Types of Research and Historical Methods

Types of Research

• Research is a systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. It's the art of scientific investigation.
• Basic types of research include:
  • Descriptive vs. Analytical
  • Applied vs. Fundamental
  • Quantitative vs. Qualitative
  • Conceptual vs. Empirical
  • Longitudinal vs. Cross-sectional

Historical Research Method

• History is the record of changing processes and social structures.
• Social scientists study the past to understand the present.
• It's more than a list of events; it's an integrated account of relationships between people, events, times, and places.
• Key figures have defined historical research as the application of the scientific method to historical problems.
• Historical research aims to explain past experiences, focusing on trends in events, facts, and attitudes to aid future actions.
• It's useful for explaining existing theories and practices, and understanding the significance of studied phenomena.
• By understanding the past, we can gain a perspective on the present.
• Historical research helps explains social and current problems.

Sources of Historical Research

• Sources of historical data include autobiographies, diaries, confessions, letters, documents, newspapers, literature, books, magazines, cultural and analytical materials, artistic materials, paintings, portraits, charts, etc.
• These sources are categorized as primary and secondary.

Primary Sources

• Primary sources are original documents, highly valued in historical research.
• Original records or statements from people involved or present at an important event are primary sources.
• Examples include documents, official records, diaries, letters, photographs, testimonies, and relics.

Remains or Relics

• Associated with people, groups, or periods.
• Examples include fossils, skeletons, tools, weapons, utensils, clothing, buildings, furniture, coins, artworks, and pictures.

Oral Testimony

• Spoken accounts from witnesses or participants of an event.
• Often recorded during a personal interview.

Secondary Sources

• Records of events or circumstances that are one or more steps removed from the original.
• Accounts or reports written by people not directly involved but who have studied the original source.
• Examples include history books, encyclopedias, and articles that summarize primary sources.

Characteristics of Historical Method

• Universal in applicability
• Involves intensive investigation of existing materials
• Historical facts cannot be repeated or recreated like experiments.
• Focuses on historical problems based on records; a hypothesis may or may not be developed.
• Data interpretation depends on the research topic.

Approaches to Historical Research

• Perspective Approach: Studies events from the past toward the present. A traditional approach.
• Retrospective Approach: Studies events from the present toward the past. A more modern approach.

Types of Historical Research

• Approach: A way to arrange facts. Example: Karl Marx's pragmatic approach to support socialism.
• Subject: Includes specific historical subjects or trends. Examples: biography, town, nation, civilization.
• Technique: Based on either documents or relics.

Steps of Historical Research

• Define and determine a research problem.
• Collect data from various sources.
• Analyze data for its accuracy and authenticity.
• Critically interpret and synthesize data relating to the hypothesis/theory.

Limitations of Historical Research

• Difficulty in studying cause-effect relationships.
• Potential obstacles to objectivity.
• Need for a specific historical perspective by the researcher.
• The importance of historical research may have declined due to the use of scientific methods in social sciences.

Guidelines of Historical Research

• Use primary sources extensively.
• Avoid personal biases.
• Note the interconnectedness of education and social institutions.
• Interpret words and expressions in the context of their usage at the time.
• Synthesize data to create meaningful generalizations.
• Distinguish important facts from trivial ones.

Descriptive Research

• Involves measuring variables as they naturally occur.
• Focused on describing variables, not relationships between them.
• Useful as preliminary research or for understanding a new phenomenon.
• Helps capture interesting natural behaviours.

Survey Method

• Investigates phenomena by directly observing or interviewing individuals from a population.
• Aims to determine the status of a phenomenon or gather evidence regarding social problems.
• Includes a variety of techniques such as observation, interviews, attitude scales, projective techniques, small-scale experiments, etc.
• Conducted when adequate information isn't found in records or files.

Objects of Social Survey

• Direct and close contact between researcher and the phenomenon.
• Obtaining general information.
• Establishing a basis for formulating a hypothesis.
• Examining cause-and-effect relationships.
• Understanding people's opinions and attitudes.

Purposes of Social Survey

• Providing information for administrative decision-making.
• Identifying areas for improvement.
• Understanding implications of data.
• Realistic, natural setting.
• Obtaining opinions and suggestions from participants.
• Useful in creating research tools (e.g., checklists, questionnaires)

Types of Descriptive Method

• Survey studies, developmental studies, inter-relationship studies, and content analysis.
• These are further categorized into specific types like school/college surveys, job analysis, documentary analysis, public opinion surveys, social surveys, case studies, comparative studies, correlation studies and more.

The Case Study

• In-depth description of one or a few individuals or small groups.
• Can involve interventions or treatments.
• Also termed a 'case history' when no intervention is included.
• Information gathered through diverse methods: interviews, observation, surveys, and archival data.

Applications of the Case Study Design

• Useful for rare or unusual behaviors, treatment methods, generating hypotheses, understanding and explaining events.

The Value of Case Studies

• Case studies often involve individuals or groups whose stories are uniquely significant.
• Often considered the 'bedrock' of scientific investigation due to helping with theoretical innovation.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Case Study

• Strengths: Detailed description, diverse groups, convincing.
• Weaknesses: Limited generalization, selective biases, subjective interpretation.

Ex-Post Facto Design

• Used when the variable of interest cannot be manipulated ethically.
• Researchers study past events whose impact on the present is being investigated retrospectively.
• Useful for exploring the effects of events or variables in their natural context.
• Establishes relationships between events.

Definition of Ex-Post Facto Design

• A nonexperimental research method.
• Observes the relationship of independent and dependent variables.
• Involves studying independent variables after the fact to understand their effects on the dependent variable.

Characteristics of Ex-Post Facto Design

• Lack of control over independent variables due to ethical or practical constraints
• Retrospective nature, examining the relationship of past to present.
• Focused on comparison and associations of groups, not manipulating variables.

Applications and Importance of Ex-Post Facto Design

• Valuable in unethical or impractical areas, like studying the effects of child abuse.
• Used in Psychology, Sociology, Medicine, Economics to understand phenomena.
• Used when practical or ethical restrictions prevent direct manipulation of variables.

Strengths and Limitations of Ex-Post Facto Design

• Strengths: Valuable in cases when experimentation is not possible, establishing correlations, revealing patterns.
• Limitations: Inability to determine causality definitively; independent variable has occurred and cannot be controlled.

Ethnographic Study

• Combining the Greek words "ethnos" (people) and "graph" (writing).
• Describing a particular social group or setting within its natural context.
• Qualitative research method, enabling immersion in social worlds.

Elements of Ethnography

• Methods used in ethnography: Various forms of observation, social interaction, formal and informal interviews, collection of documents and artefacts, photography, video, and visual material.

Types of Ethnography Design

• Life history, Memoir, Narrative ethnography, Auto-ethnography, Fiction, Applied ethnography, Ethnography Decision Model and Organizational Ethnography

Understanding and Using Ethnography in Psychological Research

• Focuses on building rapport with community members acknowledging researcher’s role in influencing the participant, culture, etc.
• Requires reflection from both researcher and participant.
• Can reveal underlying cultural behaviours within a setting.

Challenges to Using Ethnography in Psychological Studies

• Self-representation by the researcher in their description of cultures. The description is subjective.
• Description and explanation of phenomena from a subjective point of view by the researcher.
• The researcher may encounter difficulty reflecting on the participant's perspective during analysis.

Suggestions in Applying Ethnography in Psychological Studies

• Continuous researcher and participant reflection and justification is required.
• Combine several data collection methods to gain a holistic understanding.
• Choose the most suitable design for the phenomenon being studied.
• Safe entry and exit strategies.

Conclusion of Ethnography

• Ethnography is a useful qualitative technique in psychology research, but requires reflection and attention to subjective perspectives.

Diagnostic research

• Identifying the underlying causes of conditions, behaviors, or phenomena.
• Involves answering questions like "why" and "what are the causes?".
• Examples include declining product sales, health conditions.
• It evaluates frequency of occurrence and relationships with other elements.
• Often called Clinical research, focusing on understanding health and illness.

Steps in Diagnostic Research

• Step 1: Understanding inception and when the issue arose.
• Step 2: Diagnosing: Understanding underlying causes and factors influencing worsenings.
• Step 3: Solutions: Identifying factors resolving the issue.

Explore the different types of research including descriptive, analytical, and empirical methods. This quiz also delves into historical research, emphasizing its role in understanding past experiences to inform present actions. Test your knowledge on how these research methods contribute to scientific investigation.