Summary on evidence by roger sapsford - Essay Example

The academic article d “Evidence” by Roger Sapsford is a relatively concise piece of writing that would perfectly fit into a great variety of textbooks due to its wide-ranging subject-matter, and due to the significance of the issues discussed in it for most, if not all, of the areas of social sciences, as well as for other fields of knowledge. This is so mostly because the author of the article, despite alluding to the field of social psychology as the reference point, in essence touches upon the problem of the choice of a proper research methodology as such, which any researcher would face before any meaningful set of experiment can be devised and implemented.

In this light, the article by Sapsford is introductory in its essence, or, alternatively, recapitulative, if a reader is aiming to find a starting point in tackling tasks that seem to defy easy methodological approaches to them. In this role, the writing by Sapsford is very adequate as the author manages to consequently present the general overview of conventional divisions of methods applicable in social psychology, such as divisions exemplified by oppositions between naturalistic and controlled, structured and unstructured, and specific and generalizable types of experiments and approaches to the data analysis (Sapsford 1996, p. 146). With this general but very instructive distinction in mind, the author devotes an extended attention to the exploration of the division of methods of social research on the ones inspired by ‘scientific’ and ‘qualitative’ approaches.

‘Scientific’ research, according to Sapsford, is characterised by the observance of the rules of “clear measurement and logical design” (Sapsford 1996, p. 147), which in practice means adherence to the formalised ways of data gathering and analysis, such as questionnaires, creation of personality inventories, organisation of control groups, etc. Perhaps even more insightful is the association by the author of the ‘scientific’ research with the underlying assumption of researches that the objective knowledge is out there in the world, and that their task is to find ways to obtain that knowledge.

In its turn, the philosophy behind the ‘qualitative’ research is based on the assumption that it is too often the case that straightforward approaches akin to those of the ‘scientific’ research may miss the true complexity of the real world, can fall a victim to the subjectivity of researchers, and, moreover, may influence, even though inadvertently, the object of research, for instance by removing participants involved in it from their familiar natural environments. In the same section of the article the author goes on to explain and evaluate crucial methods of ‘qualitative’ research, such as for example participant observation, which can be generally described as the type of research conducted with the as minimal intrusion of researcher into an experiment as possible.

Sapsford finishes his article with an attempt to reconcile ‘scientific’ and ‘qualitative’ approaches to research in social psychology as he discusses merits of both general methods, and offers ways in which they can supplement each other.All in all, the article “Evidence” is supposed to leave readers with the heightened level of understanding of the peculiarities of the process of methodology choice in social sciences, as well as with a vision of a larger picture of possibilities and challenges that scientific community encounters during the conducting of field research.

Still, while successful in this important task, the author can perhaps be criticized for excessive attention to some plain details for which he spends too much time. For instance, for the same level of my understanding of the importance of the careful data verification would probably be enough half the amount of discussion that Sapsford devotes to the intuitively familiar description of the reflexive analysis of available data. At the same time, I wish I could find in the article somewhat more practical recommendations as to how to choose between the overviewed alternative methodologies when preparing an experiment.

But again, for the purpose of introduction to the topic of the significance of methodologies in social sciences, the article by Roger Sapsford is very much fitting.References:Sapsford, Roger. "Evidence". In Social Psychology: Issues for Social Psychology, OpenUniversity Worldwide, 1996, pp.143-157.