Developing an interface between engineering and the social sciences: An interdisciplinary team approach to solving societal problems.

1975 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 1067-1071 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Bruce Walsh ◽  
George L. Smith ◽  
Manuel London
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
Team Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Problems

scholarly journals Integrating the social sciences into the COVID-19 response in Alberta, Canada

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (7) ◽  
pp. e002672
Author(s):  
Myles Leslie ◽  
Raad Fadaak ◽  
Jan Davies ◽  
Johanna Blaak ◽  
PG Forest ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Infection Prevention ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
Infection Prevention And Control ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Communication ◽  
And Control

This paper outlines the rapid integration of social scientists into a Canadian province’s COVID-19 response. We describe the motivating theory, deployment and initial outcomes of our team of Organisational Sociologist ethnographers, Human Factors experts and Infection Prevention and Control clinicians focused on understanding and improving Alberta’s responsiveness to the pandemic. Specifically, that interdisciplinary team is working alongside acute and primary care personnel, as well as public health leaders to deliver ‘situated interventions’ that flow from studying communications, interpretations and implementations across responding organisations. Acting in real time, the team is providing critical insights on policy communication and implementation to targeted members of the health system. Using our rapid and ongoing deployment as a case study of social science techniques applied to a pandemic, we describe how other health systems might leverage social science to improve their preparations and communications.

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Researches and the Progress of Human Societies in the New Millennium: Practical Experiences and Futuristic Options

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Hany Khamis Abdo
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Cognitive Limitations ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practical Experiences ◽  
New Research ◽  
Societal Problems

Interdisciplinary Research is a fertile ground for researchers in the modern era, as is represents the importance in the study of various phenomena of society and its issues and complex problems that need to cross the barriers and cognitive limitations among social and natural sciences. It could be argued that after decades of increased specialization on the vertical level (any connection between the social sciences) and the horizontal level (any connection between the social sciences and natural sciences) it has become noticeable that there is an increasing trend towards financing projects and research programs that are trying to promote interdisciplinary research as a means to encourage scientific technological progress, benefit human development, and improve the quality of life. Interdisciplinary research that relies on cognitive interaction is not an end in itself but a means to support research efforts to address societal problems and to promote a competitive environment through which knowledge can be acquired. This is achieved through the integration of knowledge or the formulation of new research areas based on the integration of knowledge from different fields. In the light of the above, the paper aims to shed light on the features of interdisciplinary research and on the extent it can be used to study human societies by reviewing practical applications in the field of interdisciplinary research. 

scholarly journals Understanding the Societal Impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities: Remarks on Roles, Challenges, and Expectations

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Fecher ◽  
Freia Kuper ◽  
Nataliia Sokolovska ◽  
Alex Fenton ◽  
Stefan Hornbostel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Online Consultation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Societal Problems

Science is increasingly expected to help in solving complex societal problems in collaboration with societal stakeholders. However, it is often unclear under what conditions this can happen, i.e., what kind of challenges occur when science interacts with society and what kind of quality expectations prevail. This is particularly pertinent for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), which are part of the object they study and whose knowledge is always subject to provisionality. Here we discuss how SSH researchers can contribute to societal problems, what challenges might occur when they interact with societal stakeholders, and what quality expectations arise in these arrangements. We base our argumentation on the results of an online consultation among 125 experts in Germany (representatives from SSH, learned societies, stakeholders from different societal groups, and relevant intermediaries).

Zur Kritik der empiristischen Forschungspraxis / Criticism of Empirist Research Practice

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Münch
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Empirical Research Methods ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractStarting from falsificationism, as developed by critical rationalists as POPPER, FEYERABEND and LAKATOS, the criticism of this study is directed against the empirist research practice, that is going to dominate empirical research methods of the social sciences. This research practice minimizes the growth of our knowledge concerning our human and societal problems in favour of mere exactness and certainty. Falsificationism succeeds in developing a model of test that shows the far distance between theories and its empirical basis. It is therefore necessary to construct a set of general and specified theories of observation, that is background-theories, which only permit such tests. Such a methodological approach shows that there is not any longer consistency or contradiction between a basic statement and a theory, but only between scrutinized theories and the concerning theories of observation. Thus appears the challenging problem concerning the criterions of acceptability of theories, for we do not know apriori which of the contradictory theories has to be dropped out. This problem can only be solved by the principle of progressive change according to which we not only accept or rule out single theories but series of such theories in so far as such a proceeding implies a progressive change, e.g. growth in truth-content and minimization in falsity-content.

What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Intended Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

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