Social Science: Research Surveys

Social Science
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1) What sort of information and/or insights can surveys convey?
When it comes to research, surveys are usually very essential especially in the assessment of feelings and opinions of the respondents involved in the research. Surveys usually give quite a lot of information to do with not only the aforementioned opinions of the respondents, but also the subsequent preferences that they can often go for. Such insights are usually helpful as they provide the researcher and the entire research project with a dimension or direction to take. Conversely, the information obtained from surveys can also help in rectifying the original hypothesis that the research might have taken, to suit of match the general trajectory of the research project. Brady notes that “…surveys are not only useful for description… but also in assessing causes and impacts of events such as debates, scandals, speeches…”(Brady,2000). This therefore implies that surveys are an important tool in the assessment of the sociopolitical temperatures in a country too. Despite the general argument that they can be an expensive affair, the information from surveys has helped redefine or reshape the field of sociology for quite a long time.
2) Why did Stanley Hoffman term International Relations an ‘American social science’?
According to Stanley Hoffman, international relations is an American social science because the information or knowledge generated about international matters within the U.S. is what is procedurally and subsequently disseminated all across the world. He believes so, not because of the spread and reproduction of the knowledge to other parts of the globe, but due to the origins of the same information, which is in the U.S. As a result, it can easily be seen that the pioneers of international rela...