Ssc211E Social Science Research Methods Assessment Answer

Question In 2019, a three-year research study on civic honesty was published and its findings attracted much attention from international media. Through a series of experiments and surveys across countries, this study sought to examine the behaviour of people if they encountered a lost wallet. Results from this study revealed that people were more likely to return a lost wallet when there was more money inside it. The probability of a lost wallet being returned by people further increased, when the wallet contained a key in addition to money. The journal paper for this study is hereby cited: Cohn, A. et al. (2019). Civic Honesty around the Globe. Science, 365, 70-73. (https://davetannenbaum.github.io/documents/ Cohn2019.pdf) A detailed description of the research methodology adopted by this study is available at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/06/19/science.aau8712.DC1/aau8712_ Cohn_SM.pdf. Please analyse the chapters “Materials and Methods” and “Supplementary Text 1”of the document, and answer all the following:

(a) Recognise and explain the rationales for employing scientific research to understand civic honesty.

(b) Evaluate whether this study pursued positivist social science, interpretive social science or critical social science, and present reasons for your choice. During the presentation of reasons, you should include an attempt to distinguish between the three research approaches stated above, by explaining why you have chosen a certain approach and also why the other two approaches are not chosen.

(c) Discuss two research practices used by this study that may promote compliance with ethics and two research practices used by this study that may risk compromising research ethics. In addition, for each practice discussed, recognise and appreciate the ethical principle(s) relevant to it and highlight such principle(s) in your answer.