Course Title: Methodology and Ethics in Social Science Research
Course Code: IS600P
Total Credits: 4
The course intends to introduce methodology, ethics and research practices to the Ph.D
students. The imperative of implementing it at the entry level is to acquaint the
researchers with the scope, prospects, limitations and the need for intellectual honesty
as well as research integrity towards its significant contributions in social science
research.
Course Content:
1. Introduction to Research:
a. Understanding research
b. Scope, types and limitations of research in Social Sciences
2. Philosophy and Ethics of Research:
a. Introduction to Philosophy :Definition, scope, concepts and branches
b. Positivism, interpretivism and critical social science
c. Ethics: Definition, moral philosophy, nature of moral judgement and reactions
3. Research Design:
a. Identifying objectives of research, formulating research questions and
hypotheses
a. Descriptive and exploratory
b. Experimental and evaluative
c. Correlational and causal
d. Ethnography
4. Research Methods and Techniques:
a. Qualitative and Quantitative methods
b. Mixed methods and triangulation
c. Case study research
d. Primary and secondary data and sources
e. Data collection: Questionnaires, interviews, direct observation, ethics in
data collection
f. Geographic Information System (GIS)
5. Issues in Social Science Research:
a. Objectivity, subjectivity, concepts and indicators
b. Standardization, transparency, reliability and validity
c. Induction and deduction
d. Types of Sampling
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6. Qualitative Data Analysis:
a. Content Analysis
b. Narrative Analysis
c. Discourse analysis
d. Thematic Analysis
e. Grounded theory
7. Quantitative Data Analysis :
a. Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics
b. Measures of Central Tendency
c. Analysis of Variance and Multiple Analyses of Variance
d. Correlation and Regression
e. Factor Analysis, Cluster Analysis and Discriminant Analysis
f. Uses of SPSS: Data Analysis Software
8. Publication Ethics:
a. Introduction to publication ethics, Best practices/standards-setting
initiatives and guidelines: COPE, role of IERB, JNU
b. Publication misconduct, FFP, Complaints and appeals
c. Issues around authorship and contributorship
d. Plagiarism detection tools: Turnitin, Urkund and other open software
tools
9. Open Access Publishing
a. Open access publications and initiatives
b. SHERPA/RoMEO online resource to check publisher’s copyright and
self- archiving policies
c. Software tool to identify predatory publications developed by SPPU
d. Journal finder/journal suggestion tools viz JANE, Elsevier Journal Finder,
Springer Journal Suggester etc.
10. Databases and Research Metrics:
a. Databases: Indexing databases
b. Citation databases: Web of Science, Scopus etc.
c. Research Metrics: Impact factor as per Journal Citation Report,
SNIP,SJR,IPP, Cite score
d. Metrics: h-index, g index, i10 index, altmetrics
Suggested readings:
Agesti, Alan and Barbara Finlay (1997), Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
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Allen, T. Harrell (1978). New Methods in Social Science Research.New York:Prager
Publishers.
Anderson, K.A. & Cvetkovic , V. B. (2010). Stop Plagiarism : A Guide to Understanding
and Prevention.Neal-Schuman.
Beall, J. (2012).“Predatory Publishers are Corrupting Open Access”, Nature, 489(7415),
https:doi.org/10.1038/489179a
Bird, A.(2006). Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.
Bryman, Alan(2016). Social Research Methods.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burkholder, Gary J.etl.(eds.) (2019). Research Design and Methods: An Applied Guide
to the Scholar -Practitioner. London: Sage Publications.
Byrne, David (2002). Interpreting Quantitative Data. London: Sage Publications .
Charmaz, Kathy (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory. London: Sage Publications.
Creswell, John W. and Creswell, John David (2017).Research Design: Qualitative ,
Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. London : Sage Publications.
Denzin, Norman K. and Lincoln, Yvonna S. (eds.)(2011). The Sage Handbook of
Qualitative Research. London:Sage Publications.
Flick, Uwe(2011). Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing a
Research Project. London:Sage Publications.
Goode,William J. and Hatt, Paul K.(1952). Methods in Social Research.New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Hillway,T.(1964). Introduction to Research. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
King, Gary C., Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba (1994), Designing Social Inquiry:
Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lamont ,Christopher(2021). Research Methods in International Relations.Oxford
:Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair(1967).A Short History of Ethics.London: Routledge & Kegal Paul
Ltd.
Maxwell, Albert E. (1961). Analysing Qualitative Data.NewYork:John Wiley & Sons.
Mukherji, Partha Nath (ed.,) Methodology in Social Research: Dilemmas and
Perspectives (New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage, 2000).
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Nie,N.H. Bent etl.(1978). Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.New
York:McGraw-Hill.
Tattersall, Andy (2016). Almetrics: A Practical Guide for Librarians,Researchers and
Academics. London: Routledge.
Waseem, Jerjes etl.(2018). The Power of Research Ethics:Best Practices and Principles
in Research Integrity and Publication Ethics.Kugler Publications.
