Objectives of Social Research: A Path to Societal Understanding

After understanding the definition and major types of social research, let us take a look at what are the objectives and aims that it covers while conducting certain studies:

• Discovery of facts and their interpretation 

While conducting social research, the researcher focuses on the research problem at hand. He will look for knowledge that will help him dissolve the problem. While conducting the experiments, he has control over the variables. After the experiment is conducted, the results will shed some light on the facts related to human behaviour. Interpretations of these facts mean extracting the juice from the results to satisfy the research problem. This will give you how the facts can provide a solution to the problem. 

• Diagnosis of problems and their analysis

After stating the problem it is important to understand the cause behind it. Dealing with the problem from its root will help you diagnose it completely. It is always advisable to first look into diagnosis before going to find the solutions for a problem. This will get you closer to what the solutions to look for and how to handle them. 

You can make use of question maps for complex problems, which helps you to know your problem, extend the perspective regarding solutions, and conclude fairly. This will motivate you to think critically and creatively about the problem and reach out to more ways of gathering insights using brainstorming and reaching to people with creative ideas. 

• Systematization of knowledge.

The word systematization means systematically organizing. In this context, it means organizing the knowledge gained from studying the existing material.

The key to the Systematization of knowledge includes analyzing the existing literature and extract useful insights from it. Following are some insights that Systematization of knowledge provides:

• Analyzing the existing material in qualitative format. 
• Identifying future directions for research. 
• Presenting a convincing and comprehensive taxonomy. 

• Control over social phenomena

According to brocku, a social phenomenon can be defined as “Social phenomena are considered as including all behaviour which influences or is influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another.” 

Example: A seminar, a workplace, marriage all these can be categorized as a social phenomenon because all of them are observable acts in which people participate. 

Social research allows the researcher to have control over the variables that causes a change in the social phenomenon. When a researcher experiments, he tests his theories and hypothesis by changing those cause-effect variables to see what changes cause the phenomenon to occur. 

• Prediction 

Prediction refers to fore-telling something based on observing its patterns using experiences and research. In social research, it allows product owners to study the customers’ preferences and what they will prefer to use in the future. 

Prediction research provides insights on the costs, effects, consequences of the variables that are under experiment. 

Example: A researcher discovered that eating too much oily food causes high cholesterol levels. Now he can predict the patient’s health depending on his diet and cholesterol intake.

Here, the researcher used the existing data on the patient’s health and diet. So we can say that predictive research is nothing but a process of analyzing existing data and predicting the possible outcomes of the experiments.