Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making

Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264189815
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This conference proceedings examines the role social sciences can play in developing sound policy.

Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making

Social Sciences for Knowledge and Decision Making PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264189815
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This conference proceedings examines the role social sciences can play in developing sound policy.

How Social Science Got Better

How Social Science Got Better PDF Author: Matt Grossmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197518990
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
It seems like most of what we read about the academic social sciences in the mainstream media is negative. The field is facing mounting criticism, as canonical studies fail to replicate, questionable research practices abound, and researcher social and political biases come under fire. In response to these criticisms, Matt Grossmann, in How Social Science Got Better, provides a robust defense of the current state of the social sciences. Applying insights from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science and providing new data on research trends and scholarly views, he argues that, far from crisis, social science is undergoing an unparalleled renaissance of ever-broader understanding and application. According to Grossmann, social science research today has never been more relevant, rigorous, or self-reflective because scholars have a much better idea of their blind spots and biases. He highlights how scholars now closely analyze the impact of racial, gender, geographic, methodological, political, and ideological differences on research questions; how the incentives of academia influence our research practices; and how universal human desires to avoid uncomfortable truths and easily solve problems affect our conclusions. Though misaligned incentive structures of course remain, a messy, collective deliberation across the research community has shifted us into an unprecedented age of theoretical diversity, open and connected data, and public scholarship. Grossmann's wide-ranging account of current trends will necessarily force the academy's many critics to rethink their lazy critiques and instead acknowledge the path-breaking advances occurring in the social sciences today.

Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences

Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences PDF Author: Stoker, Gerry
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447329376
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This book gathers an expert group of social scientists to showcase emerging forms of analysis and evaluation for public policy analysis. Each chapter highlights a different method or approach, putting it in context and highlighting its key features before illustrating its application and potential value to policy makers. Aimed at upper-level undergraduates in public policy and social work, it also has much to offer policy makers and practitioners themselves.

Social Knowledge in the Making

Social Knowledge in the Making PDF Author: Charles Camic
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226092100
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Over the past quarter century, researchers have successfully explored the inner workings of the physical and biological sciences using a variety of social and historical lenses. Inspired by these advances, the contributors to Social Knowledge in the Making turn their attention to the social sciences, broadly construed. The result is the first comprehensive effort to study and understand the day-to-day activities involved in the creation of social-scientific and related forms of knowledge about the social world. The essays collected here tackle a range of previously unexplored questions about the practices involved in the production, assessment, and use of diverse forms of social knowledge. A stellar cast of multidisciplinary scholars addresses topics such as the changing practices of historical research, anthropological data collection, library usage, peer review, and institutional review boards. Turning to the world beyond the academy, other essays focus on global banks, survey research organizations, and national security and economic policy makers. Social Knowledge in the Making is a landmark volume for a new field of inquiry, and the bold new research agenda it proposes will be welcomed in the social science, the humanities, and a broad range of nonacademic settings.

Decision Making in Social Sciences

Decision Making in Social Sciences PDF Author: Daniel Flaut
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783030306601
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book explores several branches of the social sciences and their perspectives regarding their relations with decision-making processes: computer science, education, linguistics, sociology, and management. The decision-making process in social contexts is based on the analysis of sound alternatives using evaluative criteria. Therefore, this process is one that can be rational or irrational, and can be based on knowledge and/or beliefs. A decision-making process always produces a final decision, which may or may not imply prompt action, and increases the chances of choosing the best possible alternative. The book is divided into four main parts. The concepts covered in the first part, on computer science, explore how the rise of algorithms and the growth in computing power over the years can influence decision-making processes. In the second part, some traditional and innovative ideas and methods used in education are presented: compulsory schooling, inclusive schools, higher education, etc. In turn, the third part focuses on linguistics aspects, and examines how progress is manifested in language. The fourth part, on sociology, explores how society can be influenced by social norms, human interactions, culture, and religion. Management, regarded as a science of the decision-making process, is explored in the last part of this book. Selected organizations strategies, objectives and resources are presented, e.g., human resources, financial resources, and technological resources. The book gathers and presents, in a concise format, a broad range of aspects regarding the decision-making process in social contexts, making it a valuable and unique resource for the scientific community.

Social Science Research

Social Science Research PDF Author: Anol Bhattacherjee
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781475146127
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

The Impact of the Social Sciences

The Impact of the Social Sciences PDF Author: Simon Bastow
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446293254
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.

The Production of Knowledge

The Production of Knowledge PDF Author: Colin Elman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108486770
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
A wide-ranging discussion of factors that impede the cumulation of knowledge in the social sciences, including problems of transparency, replication, and reliability. Rather than focusing on individual studies or methods, this book examines how collective institutions and practices have (often unintended) impacts on the production of knowledge.

Decision Making for the Environment

Decision Making for the Environment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309095409
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
With the growing number, complexity, and importance of environmental problems come demands to include a full range of intellectual disciplines and scholarly traditions to help define and eventually manage such problems more effectively. Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities is the result of a 2-year effort by 12 social and behavioral scientists, scholars, and practitioners. The report sets research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences as they relate to several different kinds of environmental problems.

Social Science Information and Public Policy Making

Social Science Information and Public Policy Making PDF Author: Robert F. Rich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351306308
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
A survey of federal officials reveals the belief that government should make the fullest possible use of social science information-and yet most of the information developed by social scientists winds up in specialized libraries or data banks, where it remains unused. Why don't public officials make greater use of the information social scientists develop? What can social scientists do to ensure that their findings are used? To answer these and related questions, Robert Rich reports the results of a unique experiment designed to facilitate the use of research data by public officials in federal agencies. Rich interviewed both researchers and users of research data over the two-year life of a Continous National Survey (CNS) experiment to discover the extent to which the CNS mechanism was successful and to record the levels and types of use that officials made of the data provided. Rich reveals that factors such as the timeliness, cost, and relevance of data do not guarantee that information will be used. He examines patterns in the actual use of survey data by agency officials and explores key organizational factors, such as the compatibility of information with various bureaucratic interests. He discusses the preoccupation of public officials with bureaucratic issues regarding the ownership and control of information, identifies the incentives that prompt bureaucrats to pass along new information and the government officials' difficulties in developing policies and programs for meeting national needs. Rich notes that studies of knowledge inquiry systems, found in the research literature of many social science disciplines have been dominated by a "rationalistic bias." This "bias" is expressed in terms of the belief that the act of acquiring information will automatically lead to its use, in turn, automatically leading to improved policy or decisions. He contends that empirical studies of how information is actually used do not support the assumptions of rational choice theory. The new chapter also discusses types of information, knowledge, and use; prospects for the development of learning organizations in government; and the politics of expertise. This book will be of interest to social scientists and public policy makers. Robert F. Rich is professor of law and political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also professor in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, and was the director of that Institute from 1986-1997. He is the founding editor of Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization (now Science Communication).