, para. 1)

Yes, even Wikipedia is included in this list, representing an accessible and popular way to define terms that, in this case, is generally coherent with scholarly sources.

An Operational Definition for This Text

For the purposes of this text, we will use the following definition for research in the context of the social sciences: “Social science research is a systematic approach to the scientific study of people, from individuals and relationships to society, to generate new knowledge which is situated within the existing body of knowledge.” The terms “social science research” and “research” will then be used interchangeably throughout. Here is what is meant by some key components in that definition:

• systematic approach: Formal research should be intentional, deliberate, and coherent. This is normally done by following methods that have been previously established and published, though that does not always have to be the case.
• new knowledge: Research should result in new knowledge or, in other words, things we had not already identified through evidence before. That does, however, include replication studies, which are attempts to identically repeat a prior study for purposes like verifying or reinterpreting the original results, garner results chronologically later (i.e., 1994 knowledge may no longer be accurate in 2025), and create new knowledge that is intensely specific and/or for only local purposes (ex., a teacher’s action research study in their own practice). Also, “knowledge” includes not just the existence of data but also the analysis and interpretation of those data.
• situated within the existing body of knowledge: Ideally, research should be derived from and add to what we already know about the topic. For a study on the patient perceptions of nurse availability in a hospital setting, we might want to put those results in the context of prior research on the same topic/problem, nurse staffing issues, the role of nurses in a hospital, patient perceptions of healthcare generally, etc. Often, this happens through a literature review prior to study, a theoretical or conceptual framework for design and interpretation, and/or a discussion of implications the new knowledge has for practice, future research, and theory development.

Research vs. “Research”

One point of confusion here is that the term “research” gets used a lot in secondary and post-secondary education but in a way that only reflects a small portion of what research really is. As a “research paper” is assigned in, say, a sophomore sociology class, that usually is used to reference a student sifting through lots of other published knowledge and synthesizing that into a coherent paper. That is not really research, in a technical sense, within the social sciences. It certainly is a part of the research process, but it is misleading to simply label that “research.” Research is the creation of new knowledge (as opposed to only summarizing/synthesizing others’ research). Previous literature helps us avoid unnecessarily repetitive projects to what is already out there, find what is and is not known about the topic, and situate our current or proposed study into that body of knowledge—but that is just the start, not the totality or end, of what “research” is.

Types of Research

Research may be broadly categorized into two types: basic and applied. Basic research is the systematic collection and analysis of data to generate new knowledge for the sake of generating new knowledge, regardless of the current or future utility of that new knowledge. Applied research is the systematic collection and analysis of data to generate new knowledge for a specific applied purpose. Basic research is very common in core natural science disciplines, such as chemistry. It makes sense, because that knowledge may not be useful until later when other knowledge is uncovered to give it purpose or may have important applications in a disconnected field (exs., medicine or astronomy). However, it is much less common in the social sciences, as most social research originates in an observed problem. With most social science fields being application oriented, it is relatively common for disciplinary social science publications to require a discussion of applications. Thus, most (but definitely not all) research in the social sciences is applied rather than basic, and that tendency varies directly with how applied the specific discipline is (ex., education being almost exclusively applied whereas sociology is more varied).

What is “action research”?

Action research is defined relatively coherently across social science disciplines, as illustrated in some examples below:

• “Action research is an approach to educational research that is commonly used by educational practitioners and professionals to examine, and ultimately improve, their pedagogy and practice” (Clark et al., 2020, p. 8)
• “Action research is defined as research that is conducted for the purpose of creating social change. When conducting action research, scholars collaborate with community stakeholders at all stages of the research process with the aim of producing results that will be usable in the community and by scientists” (Mauldin, 2020, p. 369)
• “Any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors, or others with a vested interest in the teaching and learning process or environment for the purpose of gathering information about how their particular schools operate, how they teach, and how their students learn” (Mertler, 2024, p. 311)
• “Action research methodology is a systematic research process that can be articulated by the researcher, involving data collection and analysis as well as reflection and discussion with coresearchers or others for the purpose of making change in a situation over time” (Moch et al., 2016, p. 3)

For the purposes of this text, action research is an iterative approach to applied research, which can use a variety of social science research methods for the purpose of addressing a local problem of practice or continuous improvement. Far greater attention will be paid to action research in a later chapter devoted to that topic; however, some degree of explanation is warranted here.

Action research is most often conceptualized in a spiral of some sort, such as Mertler’s (2024) organization: Planning, Acting, Developing, Reflecting [repeat indefinitely]. In this simple approach, the Planning Stage is focused on identifying a problem, searching what is known about it from research, and developing a plan to investigate an intervention. The Acting Stage involves implementing the research plan and then gathering and analyzing data. In the Developing Stage, the scholarly practitioner comes up with an action plan based on the data analysis to improve practice, and then the Reflecting Stage is where they reflect on the action research plan and possibly share their results.

Consider the following as an example of action research. An elementary special education resource teacher has a new student at the school whose disability is one they have not encountered before, and they are unsure how to best serve that student. They might start with a review of recent research on that disability and especially services within an educational setting. They then determine an appropriate intervention to try, which is then implemented. They collect qualitative data in the forms of their own observations, conversations with the student, and conversations with the student’s parents to evaluate the intervention. Finally, they analyze those qualitative data to determine whether that intervention was effective and develop an action plan for further improvement, which would then itself be evaluated through action research. This cycle could then repeat indefinitely, as the special education resource teacher attempts to refine and optimize their service model for that student and others like them.

Philosophical Commitments

Likely more so than other content in this book, this section is quite superficial. Most people, when considering doing their own research for the first time, just want to go straight into research design and data collection. “I’ve got this question I want answered, so let’s try to get the answer!” And, frankly, in much applied research—both formal and informal, there is nothing wrong with that.

However, the reality is that much more is going on. Everyone comes at everything with certain presuppositions. A baby reaching for its bottle believes that reality exists and that the bottle is real; this is an extraordinarily basic illustration of ontological commitments. How does that baby know the bottle is real? Usually, that’s through trial-and-error of perceiving a visual stimulus, touching it with their hand, and interpreting the touch stimuli of grabbing the bottle; that—again in the most basic sense—is epistemological. Then, as the baby pulls the bottle to its lips and takes a sip, they make a value judgment—is this liquid “good” and/or worth drinking? That is axiological.

Now, there are three forms of, perhaps, unfamiliar words in the paragraph above—epistemology, ontology, and axiology. Though most every society has these same concepts, these terms and their formal philosophical systems are most often tied to Greece (though these specific terms were developed by philosophers many centuries after the Ancient Greek civilization was gone). Outside of dissertations or expositions specifically on one of these topics, these three concepts are usually not named in published social science research studies, though they are sometimes represented with a single word for a specific type. However, to conclude that this means they are unimportant to research is wrong. They drive what is researched, how it is researched, why it is researched, and analyzing/interpreting meaning from data.

Because these are incredibly deep pools of possible beliefs and approaches, in each section, I will simply define the three terms and give an excerpt from my dissertation as an example of my own approach to each. Those wishing to learn more are encouraged to start with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sections linked in the “Additional Open Resources” at the end of this chapter.

Epistemology

Properly and etymologically, epistemology is the study of knowledge. In practice, it is the study of knowledge/truth and how we know it. On the grand scale, the question of whether objective truth exists or not is, perhaps, the most well-known epistemological question.

In the excerpt below from my dissertation on epistemology, “constructivism” is the epistemological approach. Often in published research, that might (or might not even be) the only epistemological piece mentioned, like, “Coming from a constructivist approach, we designed this study to…”

Constructivism provides the epistemological underpinning of the qualitative case study methodology (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014). Constructivism is the belief that knowledge is constructed by people rather than being discovered (Stake, 1995), and both society and individuals engage in this construction of knowledge (Baxter & Jack, 2008). I have taken a particular constructivist perspective, described by Stake (1995) as acknowledging that an objective external reality exists but knowledge of it only exists after reality is interpreted by people and then integrated with the knowledge of others. The case study method itself serves as a practical outworking of constructivism as multiple data sources are gathered to construct the best understanding of the bounded case (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014). (Olt, 2018, p. 62)

Ontology

Ontology is the study of being. More specifically and in practice, it is the commonly seen as the study of what is or is not real and what the nature of existence is. For example, consider the proposition, often put forward in spirituality but also more broadly, that there is a human soul (i.e., that there is more to a human that the sum of their physical parts, with some essence existing at a higher level); that is an ontological debate.

Here is my dissertation excerpt on ontology:

The philosophical branch of ontology questions what exists or is real (Creswell, 2013; Jacquette, 2002). However, for there to be a purpose to research, one must logically acknowledge the existence of conceptual reality. This basic confession of reality is the primary tenet of applied scientific ontology (Jacquette, 2002). In this study, I operated from this premise of applied scientific ontology as a foundation for Stake’s (1995) constructivist approach to the case study method of qualitative research. (Olt, 2018, p. 62)

Axiology

Axiology is the study of worth, which in practice is the study of human values and value systems. Though tied in with other branches of philosophy, like ethics, this classic thinking prompt is heavily axiological: “If there is a train about to run over five elderly people on the main track but you can divert it to an alternate track where it would kill one infant, what should you do?” In this case, there is a value judgement—is the life of one very young person worth more than the lives of five very old people?

And so finally, here is my dissertation excerpt on axiology:

Hiles (2008) noted that all research is infiltrated by the values of the researchers. This value perspective allows me to logically study the varying perceptions of people as their constructed knowledge and seek to interpret their collection of knowledge in a way that best represents their constructed social reality. I acknowledged my participants’ values as subjects of study and valid within their own spheres of constructed knowledge. I was able to then engage with the participants in cooperative inquiry to best construct and report the reality of their situation (Hiles, 2008). (Olt, 2018, pp. 62-63)

How do we conduct social science research?

Social science research often struggles to live up to the ideal of the scientific method, like how the tight controls needed for an experimental design are often unattainable or even unethical for many or maybe even most social science topics. For example, let’s consider a robust experiment on whether online or face-to-face instruction is better at producing learning gains among college students in College Algebra. There are a great many design considerations here that make this study challenging; however, this topic would be seeking to evaluate within a semester-long course. How will students be assigned to online versus face-to-face class sections? To meet the standards of a true experimental design, we would have to have a large pool of students who are randomly-but-representatively assigned to the experimental (online) and control (face-to-face) groups. Unlike the Petri dish or test tube, social science research inherently involves people—living, breathing, sentient people. So, perhaps a student objects to this example experiment, saying, “But, I hate online learning! I don’t want to waste a semester of my life doing something I’m going to fail at.” To really retain our experimental design, we need that student and others like them to remain in (and potentially fail) the online format for College Algebra. However, even if we waive all financial costs for those involved in the experiment and agree to expunge final grades from transcripts at the participant’s request, that student would still spend a full semester of wasted time, could lose motivation to continue their higher education, or might even face long-term psychological consequences like depression. Thus, many “experiments” in the social sciences often default to being quasi-experiments rather than a true experimental design, which could provide more conclusive results and potentially address cause-and-effect relationships among the variables.

Now we are left with the question posed in the section heading—how do we conduct social science research? That’s a simple question with a complicated answer, and there are varying perspectives on the issue. For example, two of the largest approaches to social science research are quantitative and qualitative. While both seek to create new knowledge, they are different in almost every meaningful way. There are also different disciplinary perspectives; for example, the psychology field does tend to rely heavily on experimental research whereas the education field does not, and even inside of a specific methodology or method, the social work discipline may have a distinctive way of doing that thing as compared to the leadership studies discipline. Even some of the most fundamental positions—such as “a researcher should remain objective”—are hotly contested across ideological lines. To the question of how one conducts research then, we might conclude that there are (1) some definitely right ways of doing things, (2) some definitely wrong ways of doing things, and (3) the other 98% of ways of doing things.

In this textbook, we endeavor to present a basic, balanced approach to research, and the primary focus at this level of text is on research literacy. However, we acknowledge that the personal backgrounds, education, and disciplines of the authors certainly affect how we present this information. What is presented in this text ought not be used to say “Oh, that other way is wrong!” but rather as the start of one’s journey into social science research.