METHODOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Year:2009 | Volume:14 | Issue:57|Papers Count:7

Alvin Plantinga holds that what we know as scientific theories, namely, those that are discussed in scientific journals and societies, sometimes are not true unless we accept some atheistic presuppositions. These metaphysical atheistic presuppositions are not the result of mere observation and experience, but are tacitly used in the procedure of scientific research. Using atheistic presuppositions in a scientific theory, in the current situation of science, is not incoherent with the theory being called "scientific". So, what is perplexing is why Christian scientists have not been allowed to use their theistic presuppositions in their scientific enterprises. This paper explains and analyzes the procedure for showing the plausibility of religious science in the works of Alvin Plantinga. While allowing the possibility of Duhemian science based on methodological naturalism, he shows some counterexamples to it and in conclusion denies its accuracy in the real world. The last section of the paper suggests some criticisms of Plantinga's conception of religious science.

Welfare economics is a branch of economics that attempts to provide a framework for evaluating acts, policies, states of affaires and institutions. There are some philosophical and normative foundations that the framework is based on, such as consequentialism, utilitarianism, welfarism, individualism and reductionism. However, some economists try to show welfare economics as positive economics. By assessing and investigating welfare economics' criteria, it is shown that this claim leads to economics as a powerless and useless science to deal with real problems of economy and economic life. However, looking at methods of applied welfare economics show that some value judgments influence research process. Therefore, it is better that researchers recognize and announce these value judgments as well as the methods, assumptions, and limits.

Today, methodological turns in humanities and social sciences are key concepts in explaining many categories of and changes in these fields. These turns could be found in many articles and many use them. In this paper, at first, two important turns in humanities are explained: the linguistic and cultural turns. Then, some methodological turns such as narrative, biographical and auto-biographical, and historical turns are illustrated. The philosophical bases, such as methodological opposition to positivism, are also depicted. Altogether, changes from positivistic approach to the more humanistic ones, like interpretative views and positional change from quantitative to qualitative methods, permits the possibility of studying new aspects of social life. In this paper, some of the methodological aspects of these turns are reviewed.

The purpose of this paper is to explain typology and the process of designing and conducting mixed-methods research. Although, this paper does not consider theoretical foundations of mixed-methods research, it briefly introduces the mixed methods research concept. Then, the necessity of typology of mixed-methods research and its criteria are introduced in different typologies. Although different typologies have been proposed about mixed-methods research, the two most famous types of typology are presented here. The first type includes triangulation, embedded, explanatory and exploratory designs. The second type is divided into mixed-model research and mixed-method research. Different research designs in different typologies are explained in detail. Next, the synergistic approach, which has recently been offered beside other typologies is considered. Finally, the process of designing and conducting mixed-methods research are discussed.

It is important to consider the ethical aspects of educational research, beside its other aspects (such as methodological, philosophical, sociological and structural aspects). That is because the negation or disregard of ethical aspects of educational research can propose challenges, threats or obstacles to performing quality research. These obstacles or threats include: incorrect interpretation of research result, manipulating of data for achieving specific and intended outcome, and misusing results for political, social and economical aims by governments. In order to prevent those challenges or obstacles, researchers must consider ethical issues of educational research such as the ethical principles and rules of the research at hand. Personal characteristics of researchers, for example, having moral virtue also has the main role in research. This paper studies the role and status of ethical dimensions of educational research in educational institutions.

This article studies the social constructionalism approach in philosophy of science and sociology of science fields. Because of the deficiency of standard philosophies of science (positivism and negativism) and introduction of theories such as theory ladenness of observations, underdetermination of theories by evidence and incommensurability of paradigms, social constructionalism was introduced as a competitor of standard philosophies of science.Historically, social constructionalism is rooted in sociology of knowledge and sociology of science and persuades a valid and complete understanding of science in social grounds. In analysis of this approach, the philosophy of science texts, different kinds of social constructionalism and claims and consequences of each kind are carefully studied.Finally, the criticism to the social constructionalism is explored to evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of this approach.

Managing the institution of science and scholarly policymaking for achieving a creative scientific community need a detailed understanding of factors that influence the process of science production. A set of biological, psychological, social, and economic factors influence the scientist. This paper reviews the biological factors which influence the scientific behavior. The relation between genetic and neurological structures and human intelligence and high-level scientific behavior in research, the relation between the structure of brain and its various areas and different scientific behaviors, and the impact of gender on scientific talent and scientific productivity are the main topics. The paper also proposes a biopsychological approach to science policy and discusses the results of this new approach for the old problem of resource allocation in science.