Research... it comes from somewhere..., but where?

Most social science research involves some interaction with the people under study, but how much interaction is your decision as the researcher.

Just like in public service: when do we involve the public in decision making? Who do we include? Who do we exclude? Are we asking the right questions to the right people? How much involvement should the public have in the outputs and outcomes? What will you base your decisions on?

These are the same questions we ask in "social" science research because it is "social"!

It's humans doing research about humans.

Purposes of Social Science: understanding, exploration, description, explanation, prediction of social phenomenon (real people in the real world).

Research Tension: How much "social" do you invite or limit in your social science?

I'm usually 100% confident in my research until I start talking to people.

Research = Passion + Being Wrong

Janusian Thinking: hold perceived opposites in parallel; avoid cancel culture; resist rejection of assumed knowns/unknowns

What the Babbie textbook refers to as "tolerance for ambiguity". The ability to hold conflicting ideas in your mind simultaneously without denying or dismissing any of them. (p. 26)

What the Gooden textbook refers to as the "art" of social science in public administration. (ch. 1)

Margaret Kovach, "Indigenous Methodologies"

Indigenous Research Framework, Plains Cree tradition

Keys: epistemology at center (what worldviews are guiding you? what do you hold as valid knowledge?), researcher preparation and preparing the research are ongoing and continuous (you are more than just you; accountability to all our relations; how will you carry yourself in this research process?).

Embodies teachings from
LaFrance "Culture Writes the Script" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pbaBXN853hA9cvLh1L1Z5GAP8bsDGy26/view

and Little Bear "Jagged Worldviews Colliding" https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/worldviews/documents/jagged_worldv...

Kenny & Ngaroimata Fraser,
"Living Indigenous Leadership"

Which door are entering the research project through?

Where are you? Self-locate. How you enter will frame the results you exit with.

You are producing knowledge.

Where are you coming from? What influences you?

What do you intend to learn about? What is the purpose of your research?

Understand what paradigm(s) are influencing your research project:

Goals of the research?

Role of the researcher?

Role of the researched?

You are a knowledge producer!!!

Review handout together:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VIt-jsjpG9-176ZrP4m0zcwDmbNAVGV7/view

How do paradigms show up in PA?.... frame mandates, reporting, what counts as evidence, who counts

Researcher Vocabulary
Ontology =What is?
Epistemology =How do you know?
Theory =idea, concept, model, speculation
Ideology =generally accepted idea w/comprehensive vision
Paradigm =ideology becomes dominant in practice
Methodology = intentional design for generating specific types of data
Method = tools to collect data

Whose knowledge is valid?

Positionality: personal values, views, and location in time and space influence how we understand the world.

Social positions are not fixed. Positions act on the knowledge a person has. Consequently, knowledge is the product of a specific position that reflects particular places and spaces.

“Positionality” or self-location, refers to an awareness that our life experiences and circumstances impact how we see and understand the world around us and that this understanding is situational.

When scholars include a discussion of their relationship to their research, such discussions are often referred to as “positionality statements.”- http://www.unwrittenhistories.com/the-historical-is-personal-redux-position...

Researchers and public servants transform data into information.

We are the filters. We are the sieve.

Therefore, consider the possibility there is no such thing as “objective” social science.

Why? Because, you insert your own biases and subjectivity simply by picking the questions to ask- you are the designer- you are the filter for what is even studied.

What’s your role as a researcher? Insider vs. outsider, both? Do you have authority to speak for those being studied?

Not a simple choice. May depend on how you are viewed by participants.

If you are an insider, are you blind to other points of view? Does being an insider make you more of an advocate? Do insiders have more credibility/authority?
If you are an outsider, who will trust you and who won’t?

Receiving vs. Transmitting

Blindspots: knowing unknowns

Knowing Unknowns [lecture from winter 2022; Katrina & state ethics for equity]

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19rAlYHu1tmKA1p_LGHt948gQPFPYWl9KTbk...

There are two umbrella terms for our "roles" as researchers: participant observer and non-participant observer.

A participant observer would behave how in research?...................... community buy-in, take part in activities

Considerations:  involvement with the research has an impact on the study’s participants, people react to seeing you, hearing you, and your actions.

You may “mess with the field” and not even realize it. By interacting with the participants being studied you may change the results you observe. Participant observation requires that the researcher be physically present. This can lead the respondents to alter their behavior.
 The act of research may influence the subject of study itself.

Concept: “going native” (becoming immersed in the people studied) is often thought of as a bad thing in research. Is it?

Effect on the observer. You may become very empathetic with who you are observing and want to change what you are “testing” in the moment. Is this a bad thing?

At a point, the researcher may become the one being observed by the subjects. Could this be useful to the research?

Participant observation can be unsafe for the researcher depending on the place/context. However, it is also unethical if the researcher does not reveal why they are there (deception).

A non-participant observer would behave how in research?...................... expert on the outskirts, one degree removed from the situation and people

By being a non-participant researcher you lack the ability to ask for clarification if the subject does or says something you don’t understand.

Considerations: authority to speak for the group of people being researched.

Concept: you might not have earned the right to know something--- if you are not invited to know or if people do not respond to your questions, there is probably a reason---

How we "do" research obtrusively and unobtrusively.

Unobtrusive Measures:

Observation without participant knowledge (trash in trashcans outside a business or government agency, wear and tear in stairwell, build up of flyers in stairwell)

Ex. Historical/document/archival data- content analysis

Data already collected for another purpose: secondary sources, secondary data analysis

Unobtrusive measures are measures that don't require the researcher to intrude in the research context. Unobtrusive measurement presumably reduces the biases that result from the intrusion of the researcher or measurement instrument.

However, unobtrusive measures reduce the degree the researcher has control over the type of data collected. Ex. newspapers

*A research technique is considered unobtrusive when they have no impact on what/who is being studied.

An indirect measure is an unobtrusive measure that occurs naturally in a research context.

Examples: For instance, let's say you would like to measure the popularity of various exhibits in a museum.

• It may be possible to set up some type of mechanical measurement system that is invisible to the museum patrons. We could, for instance, construct an electrical device that senses movement in front of an exhibit. Or we could place hidden cameras and code patron interest based on videotaped evidence.

• In one study, the system was simple. The museum installed new floor tiles in front of each exhibit they wanted a measurement on and, after a period of time, measured the wear-and-tear of the tiles as an indirect measure of patron traffic and interest. (smudges on glass or handrails)

Ethical problems: In an indirect measure you are, by definition, collecting information without the respondent's knowledge. In doing so, you may be violating their right to privacy and you are certainly not using informed consent. Of course, some types of information may be public and therefore not involve an invasion of privacy.

Obtrusive Measures:

Researcher "intrudes" on the researched. You interject yourself directly into the lives of the researched in some way.

Observations of behavior with participant knowledge.

Perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes gathered through interviews, surveys, focus groups, listening circles, photo voice, etc.

Reasoning: models of thought. How you come to conclusions about what you think & your explanation for why.

Inductive: moves from the specific to the general. "Amy stares at me. People who wear glasses stare."

Deductive: moves from the general to the specific. "People who wear glasses stare. Therefore, Amy must stare at me."

Eugenics proposed a model of thought to conclude we need pure strong races and why. They used "inductive reasoning" by making conclusions about specific "feeble minded" persons and then generalized those observations out to entire populations within a race.

Karl Pearson: was a proponent of social Darwinism, eugenics, and scientific racism. He saw a war against inferior races as logical to eliminate the poor stock of society. Pearson was a protégé of Sir Francis Galton.

He invented the "p value" to support the claims of eugenics.

If the probability “p” is
If the probability “p” is > .05, accept null hypothesis. Relationship between variables is due to chance. There is more than a 5% possibility the relationship happened by chance.

This "threshold" of the p value is used ALL THE TIME to accept or reject research in public administration, reporting, and publications.

"The reign of the p-value is over: what alternative analyses could we employ to fill the power vacuum?" https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0174

Audre Lorde, Masters tools will never dismantle the master's house https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Lorde_The_Maste...

"Eugenics was the science of the day, but it was based on
poor research and largely based on value judgments put forth as scientific facts. Eugenics was a conduit for prejudices and an
opportunity for social engineering."
- Marilyn Singleton
https://www.jpands.org/vol19no4/singleton.pdf

How do we hold this reality in tension with Jolivette's call to use research for social justice? Will our research be used as a conduit for prejudice?

Seminar!

Here are 3 question prompts to get you going on the readings.

If you are in the room on campus, seminar together.

If you are on Zoom, seminar together.