Values in Research

11 Key excerpts on "Values in Research"

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  The Limits of Social Science

  Causal Explanation and Value Relevance

  • Martyn Hammersley, Author(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Three On the role of values in social research

  As we saw in the Introduction, the role of values in social science has been a focus for disputes, recurrently, across the social sciences – albeit without any consensus being reached. At the same time, it seems that it is an issue that has been largely ignored in practice by most social scientists much of the time. Yet it is an important topic because it carries implications both for how research ought to be carried out and for its proper relationship with politics, policymaking, and the various kinds of occupational practice that it is frequently seen as serving – such as those in health-care, education, social work, and elsewhere.1

  The issue is a complex one, and very different stances have been taken towards it. In this chapter, I will begin by outlining currently influential arguments proposing that social science can and should be normative, partisan, or ‘perfectionist’ (Root 1993): in other words, that it should produce value conclusions – practical or political evaluations (including critiques) and recommendations. For reasons I will explain, in my view these arguments are unconvincing. I will also address some of the criticisms that have been made of the principle of ‘value-neutrality’ as the guiding ideal of social science. My conclusion will be that this principle is more subtle than is generally assumed, and avoids most of these criticisms. Indeed, I will suggest that, along with the twin concept of value-relevance, it provides the only viable framework for social science. At the same time, I will examine the respects in which even research operating on this basis is not neutral in relation to all value perspectives. And I will conclude by considering some of the practical difficulties likely to be faced by social scientists today were they to try to abide by this principle.

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  Three Lectures

  University of Toronto Installation Lectures, 1958

  • Northrop Frye, Clyde Kluckhohn, V. B. Wigglesworth(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • University of Toronto Press

    (Publisher)

  THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF VALUES* by Clyde Kluckhohn, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University his afternoon I should like to consider with you four inter-related topics : 1. A conception of values from the standpoint of behavioral science; 2. The case for the study of values, so defined; 3. Brief summary of some aspects, both empirical and theoretical, of a research project upon values in five cultures; 4. Further exploration of the theory of values. I. In another place (G. Kluckhohn, 1951a) I have attempted a technical and precise definition of values and value-orientations appropriate to work in the behavioral sciences. Permit me here to speak more loosely but still, I hope, communicating what I regard as essential. In the broadest sense, behavioral scientists may usefully think of values as abstract and perduring standards which are held by an individual and/or a specified group to transcend the impulses of the moment and ephemeral situations. From the psychological point of view, a value may be defined as that aspect of motivation which is referable to standards, personal or cultural, that do not arise solely out of an immediate situation and the satisfaction of needs and primary drives. Concretely, of course, values are always manifested in the verbal and motor behavior of individuals. There are research purposes for which it is necessary to focus upon personal values as such, though such personal values are ordinarily no more than the idiosyncratic variants of values which may, by abstraction, be attributed to a group or to a culture or sub-culture. Henceforth in this paper I shall be speaking solely of these cultural values.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Social Work Research

  • Ian Shaw, Katharine Briar-Lawson, Joan Orme, Roy Ruckdeschel, Ian Shaw, Katharine Briar-Lawson, Joan Orme, Roy Ruckdeschel(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  One of the classical debates in philosophy and later in sociology is about whether values are embedded in human nature (values that are God given), or if human beings simply create values through social interaction. Modern understanding of this question is based on more empirically supported scientific models although other co-existing types of knowledge systems such as religion maintain traditional stands. In social and behavioral sciences it is asserted that human beings in social interaction gen-erate values and integrate them in structured systems. Values are either personal, that is, maintained by individuals and not necessar-ily shared by others, or are cultural, that is, they are shared by a group of people who define themselves as an in-group and are perceived as a distinct group by other groups. Values then are embedded as a system or web by cultural, societal, religious, ideological and other contexts in human societies. Driven and empowered by values individuals, groups and large constituencies of human beings make choices and decisions, thus generating politics. Related to the concept of value is the con-cept of morality. Morality refers to human actions based on dichotomized or paired values such as ‘good and bad’, ‘right and wrong’, and ‘disgusting and admirable’. Our personal morals such as our consideration of what is ‘good and bad’ operate as compasses of our actions, intentions, decisions, non-decisions as we seek to discriminate between good and bad in all these and other contexts.

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  Inclusive Pedagogy Across the Curriculum

  • Joanne Deppeler, Tim Loreman, Lani Florian, Ron Smith, Chris Forlin(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Halstead defines values as … the principles, fundamental convictions, ideals, standards, or life stances which act as general guides or as points of reference in decision-making or the evaluation of beliefs or actions and which are closely connected to personal integrity and personal identity. (p. 5) In comparison, beliefs are a form of knowledge that is personally viable ( Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994 ), such as ‘I trust what you say’ or atti-tudes which are an evaluative response to an object ( Eagly & Chaiken, 101 The Role of Values in Teaching and Learning Science 1993 ), for example, ‘I do not like airplanes’. Values are more enduring and basic than beliefs and attitudes, which are more transient in nature and dependent on context. Values are not dependent on contexts and provide the guides an individual uses throughout their lives. In the next section we consider values and their relationship to science pedagogy. VALUES AND SCIENCE PEDAGOGY Science embodies a way of thinking and acting, a knowledge-seeking enter-prise that is continuous and purposeful, generated by a need to understand, make sense of and communicate thinking about phenomena and experi-ences. In this context, science is a process of human endeavour, a human attempt to create explanations for what is observed and experienced; it is entrenched in human experience, reflects cultural diversity and is built upon individual perceptions and understandings. To this end it is a type of thinking which depends upon the rigorous pursuit of evidence for validity of ideas and seeks to effectively communicate findings to a wider audience to establish a shared meaning and understanding. When engaging in science, the above description defines the paradigm ( Kuhn, 1970 ) which is the Nature of Science (NOS) and includes the rules based on values that an individual should follow.

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  Toward a Pragmatist Sociology

  John Dewey and the Legacy of C. Wright Mills

  • Robert G. Dunn(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Temple University Press

    (Publisher)

  Which of these two views is to be taken more seriously is reducible in part to an epistemological and methodological issue; positivists will emphasize the objectivity problem while those more interpretively disposed will stress values’ meaningful ramifications. In any case, the importance and challenge of values in social science cannot be underestimated. Values and valuations are fundamental features of Values, Social Science, Pragmatism, and Social Critique / 113 all human activity, scientific and otherwise. Of crucial significance, they constitute a basic link between social science on the one hand and the larger culture of civil society and politics on the other. In this respect, the consequences of our response to the value problem reach far beyond particular disciplines into society itself. Finally, there is a more pertinent perspective on the fact-value problem, one that is closely related to the spirit of Dewey’s pragma-tism. The value debate has often been a surrogate for the far more fundamental questions raised by Dewey, Lynd, Mills, and many oth-ers: What is the purpose of the social sciences and whose interests do they serve? These questions seldom get openly asked, and yet the po-sition one takes on values ultimately depends on how these questions get answered. Such questions underlie a recurring question faced by Dewey and Mills: How can social science play a useful and critical role in the resolution of major societal problems, and what role do values play in this endeavor? Values and the Normative Character of Social Science It is apparent that abstract a priori reasoning presents a barrier to an understanding of the value problem, which requires grounded analy-sis and concrete, practical assessment of how values actually operate in the social sciences.

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  Studies in Value Theory

  • Nicholas Rescher(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 8 THE ROLE OF VALUES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 1. INTRODUCTION he ramifications of the fact-value distinction within the social sciences move in two major directions. On the one hand lies the issue of the status of values as targets of social science research and in particular the question of whether the social scientist is in a position not simply to study the values held by others but also to invoke values himself, to do some ac-tual evaluating of his own with respect to his objects of investigation. On the other hand lies the issue of the status of values not as targets of re-search but as operative factors in the shaping of the research effort itself. Both of these issues form part of the overall theme of this essay. PART I: VALUES AS AN OBJECT OF EVALUATION 2. THE PROBLEM Everyone agrees that the social sciences can investigate the values held by a social group, just as they can study its eating mores or rites of pas-sage, in a “purely descriptive” and nonevaluative manner, as a sort of re-portage on the evaluative discourse and value-related behavior in actual currency within the group. But the crucial question remains whether the “scientist-outsider” can legitimately go beyond such description to evalu-ate the values of the group and criticize them in ways other than with re-gard to their internal coherence. In short, as an outsider can he pass some sort of valid reasoned judgment upon them? Can he legitimately say such things as “Yes, they do indeed value X, but it’s quite wrong of them to do so (and not just because X is inconsistent with Y which they value even more highly)” or “They prefer X to Y but in doing so are ill-advised (mis-guided, mistaken)”? In short, can the social scientist himself legitimately and warrantedly give us not merely a descriptive report on the values of a T

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  Science as Social Knowledge

  Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry

  • Helen E. Longino(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  What can be justified is somewhat more complicated than this simple formulation suggests, and I shall explain this idea more fully in Chapter Nine. In the present chapter I wish to discuss the variety of possible research and value interactions, or constitutive-contextual interactions, to place in context what I will say about the behavioral neuroendocrinological program. VARIETIES OF SCIENCE VALUE INTERACTION Scholars have already recognized a limited range of ways in which con-textual values affect the practice of both pure and applied science. The first is the channeling effect on inquiry of broad values of its social and cultural context. In this country, for instance, while a certain amount 84 — Values and Science of research, especially biological field research, can be pursued at the inclination of the researcher, much work requires major financial sup-port from sources other than the individual, that is, from corporate or governmental sources. The research, pure or applied, that gets funded, and hence, pursued, is that which is seen to further governmental, so-cietal, and corporate goals, whatever those may be. According to the Mertonian school of history and sociology of sci-ence, even before the establishment of this direct and crass connection between social goals and scientific research, social needs and cultural values (for example, the interests of the seventeenth-century bourgeoi-sie) had an impact on the kinds of research undertaken. 1 From this perspective the questions thought important to investigate are deter-mined as much by the social/cultural context in which science is done as by problems and puzzles internal to scientific inquiry.

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  Information and Human Values

  • Kenneth Fleischmann(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Springer

    (Publisher)

  7 CHAPTER 2 Approaches to Understanding Values Various strands of literature in different fields have explored the importance of human values, but for the most part, these strands have remained distinct and disconnected. The goal of this chapter is to weave these strands together into a tapestry that we will employ throughout the remainder of the book. First, we will explore the values held by people, primarily through the literature on the social psychology of human values. Next, we will examine how human values influence information, focusing particularly on the core values of librarianship within the field of library and information science. After that, we will consider how human values are embedded in technology, relying predominantly on the values and in- formation technology design literature from human-computer interaction. Finally, we will explore the interaction and synergy among these diverse literatures, and determine how they can potentially be unified to develop a theoretical understand- ing of the relationship between information and human values. 2.1 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN VALUES How can we understand, explain, and predict human behavior? Each of the social sciences, in its own way, seeks to answer this question. Sociology focuses on human behavior at a societal level, predominantly using macro-level quantitative analysis. Anthropology instead looks at the level of groups, with ethnography serving as a way to develop a deep understanding and a thick description of constructs such as culture and power. Much of psychology focuses on the level of the individual, with more interest in the internal workings of the human psyche rather that consider- ation of interpersonal factors. Economics cuts across all of these levels, through both macroeconomic and microeconomic approaches, but with a particular focus on capital that restricts inquiry. Similarly, communication science and political

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  Ethics and Values in Social Research

  • Paul Ransome(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  94 ETHICS AND VALUES IN SOCIAL RESEARCH content of social action while preventing their own values from entering the research process: Nor need I discuss further whether the distinction between empirical state-ments and value-judgements is ‘difficult’ to make. It is. All of us [ ... ] encounter the subject time and again [ ... ] The examination of one’s conscience would perhaps show that the fulfilment of our postulate [i.e. maintaining value neutrality] is especially difficult, just because we reluc-tantly refuse to enter the very alluring area of values without a titillating ‘personal touch’. (Weber 1949 [published in Logos in 1917]: 9) The claimed objectivity of the interpretations being offered by the researcher/evaluator can be seriously compromised if the researcher’s values leak into the analysis. Personal values, and the undeclared or unrecognized values of other stakeholders, constitute difficult-to-control variables that can have a disruptive impact on the data and undermine internal validity. Table 4.2 lists the kinds of values that need to be taken into account by the evaluation researcher. Although social researchers aspire to value neutrality more in hope than expectation, a first step is for the researcher to recognize and own the val-ues they have already. These are likely to include the core social values of individual life and liberty, supporting the collective good and the quest for knowledge referred to previously. They are also likely to include elements of the professional-scientific work ethic of trying to produce objective analysis of reliable data in a trustworthy and open way. A second step is to antic-ipate the values that are likely to be in play within the evaluation process itself. These might include a preference for negotiating outcomes rather than imposing them, for listening to and empathizing with the point of view of other participants, and perhaps for the rightness of pursuing particular policy objectives.

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  Values in Science

  • Kevin C. Elliott(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  This is an important lesson: if philosophers of science really want to shape the intersection between science and values, they need to engage with the nitty-gritty realities of scientific practice and the institutions surrounding that practice at a concrete level. Taking all these strengths into account, the norm-based approach appears to provide a promising framework for moving forward, even if it leaves a number of the details and challenges associated with previous approaches still to be worked out. 6 Conclusion In this Element, we have seen that science is awash in values. As shown in Figure 1, values can intersect with research agendas, with scientific reasoning, with the ways research is used and applied, and with the behaviour of scientists as they perform research. Many different kinds of values play into all these activities. Some scholars have tried to distinguish these values into epistemic ones (which are necessary for truth or help attain truth) and those that are non- epistemic, but this distinction has been the subject of intense debate. There are also many ways in which the choices or judgements involved in scientific practice can be ‘value-laden’. In some cases, researchers are consciously motivated by particular values, but it is also important to consider cases in which scientists do not consciously consider values but make underdetermined choices that have an impact on important values. 58 The Philosophy of Science Although all the roles for values shown in Figure 1 are important, philo- sophers of science have been especially interested in the ways in which values relate to scientific reasoning. A central research question has been whether scientists should deliberately incorporate values into this aspect of their work.

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  Diffused Religion

  Beyond Secularization

  • Roberto Cipriani(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The variety of human values is very wide. It is almost all-pervading. It embraces many fields: from knowledge to communication, from law to ethics, from policy to economics, from 44 R. Cipriani education to medicine and health, from religion to secularity, from daily to general life. A recurrent distinction concerns the difference between applied values and final values (Rokeach 1979), therefore, between values concerning individual practices and values which represent real goals to achieve. Another rather widespread distinction is that existing between uni- versal and particular values. But the discussion is still open regarding the definition of universal values. In particular, the discussion tends to slip into a juxtaposition of universal values and universal rights, that is, between human values and human rights. During the last century, the development of human rights has kept pace with the “scientification” process, an important increase in the social and practical relevance of sci- entific and academic studies. By the end of World War II, in particular, the authority and influence of scientific research have been taken into greater consideration, particularly in the fields of medicine, economics and management (Drori et al. 2003). However, the dynamics of democ- ratization, although on the increase, have not as yet reached the maxi- mum level of human rights scale. They have passed from interesting a small number of nations and organizations, at the beginning of the twentieth century, to directly involving over three hundred organizations and nations by the end of the same century. To this regard, the role of so-called higher education has been decisive (Schofer and Meyer 2005). We can say that widespread human rights have become a world issue. Therefore, it represents a significant modality within the context of more recent globalization processes. Problems of equal- ity and exclusion, for instance, are a constant issue at present.

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