1. The Basics of Social Science Research Methods
Susanne Barth, MSc

2. About me
PhD candidate & Services, Cyber Security and Safety Group and Communication Science Group
Background in Communication Science and Psychology
Contact: Tue + Wed: Cubicus C212
Thu + Fri: Zilverling Z4039

3. Structure of lectures (I)
Being a participant (3 times à +/- 20 minutes)
: 1st questionnaire
: experiment + 2nd questionnaire
: 3rd questionnaire

4. Structure of lectures (II)
2. Basics of Social Science Research Methods
: Introduction to Research
: Basics of Empirical Research
: Data Collection
: Data Analysis
[Bha2012] Bhattacherjee, A. (2012). Social Science Research. Principles, Methods, and Practices. Tampa, Florida: University of South Florida. PDF

5. Being a participant
Website CCS:
Participation information
Informed consent
Fill in 1st questionnaire

6. What is Social Science Research? (I)
Alcohol sales to underage buyers in the Netherlands
 mystery shopping
 opinion poll (survey)
US election 2016
Spokespersons for a persuasive campaign
 experiment
Reflection on privacy and security issues in mobile computing
 expert interviews

7. What is Social Science Research? (II)
How would you rate the reliability of these studies?
How would you rate the validity of these results?
Actual behavior is observable  you have the least bias here  actual facts  direct measurement
Intention  talk about your intention can be somewhat tricky  does intention eventually mean actual behavior?? See US election: Trump is president although the majority did not believe it till the actual date of elections…
Persuasive effect of a campaign, you can measure people‘s intention (as they assess it by themselves) but you never know if this also reflects their attitudes and if so, that does not yet mean that they will behave according to their stated preferences, intentions or attitudes
Attitudes  assess one‘s own attitudes is difficult to examine…in-depth interviews are a reasonable method, you should ask as much questions as possible to get valid results but 1. are these results valid or can you generalize these results for a certain group of people. Furthermore, the qualitative data analysis can be biased as well, this is less the case when we talk about quantitative data analysis where you can deal with facts and numbers….
So, in social research, it is nothing harder to assess then intention, attitudes and behavior!!
Measurement of intention, attitudes is indirect, aiming at making propositions about human behavior or drawingn conclusion regarding human behavior
©Think 21
© The NYT
© MBA Data Guru
Mystery shopping
Election polls
Persuasive campaign
Expert interviews
no bias
bias
actual behavior
intention
attitudes

8. Introduction to Social Science Research
Deduction
TAM (Davis, 1989)
H: The perceived usefulness of e-commerce has a positive influence on attitudes toward shopping on the Internet.
Mix of qualitative (pre-study) & quantitative research (main study)
Causual relationship between perceived usefulness of e-commerce and positive attitudes toward shopping on the Internet for non-buyers but not for individuals with previous experience in Internet shopping. ¹
Induction: Theory-building: when there are few theories or explanations.
Example hypothesis is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. This is a "bottom up" approach, begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses, and finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories.
Induction is more open, you don‘t know the concepts and constructs yet and you don‘t know the relations between them
Deduction: Theory-testing: when there are many competing theories on the same phenomenon and you want to know which theory works best
Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. Start with thinking up a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data -- a confirmation (or not) of our original theories.
Deduction is more closed, you test a theory or hypotheses and can give (hopefully) an answer to these
[Dav1989] Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology, MIS Quarterly, 13 (3), 319–340.
We don‘t know yet…
RQ: Which features of an app do participants consider as important when selecting and installing an app on their mobile phones?
Induction
¹[Cre2009] Crespo, Á. H., del Bosque, I. R., & García de los Salmones Sánchez, M. M. (2009). The influence of perceived risk on Internet shopping behavior: a multidimensional perspective. Journal of Risk Research, 12(2), DOI: / PDF

9. Types of Social Science Research
Exploratory
Descriptive
Explanatory
Research goals
For new areas of inquiry to (1) research the extent of a phenomenon, problem, or behavior, (2) generate initial ideas about that phenomenon, or (3) test the feasibility of extending research on that problem
For careful observations and detailed documentation of a phenomenon (when, where, and how).
To explain why events occur in order to build, elaborate, extend or test theory/hypothesis.
Research methods
e.g. in-depth interviews, focus groups, expert/pilot surveys
e.g. secondary data, surveys, observations
e.g. case study, experiment
Example
Generate ideas of what cyber crime is identified based on interviewing victims of cyber crime.
Look at the CBS database in the Netherlands to understand the statistics behind the crimes committed and define most common profile of cyber crime.
Test theory about cyber crime by examine the following scenario: If we prevent guests from entering the campus WLAN, do passwords get stolen at the same rates as when guests were allowed to use the campus WLAN?
Inductive
e.g. expert interviews about privacy and security
Inductive and deductive
e.g. mystery shopping, election polls
Deductive
e.g. effects of persuasive campaign
My research: somewhere between exploratory and descriptive research  to prepare for explanatory research BUT most research tend to be explanatory

10. To sum up:
Exploratory research: open, inductive, sensitive for bias e.g. experts interviews
Explanatory: closed, deductive, less sensitive to bias e.g. effectiveness of persuasive campaign
Descriptive research: inductive/deductive, somewhere between open and closed, less sensitive to bias e.g. mystery shopping, election polls

11. Unit of analysis Who (or what) is the target of investigation?
Person (e.g. individual‘s attitudes towards cyber crime)
Collective (e.g. teamwork within groups of CCS course)
Object (e.g. security standards of a webpage)
Once you have identified a phenomenon you are interested in, you should think about the sort of research (deductive or inductive) and the type of research (explanatory, exploratory or descriptive), in a next step, you should identifiy your unit of analysis.
Person: think of the experts I have interviewed
Collective: voters during the US elections: e.g. which group of people will vote or did vote for Trump for personalized advertising for instance
Object: Which persuasive campaing works better for a certain group of people

12. Assignment Formulate research problem and end with a research question
Do you already have an idea in mind?
Which type of research you will do? inductive or deductive? Is it exploratory, explanantory or descriptive? How could you research your problem or question in mind? Who is your unit of analysis?

13. How to start with your research? (I)
From idea to research question:
What are you interested in?
Do you see a research problem?
Do you see a solution to the research problem?
Do you already have an idea in mind?

14. How to start with your research? (II)
Identify your research question(s)
Inductive
OR:
Formulate hypotheses
Deductive
Research question: A research question is the question that the research project sets out to answer. The methodology used for that study, and the tools used to conduct the research, all depend upon the research questions being asked.
 E.g. Which features of an app do participants consider as important when selecting and installing an app on their mobile phones?
Hypothesis: are empirically testable using observed data and may be rejected or supported by empirical observation
 If you have enough literature you can rely on…

15. Concepts, constructs and variables
e.g. usability of mobile apps
Construct
e.g. demographics
Construct
e.g. user experience
Construct
Concept: An abstract explanation or description of observed phenomena. This is not measurable.
Construct: Construct is an abstract definition or description that explains the concept in more detail. It refers to the characteristic that will be measured. Here, user experience is not directly measurable but by the means of variables
Variables: Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are defined as variables of user experience. These variables are measurable by means of scale
So, for the description of your research problem and/or research question, you will start with defining a concept…maybe you can already think about a construct and variables? But this is also for the upcoming weeks and the writing of your research proposal
age
gender
etc.
Perceived usefulness
Perceived ease of use
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.

16. Classification of variables (I)
Influence of variable A on B
Perceived usefulness
Intention to download an app
Going back to my study you participate in…
Independent variable
Dependent variable

17. Classification of variables (I)
Influence of variable A and B on C
Perceived usefulness
Attitudes toward shopping
Going back to our example of e-commerce:
The researchers believe that perceived usefulness influences attitudes toward shopping, then perceived usefulness is the independent variable, while the attitude (influence through the perceived usefulness) is the dependent variable. Thus, the attitude toward online shopping depends on the perceived usefulness of e-commerce in general.
Further, the researchers expect that a positive attitude toward shopping on the Internet positively influences the intention to actual use a internet shopping website. Therefore, Perceived usefulness stays as the independent variable but attitudes toward shopping on the internet becomes the mediating variable in the relationship between perceived usefulness and behavioral intention.
Perceived ease of use
Dependent variable
Independent variables

18. Classification of variables (II)
Perceived usefulness
Attitudes toward an app
Behavioral intention to download this app + +
Independent variable
Mediating variable
Dependent variable
Further, we could expect that a positive attitude towards and app positively influences the intention to actual download this app. Therefore, Perceived usefulness stays as the independent variable but attitudes toward the app becomes the mediating variable in the relationship between perceived usefulness and behavioral intention.

19. Classification of variables (III)
Perceived usefulness
Attitudes toward an app
Behavioral intention to download this app
Independent variable
Mediating variable
Dependent variable
Furthermore, we could believe that the effect of perceived usefulness on attitudes toward downloading an app also depends on the level of knowledge user have about apps in general, then level of knowledge becomes a moderating variable that has an indirect effect on the attitudes toward an app.
But this is certainly advanced level and I would warmly recommend you to stick to “only” an independent and a dependent variable
Level of knowledge
Moderating variable

20. Assignment
Read Bhattacherjee, A. (2012), CH 1 + 2
Write an ½ A4 per team about the research problem you would like to address and formulate a research question.
Do you already have an idea in mind?
Research questions

21. Do you feel prepared for starting with your research?
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