Objectivity is one of the most important principles in scientific research. What are the limits that a social scientist can be objective in his research? What at a level the objectivity can possible to realize for researchers in social sciences?
Thanks in advance for your sharing.
Murat
Dear Murat Yıldız
I am not a social scientist, but iI think that they are not objectif at all. It is so difficult for a social scientist to be objectif.
Regards.
Griepink have share it all. Some social science researches so many bias which sometimes invalidate the outcome.
Peter, many of these come with particular paradigms that limit objectivity. Many, psychology, etc, are top down, often presenting superior judgement as objectivity.
It is as good as dong your job with a sense of commitment to the funders and long term developments (beyond our life time ) . Wonder if people think on those lines !!!
Social Science Research is often queried as biased in its process of inquiry in the scientific study. However, this assertion is misplaced.
Social Science Research can be objective and rigorous if the social scientist is dedicated to finding the truth regarding the phenomenon to be studied by triangulating research methods and data collection instruments. The cross checking of data from multiple perspectives will validate findings, erase biases from minimal to zero and hold on to objectivity in the scientific dispensation.
Aparna, that attitude exists from my experience. I will provide some examples, based on experience, to show what I mean.
If someone is trained in some aspects of psychology they may interpret someone else's behaviour through that training, not through knowing that person. As a trained person, they have been told that their understanding of other people would thereafter be objective, not instead projections of their training. Their expertise dominates the discourse (Foucault), not the life or real characteristics of the person they are talking with or discussing.
They will not realise that they are being profoundly subjective, not objective.
The worst at this are doctors, especially when dealing with someone they believe to have psychological problems. They do not even really see the person they are talking to, often convinced of their superior knowledge and abilities (sic), which is a product of their training. Their entire understanding of a patient may be based on notes written by another professional that have nothing credible to say about the patient. Knowledge of the patient becomes fixed, the patient's identity fixed.
The notion of professional status affects an individual's judgement, in this case subject of the status and the object (patient or client). The patient is subjectified not objectified, although the professional is convinced they are doing the latter. At no point does real understanding or knowledge of patient (object) occur.
Professional status convinces the holder of the status that their perceptions are superior, and, in a tribal relationship, that all professional's judgement is superior.
Hello,
By being very close to the data and being deeply involved in their manipulation and interpretation, the social researcher inadvertently adopts a subjective approach to the treatment of the data simply because s/he tends to fathom out and reveal the way the social world is experienced, understood, and produced . As you have very rightly observed, the researcher must employ effective means to ensure the objectivity of the findings. One possible solution is to adopt various kinds of triangulation methods. The following liks can hopefully provide you with further details about ways of enhancing objectivity in social studies:
1) citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.580.8504&rep=rep1...pdf
2) www.universityofcalicut.info/SDE/Social_Research_Methods_on25Feb2016.pdf
3) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.1186
4) www.curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/download/1396/1350
Best regards,
R. Biria
When we say that the researcher must be objective, he should abandon the subjective reasons (ideology, judgments and prejudices ...) that interfere in the subject of his research. So what has reached the stage of abstraction from these reasons, became a researcher objectively in his research.
I found very old publications on the subject
Evaluation and objectivity in social science: An interpretation of Max Weber's contribution
T Parsons - International Social Science Journal, 1965
[BOOK] Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life
TM Porter - 1996 - books.google.com
Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective
L Daston - Social studies of science, 1992 - journals.sagepub.com
Scientific objectivity is neither monolithic nor immutable: our current usage is compounded of several meanings - metaphysical, methodological and moral - and each meaning has a distinct history, as well as a history of fusion within what now counts as a single concept of `objectivity'. The rise of aperspectival history in nineteenth-century science is one strand of this plaited history of objectivity, as embodied in scientific ideals and practices. It is conceptually and historically distinct from the ontological aspect of objectivity that pursues the ultimate structure of reality, and from the mechanical aspect of objectivity that forbids interpretation in reporting and picturing scientific results. Whereas ontological objectivity is about the fit between theory and the world, and mechanical objectivity is about suppressing the universal human propensity to judge and aestheticize, aperspectival objectivity is about eliminating individual (or occasionally group) idiosyncracies. It emerged first in the moral and aesthetic philosophy of the late eighteenth century and spread to the natural sciences only in the mid-nineteenth century, as a result of a reorganization of scientific life that multiplied professional contacts at every level, from the international commission to the well-staffed laboratory.
Controlling bias is much easier in quantitative research then in qualitative.
Dear Murat Yıldız
I am not a social scientist, but iI think that they are not objectif at all. It is so difficult for a social scientist to be objectif.
Regards.
Respected scholars,
Thank you very much for your valuable comments and the recommendations.
Best regards.
Murat
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