tailieunhanh - Concept mapping in social research

Social scientists conduct research on two distinct but interrelated levels: conceptual-theoretical and observational-empirical. More precisely, social researches involve a constant interplay of two process: theory construction and theory testing. For example, it is a fact that in the last 100 years social mobility has increased. This fact in not merely based on random observation, but is an empirically verified statement about phenomena. This involves both a scientific observation and a predetermined conceptual-theoretical framework by which the observation is guided. In this article, the conceptual theoretical level of social research has been explained with the help of the basic elements such as concept and concept mapping. | CONCEPT MAPPING IN SOCIAL RESEARCH Bharat Pokharel CONCEPTS Social scientists conduct research on two distinct but interrelated levels conceptual-theoretical and observational-empirical. More precisely social researches involve a constant interplay of two process theory construction and theory testing. For example it is a fact that in the last 100 years social mobility has increased. This fact in not merely based on random observation but is an empirically verified statement about phenomena. This involves both a scientific observation and a predetermined conceptual-theoretical framework by which the observation is guided. In this article the conceptual theoretical level of social research has been explained with the help of the basic elements such as concept and concept mapping. Dey 1993 275 defines the term concept as a general idea which stands for a class of objects. Concepts are umbrella terms. For example the concept of class refers both to the classification of people according to income or employment and to judgements that we might make about other or of course ourselves . Examples of concepts include truth beauty evil time hunger love destiny ethnicity gender class and space. In quantitative research it is very important to define the meanings of key concepts in advance in order to measure them systematically. This requires being clear about the indicators that we are going to use that will stand in for the concept. For example if our research is concerned with poverty we might define poverty in terms of income or benefit groups housing size and so forth. For some qualitative researchers generating conceptual categories at the analysis stage will be much more common because such researchers are interested in the perceptions of their respondents. This does not however mean that if we are planning to conduct qualitative research we need not be given any initial thought to define concepts. We still need to be explicit and aware of how we are defining concepts