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Constructing Social Scientific Theories
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Book Synopsis How to Build Social Science Theories by : Pamela J. Shoemaker
Download or read book How to Build Social Science Theories written by Pamela J. Shoemaker and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2003-12-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Click ′Additional Materials′ to read the foreword by Jerald Hage As straightforward as its title, How to Build Social Science Theories sidesteps the well-traveled road of theoretical examination by demonstrating how new theories originate and how they are elaborated. Essential reading for students of social science research, this book traces theories from their most rudimentary building blocks (terminology and definitions) through multivariable theoretical statements, models, the role of creativity in theory building, and how theories are used and evaluated. Authors Pamela J. Shoemaker, James William Tankard, Jr., and Dominic L. Lasorsa intend to improve research in many areas of the social sciences by making research more theory-based and theory-oriented. The book begins with a discussion of concepts and their theoretical and operational definitions. It then proceeds to theoretical statements, including hypotheses, assumptions, and propositions. Theoretical statements need theoretical linkages and operational linkages; this discussion begins with bivariate relationships, as well as three-variable, four-variable, and further multivariate relationships. The authors also devote chapters to the creative component of theory-building and how to evaluate theories. How to Build Social Science Theories is a sophisticated yet readable analysis presented by internationally known experts in social science methodology. It is designed primarily as a core text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in communication theory. It will also be a perfect addition to any course dealing with theory and research methodology across the social sciences. Additionally, professional researchers will find it an indispensable guide to the genesis, dissemination, and evaluation of social science theories.
Book Synopsis Constructing Social Theories by : Arthur L. Stinchcombe
Download or read book Constructing Social Theories written by Arthur L. Stinchcombe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1987-07-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing Social Theories presents to the reader a range of strategies for constructing theories, and in a clear, rigorous, and imaginative manner, illustrates how they can be applied. Arthur L. Stinchcombe argues that theories should not be invented in the abstract—or applied a priori to a problem—but should be dictated by the nature of the data to be explained. This work was awarded the Sorokin prize by the American Sociological Association as the book that made an outstanding contribution to the progress of sociology in 1970.
Book Synopsis Making Social Science Matter by : Bent Flyvbjerg
Download or read book Making Social Science Matter written by Bent Flyvbjerg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-15 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New approach demonstrating how social science can be successful, focusing on context, values, and power.
Book Synopsis Constructing Social Theory by : David C. Bell
Download or read book Constructing Social Theory written by David C. Bell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing Social Theory discusses the nature of social theory and theoretical orientations. Organized by forty-three theoretical orientations in seven domains--exchange, power, adaptation/reinforcement, social bond, altruism, functionalism, and identity--the text includes a tutorial on how to identify an appropriate theoretical orientation and create a theory given a particular research question. Bell separates the theoretical orientation of causal logic from theory itself, illuminating the mechanisms of scientific revolutions where new theoretical orientations are created, and the procedures of normal science, in which theories are developed using the logic of existing theoretical orientations.
Book Synopsis Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills by : James Jaccard
Download or read book Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills written by James Jaccard and published by Guilford Publications. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book provides young scientists with tools to assist them in the practical aspects of theory construction. We take an informal journey through the cognitive heuristics, tricks of the trade, and ways of thinking that we have found to be useful in developing theories-essentially, conceptualizations-that can advance knowledge in the social sciences. This book is intended to provide the instructor with a useful source for helping students come up with ideas for research and for fine-tuning the resultant theories that emerge from such thinking. An objective of this book is to move toward a needed balance in the emphases given to theory construction and theory testing"--
Book Synopsis Social Science Research by : Anol Bhattacherjee
Download or read book Social Science Research written by Anol Bhattacherjee and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.
Book Synopsis Theories about and Strategies against Hegemonic Social Sciences by : Michael Kuhn
Download or read book Theories about and Strategies against Hegemonic Social Sciences written by Michael Kuhn and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative book provides new perspectives on the globalization of knowledge and the notion of hegemonic sciences. Tying together contributions of authors from all across the world, it challenges existing theories of hegemonic sciences and sheds new light on how they have been and are being constructed. Examining more closely the notions of 'human rights' and 'individualization', this much-needed volume offers new and alternative ideas on how to transform the universalization of the Western model of science and can serve as an eye-opener for all those interested in non-hegemonic scientific discourse. This book is published within the Series 'Beyond the Social Sciences'.
Book Synopsis Selection Theory and Social Construction by : Cecilia Heyes
Download or read book Selection Theory and Social Construction written by Cecilia Heyes and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2001-07-26 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Top scholars examine the work of Donald T. Campbell, one of the first to emphasize the social structure of science.
Book Synopsis Making Sense of Social Theory by : Charles H. Powers
Download or read book Making Sense of Social Theory written by Charles H. Powers and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Sense of Social Theory opens by carefully exploring what it means to follow the scientific method in a field like sociology. The author goes on to analyze sociology as a genuine science with a body of explanatory insights. It does this by (a) considering the major insights of key thinkers (including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Mead, among others), (b) distinguishing different analytical frameworks (especially exchange, symbolic interactionism, conflict, and structural-functionalism) in terms of their underlying assumptions, and (c) revealing compelling social science explanatory insights in the form of predictive principles that can be applied in understanding processes of change at work in the social world (from face-to-face encounters to major historical trends). Sociological theory is applied in ways that make its relevance and power apparent. In reading this book, theory no longer stands divorced from real-world research or practice. Making Sense of Social Theory clearly establishes the pertinence of sociology's great theoretical insights for all social science researches and practitioners. Book jacket.
Book Synopsis Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory by : Barry Barnes
Download or read book Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory written by Barry Barnes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1974.
Book Synopsis Usable Theory by : Dietrich Rueschemeyer
Download or read book Usable Theory written by Dietrich Rueschemeyer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-03 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The project of twentieth-century sociology and political science--to create predictive scientific theory--resulted in few full-scale theories that can be taken off the shelf and successfully applied to empirical puzzles. Yet focused "theory frames" that formulate problems and point to relevant causal factors and conditions have produced vibrant, insightful, and analytically oriented empirical research. While theory frames alone cannot offer explanation or prediction, they guide empirical theory formation and give direction to inferences from empirical evidence. They are also responsible for much of the progress in the social sciences. In Usable Theory, distinguished sociologist Dietrich Rueschemeyer shows graduate students and researchers how to construct theory frames and use them to develop valid empirical hypotheses in the course of empirical social and political research. Combining new ideas as well as analytic tools derived from classic and recent theoretical traditions, the book enlarges the rationalist model of action by focusing on knowledge, norms, preferences, and emotions, and it discusses larger social formations that shape elementary forms of action. Throughout, Usable Theory seeks to mobilize the implicit theoretical social knowledge used in everyday life. Offers tools for theory building in social and political research Complements the rationalist model of action with discussions of knowledge, norms, preferences, and emotions Relates theoretical ideas to problems of methodology Situates elementary forms of action in relation to larger formations Combines new ideas with themes from classic and more recent theories
Download or read book Building Theories written by David Danks and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores new findings on the long-neglected topic of theory construction and discovery, and challenges the orthodox, current division of scientific development into discrete stages: the stage of generation of new hypotheses; the stage of collection of relevant data; the stage of justification of possible theories; and the final stage of selection from among equally confirmed theories. The chapters, written by leading researchers, offer an interdisciplinary perspective on various aspects of the processes by which theories rationally should, and descriptively are, built. They address issues such as the role of problem-solving and heuristic reasoning in theory-building; how inferences and models shape the pursuit of scientific knowledge; the relation between problem-solving and scientific discovery; the relative values of the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic view of theories in understanding theory construction; and the relation between ampliative inferences, heuristic reasoning, and models as a means for building new theories and knowledge. Through detailed arguments and examinations, the volume collectively challenges the orthodox view’s main tenets by characterizing the ways in which the different “stages” are logically, temporally, and psychologically intertwined. As a group, the chapters provide several attempts to answer long-standing questions about the possibility of a unified conceptual framework for building theories and formulating hypotheses.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Multimethod and Mixed Methods Research Inquiry by : Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Multimethod and Mixed Methods Research Inquiry written by Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and published by Oxford Library of Psychology. This book was released on 2015 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a variety of innovative methods and tools, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date presentation on multi and mixed methods research.
Book Synopsis Constructing the Social by : Theodore R Sarbin
Download or read book Constructing the Social written by Theodore R Sarbin and published by SAGE Publications Limited. This book was released on 1994-01-21 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume explores the concrete implications of social constructionist theory, and provides a clear overview of how to do social constructionist research and analysis. Leading psychologists and sociologists ground theory with practical examples to clearly illustrate the view that human beings are principally social agents rather than passive reactors or information processors. Each chapter analyzes the historical and cultural contexts implicit in a wide range of key issues including anxiety, the family, intelligence, ageing and depression.
Book Synopsis Theorizing in Social Science by : Richard Swedberg
Download or read book Theorizing in Social Science written by Richard Swedberg and published by Stanford Social Sciences. This book was released on 2014-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All social scientists learn the celebrated theories and frameworks of their predecessors, using them to inform their own research and observations. But before there can be theory, there must be theorizing. Theorizing in Social Science introduces the reader to the next generation of theory construction and suggests useful ways for creating social theory. What makes certain types of theories creative, and how does one go about theorizing in a creative way? The contributors to this landmark collection—top social scientists in the fields of sociology, economics, and management—draw on personal experiences and new findings to provide a range of answers to these questions. Some turn to cognitive psychology and neuroscience's impact on our understanding of human thought, others encourage greater dialogue between and across the arts and sciences, while still others focus on the processes by which observation leads to conceptualization. Taken together, however, the chapters collectively and actively encourage a shift in the place of theory in social science today. Appealing to students and scientists across disciplines, this collection will inspire innovative approaches to producing, teaching, and learning theory.
Book Synopsis Creating Scientific Concepts by : Nancy J Nersessian
Download or read book Creating Scientific Concepts written by Nancy J Nersessian and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account that analyzes the dynamic reasoning processes implicated in a fundamental problem of creativity in science: how does genuine novelty emerge from existing representations? How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting forth in a blinding flash of inspiration is mistaken. Instead, novel concepts are shown to arise out of the interplay of three factors: an attempt to solve specific problems; the use of conceptual, analytical, and material resources provided by the cognitive-social-cultural context of the problem; and dynamic processes of reasoning that extend ordinary cognition. Focusing on the third factor, Nersessian draws on cognitive science research and historical accounts of scientific practices to show how scientific and ordinary cognition lie on a continuum, and how problem-solving practices in one illuminate practices in the other. Her investigations of scientific practices show conceptual change as deriving from the use of analogies, imagistic representations, and thought experiments, integrated with experimental investigations and mathematical analyses. She presents a view of constructed models as hybrid objects, serving as intermediaries between targets and analogical sources in bootstrapping processes. Extending these results, she argues that these complex cognitive operations and structures are not mere aids to discovery, but that together they constitute a powerful form of reasoning—model-based reasoning—that generates novelty. This new approach to mental modeling and analogy, together with Nersessian's cognitive-historical approach, make Creating Scientific Concepts equally valuable to cognitive science and philosophy of science.
Book Synopsis The Social Construction of Reality by : Peter L. Berger
Download or read book The Social Construction of Reality written by Peter L. Berger and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2011-04-26 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.
