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Research Basics

Key Ideas

Scientific Method

When thinking about how we know what we know, or how we arrive at our knowledge, most of us depend on sources of authority and personal experiences. In other words, we build our knowledge base because someone like our parents, teachers, or leaders gives us the information or we experience it firsthand. Now this may serve us as a starting point, but in the sciences, as we seek to produce knowledge about our world, we adhere to key principles that ensure that we produce accurate knowledge.

What is the scientific method?

“A set of logical, systematic, and documented methods for investigating individuals, societies, and social processes.” (Schutt 2004)

So what does this mean? When social scientists seek to investigate a research question, we follow a series of steps that are:

By making our research steps transparent, other researchers can assess the soundness of our work and replicate it to see if they obtain the same results. In addition, this process allows us to develop some agreement about the knowledge being produced. In following these standards, we can also adhere to objective standards of established by our disciplines. Ultimately, by being aware of this process, we become critical consumers of knowledge.