1. RESUMEN EJECUTIVO
1.5 ESTIMACION DE LA GIR / VNR
As we saw in A2, there are, basically, four different types of research question: exploratory, descriptive, explanatory and evaluative.
1. Exploratory. That is, an initial attempt to understand or explore some social process or
phenomenon when you (maybe as an individual, but possibly the social research com- munity to which you belong) have limited prior understanding of the area or issues.
2. Descriptive. This sort of question usually follows on from exploratory questions. De-
scriptive questions are often concerned with quantifying an area, issue or phenomenon, for example: How big is it? How many are there? Where are they? What proportion of the population is affected?
3. Explanatory. This could be described as the ‘why’ question. It asks about causes and
effects: Why has this happened? How did this happen? What processes are at work here?
4. Evaluative. Evaluative questions are concerned with the value of a particular social prac-
tice or phenomenon and asks questions like: What works best? How good (or not so good) is it? How effective is this? This type of research often includes making recom- mendations about how something may be improved or changed and this aspect may be included in the research questions.
Your research may fall into more than one of these categories and that does not have to be a problem as most research projects have more than one research question.
Hypotheses
Hypothesesare a specific type of research question which actually are not questions but rather statements or assertions about relationships between two or more concepts. The question is implied rather than stated and could be in the form ‘Can I prove (or disprove) that there is a relationship between these two concepts?’ The purpose of the research then is to test the asserted relationship with a view to proving or disproving it.
What is . . .
Hypothesis
A testable assertion about a relationship or relationships between two or more con- cepts (this is not necessarily a statement about reality; it is something to be proved or disproved).
Think about it . . .
One example used in A2focused on possible research questions relating to gun crime and gangs and suggested four possible research questions, as follows:
A social researcher is interested in researching possible relationships between unem- ployment and mental health. Can you suggest some research questions for her?
In A2we suggested that you identify four questions relating to your own research – you might want to look back at those now.
Example A4.1
Hypotheses – crime and ethnicity A hypothesis
People from ethnic group A are more likely to commit crimes than people from eth- nic group B.
This hypothesis asserts that there is a relationship between ethnicity and commit- ting crimes.
We could say that the research question is:
Is there a relationship between ethnicity and committing crimes?
Descriptive research Who are the young men who are involved in gun crime? Exploratory research What is it like to be a member of a gang?
Explanatory research Why do young men who join gangs participate in gun-related crime? Evaluative research What changes in policy and practice would best help young men not
to join such gangs?
Descriptive research Exploratory research Explanatory research Evaluative research
Hypotheses are most commonly used to look at relationships between concepts that are statistically testable, in other words:
each concept can be identified and measured (see below operational definitions);
data can be gathered relating to each concept;
the data can be tested using statistical theory to ascertain whether the hypothesis can be statistically proved or disproved – that is, whether there is (or is not) a statistically demonstrable relationship.
There are two main types of relationshipthat are investigated in social science research in this way. These are causaland associative.
As you will see in Example A4.2 below, establishing the nature of relationships in social research is rarely straightforward and hypotheses are likely to provide only a starting point for social research. A statistical relationship between, for example, two concepts, character- istics or events will initiate further questions to try to establish the nature of the relation- ship and explanations for it.
Thinking about the possible relationships – in this example, the reasons that students may (or may not) get high examination marks – at this stage will help to ensure that you gather data on all those relationships that may be of interest and relevance to your research. If, for example, you only asked students their examination marks and how many hours they spent on ‘focused’ reading you may establish that there is (or is not) an association be- tween the two but you would not be able to then look at possible reasons for the associa- tion unless you had gathered data on other aspects of students’ study which may have affected the examination mark. You may therefore have a series of hypotheses or combine a number of simple hypotheses into a more complex assertion.
Hypotheses, as assertions that can be tested, are not only used in research where data is collected that can be statistically tested. They can form the basis of research where the data that is collected and worked with is less structured and quantifiable. Possible causal and as- sociative relationships can be identified between different experiences, characteristics and events in, for example, semi-structured interview data and narratives (D1, D2, D4, D5). Possible causal and associative relationships can be identified and traced through the data from a number of cases by the researcher and then further cases can be analysed to test whether the same relationships are present.
And an additional or sub-question might be:
Are people from ethnic group A more likely to commit crimes than people from ethnic group B?
Example A4.2
Relationships Causal relationships
Causal relationships are often shown diagrammatically as:
A
B
causal relationship The assertion that a change in ‘A’ causes a change in ‘B’.
association orasso-
ciative relationship The belief that there is a relationship between two concepts, but not necessarily that the relationship is causal.
For example, we could assert that an increase in focused reading results in higher exam marks for university students. We would show this as:
A
B
Here an increase in A – focused reading – causes an increase in B – exam marks. Associative relationships
However, although there may be a statistical relationship between increased fo- cused reading and higher exam marks, we may not be able to prove that A causes B. This could be for a number of reasons:
1.There are many reasons that a student gets high exam marks and it would be difficult to prove that it was focused reading alone that caused the high marks.
3.A third factor may be at work, influencing both the amount of focused reading and the high exam marks. For example, some of the students may have had a lecturer who has expected her students to undertake regular reading prior to seminars and has set the exam questions. She suggested that they use these readings as revision.
2.It may be the case that students who perform well in examinations are also the students who find focused reading suits their way of learning.