Pakistan Social Justice Group

  RESPECT OTHERS' RIGHTS AND DO JUSTICE

Discussion Forum

1. Immunity to Institutions Published in Daily  Indus

2. Diminutive Democracy

3. Islam and Blasphemy Published in Himal South Asia

4. What Foster Terrorism Published in the Daily Frontier Post

5. Woman Honor and Pakistan

6. Army Vs. Political rule Published in daily Frontier Post

7. Discriminatory Employment Package Published in the Dawn

8. Glasnost Policy of the Uniform

9. Pakistan is in a state of organizational learned helplessness
10. Criminal and Antisocial Behavior: Reasons and Preventions

11. From Lahore Accord to SAARC Conference 2004

12. Unethical practices in Hiring People Published in the Dawn

13. Are Social Sciences brim with irrelevant bookish  knowledge? Published the Indus

14. Shaista Almani’s Marriage: Political Noise and Silence for Political Gains.

15. Corporate Foxes
16. Unethical Practice in Hiring

17. Only Moral Victory for MMA

18. Count the Cost
19. Unwise Spending on Higher Education Published in the daily Dawn
20. Eradication of Corruption Published in Daily the Dawn
21. Illiterates or less educated should not be blamed for slow growth  or corruption in Pakistan?  Published in the Daily Time
22. Critical review of Musharraf Visit to USA Published in the Daily the News
23. Musharraf Failed Visit to Canada
24. One Sided Story
25. Social Sciences are Must
26. If parliament dissolves Published in the Daily Nation
27. A Lie has many legs to stand upon Daily News
28. Allama Mashriqi: A Great Muslim Politician, Reformist Published in the daily Statesman, click here for Urdu version
29. International Donor Organizations' Faulty Strategy  Published in the Daily Statesman and DailyTimes
30. Not Education, but Political Dishonest Published in the Daily Times
31. Speakers Ruling is a Political Injustice Published in the Daily Nation
32. PPPP Nisar requests USA to intervene Published in the DailyTimes
33. MMA,LFO, Islamization Published in the Daily Dawn
34. Enmity with India Urdu version published in daily Express

Are Social Sciences brimming with irrelevant knowledge? 

(Published in Daily Indus Karachi 22.04.2004)

Nadeem Yousaf

In Pakistan, it is very common to think that social sciences provide bookish knowledge, which is pedantry and insignificant to practical (day-to day or work) life. This misconception may be correct because Pakistani authors’ work in social sciences is more or less based on intuition than empirical research.  Regrettably, research in social sciences is still considered analogous to writing a poetry, drama or fiction. This writer could not swallow information when a quite young MBA, teacher-cum-drama producer, told that a book was being under process on “Marketing in Pakistan” by him. The information was inconceivable how a person who had never conducted research or published anything on the topic could write a book on such a broad topic.

In the modern world, research has become a very structured and methodical activity since the movement of positivism, which stresses objectivism. This movement has made research in social sciences a cumbersome and tiring activity that researchers go through during their research. The theories that we read in the books or research papers, mostly written by the Western researchers and scholars, are not developed in vacuum but a scientific research approach is followed to unravel the truth related to social phenomena. The students and common people, who naively think that research in social sciences can be conducted while sitting in cozy drawing rooms or inference and deduction can be drawn from intuition, are simply wrong. An eye bird view how research is conducted is given below for those who still think that a social science is a ‘science of hunch.’

In social science, literature review is a starting point, which means reading relevant research work of others to the issue in hand. Reviewing literature is not a casual activity rather it is an activity of studying others’ research systematically and vigilantly. It not only improves researchers’ insight about the phenomena but provides opportunities with to pin point the issues and variables that were either inadequately addressed or ignored in the research.  A new research project cannot be taken until it promises that it, one way or the other, enhances existing knowledge. Even in the case of replication, a researcher must inform why it is deemed necessary to emulate the existing research. It is literature review that provides grounds for the hypothesis (a statement or a theory, which is yet to be tested) and generally takes between 6-12 months to complete depending upon the topic. For example, a statement, “all students from affluent background are more confident’ carries not weight unless it is substantiated with data, which is collected following principles of the research.

Once hypothesis is raised, the next step is to design methodology. Methodology means the way data will be collected and analyzed. There are different ways to collect data including close or open-ended questionnaire, standard test, interviews, study of achieves, experiment, a case study and so on. Which of the methods is more appropriate depends upon the hypothesis. Similarly, Qualitative or quantitative methods are typically used to analyze the data. It is not so much matter whether the collected data supports or rejects the hypothesis; what is more important is the methodology that a researcher employs to reach the results. It is highly stressed that a faulty methodology can blemish the objectivity of the research or/and distort the reality; if it happens, in any way, it will lose its importance and credibility. Another important point that social scientists must avoid is ‘researcher bias’, which means that a research should not be influenced by researcher’s own values, morals and thoughts.

Mind it that research in social sciences might be more difficult in some ways than research in natural and rational sciences because social scientists are dealing with human beings. In social sciences research, it is not an easy task to find volunteers to participate in research as a respondent or subject. It is against the research ethics that people would be offered heavy inducements to get them interested in research. Another crucial point in research is to control contingency factors that influence honest opinions and natural reactions of the participants. If contingency factors are not controlled, results can be objected on the grounds of validity and reliability. Since social scientists are dealing with human beings, directly or indirectly, they have to strictly follow the guidelines of research ethics, which further makes social sciences research difficult.

Last but not least, the research in social sciences is not only a hectic activity but also consume a lot of financial resources including expenses of stationary, postage, copying, traveling, unlimited access to computing facilities and reading material and other miscellaneous expenses. So when so much human energies and financial resources are involved, it is naďve to argue that academic books or articles provide bookish knowledge, which is not pertinent to day-to-day life. Reading social sciences articles and books only for passing examination, decorating them in shelves or throwing in a dustbin will never bring the required change in the society that we have been looking for since independence.

24. January, 2004

http://psjg.bizcue.com/Social_Sciences_brim_with_irrelevant_knowledge.htm