Lecture notes on human inquiry and research process

- Human inquiry is about knowing and learning things about the world around us; about predicting future circumstances conditioned by present ones

- Science has a special way/method of knowing and learning - conscious, deliberate, rigorous and systematic undertaking through research

- Sources of what we know: tradition, authority, and common sense can provide information and solve problems; the knowledge we get from these sources sometimes not true

- Idea refers to how and why something can plausibly work

- Model refers to a representation of how something works

- Approach/perspective refers to a point of view or way of looking at something

- Research is about "finding out" through observation and interpretation

- Three types of research: exploratory, descriptive (who, where, when and what), explanatory (how and why)

- Aims of research: understand the social patterns of behavior and probe deeply into the idiosyncrasies of a particular case

- Unit of analysis - object of observation
       - individuals
       - groups (families, gangs, ethnic, religious groups)
       - organizations (barangays, towns, cities, colleges, army)
       - social artifacts (product of people or their behavior) poems,                                          jokes, discourses, books

- Research process: interest, idea, theory (explanation), conceptualization, operationalization (measurement), choice of research method, population and sampling, observation, data-processing, analysis, and reporting

Inductive - the process from data to ideas
Deductive - from ideas to data

Modes of observation: experiments, survey, qualitative field research

Reference:
Babbie, E. (2001). The practice of social research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.