 Hello. This video about theory in social science research is supported by my short Amazon book which is called Doing Doctoral Research in Higher Education Making Theory Work and there's more details in that if you want to go further into the topic. Rather than describing the contents of that book, what I want to do in this video is to address two questions that doctoral researchers often ask. First one is do I really need theory in my thesis or in my assignment for those that are doing doctoral program and which theory or theories should I deploy and how do I select them? The book gives more detail about the nature and deployment of theory and about different perspectives, different types of theory and the work that it can do. But to answer question one, do I really need theory? The first thing to say is that we operate on the basis of theory all the time in our everyday lives and concepts and ways of distinguishing between this and that, for example. So we can't escape theory. The problem though about using those domain assumptions as they're sometimes called is that they get transferred into research in a tacit implicit way and are not challenged. So it's much better to have an explicit theoretical perspective which is appropriate than one which is implicit and probably isn't. So there's no such thing as not having a theory. Addressing a research issue and simply expecting the data to speak for themselves is sometimes called naive empiricism because it imagines that there is no theoretical underpinning of the choice of research topic, the design, etc. So data never speak for themselves, they're not given in that sense, the literal translation of data they are in fact constructed from within a theoretical paradigm or set of domain assumptions. At doctoral level it's really important anyway to go beyond the simply descriptive and simply particular and to have wider value than that. So what can theory offer? What are its characteristics? What work can it do for you? First thing is it offers a set of concepts which are interrelated into a working system. So the theory shows how a number of different concepts which it deploys fit together if you like. And the second characteristic is then a set of propositions come out of that which depict some aspect of the operation of the world depending on the topic of the theory. Together these concepts and these set of propositions offer an explanatory set of ideas for a range of phenomenon, how it works, what the causal connections are and so on and that's really important. The explanation goes beyond the simply descriptive. So as a result of that explanatory framework the fourth characteristic is that a set of predictions to some extent perhaps fuzzy predictions or predictions based on probabilities, probabilistic predictions become possible even in the social world of course much more strongly in the physical sciences. Theory also can help us to relate local particular processes and characteristics to wider causal factors to structural factors and so on because it's those wider macro factors if you like which lend this predictability and regularity to the social world. They may not be visible to the participants but they nonetheless operate. So that's a really important characteristic of theory too. For a researcher theory can guide research interventions as I've suggested already happens even if operating on the basis of domain assumptions. It helps to define the research problems and indicate appropriate research designs for investigating those problems. And finally theory can provide a way of thinking otherwise. In other words a way of thinking about alternatives to the status quo and the way the world operates currently. So acting together then these seven characteristics can give doctoral research a wider value. In fact it's quite common to have a final research question which asks about the value of the research perspective or perspectives adopted and perhaps how they might be refined for the study of the area that you're looking at. So you almost certainly do need theory in your assignment, explicit theory. And if you still think you don't perhaps because you don't really want to engage with social science or psychological or organizational or philosophical theory ask yourself these four questions. First one is does my study go beyond the simply descriptive? Second, does it have significance beyond the particulars of the research site that I'm collecting data from? Third, do I have a good answer to the so what question, the question about the wider significance of my study? And fourthly is there explanatory power in my study? Am I giving an explanation of the phenomena that I'm investigating? If the answer is yes to all of those then you're probably low risk in terms of your assignment or your thesis but if the answer is no then you probably need to address theory a bit more than you are currently doing. The second broad question that I want to address in this video is which theory or theory should I deploy and how do I choose them? The simple answer is that you need to select a theoretical approach that does the most work and here the word work relates back to those seven roles of theory and characteristics of theory that I've just articulated. So for example it should give insights or explanatory value, it should connect characteristics that are apparently unconnected and so on. It doesn't have to meet all seven of those targets but you should be clear about the work that theory is doing for you. The selection of theory also needs to be appropriate to the study scope and level of analysis. So clearly some large scale macro theories such as Marxism for example wouldn't be necessarily appropriate to a classroom based study. Psychological theories are more appropriate to some types of study, social science to another and so on. If your study is about management of change then a particular group of theories might be considered appropriate and they might not be in the educational area, they might be in management and so on. It's also useful to think about researchers who've been looking at the same area as you have used theory and which theories they've deployed and whether their selections are appropriate to you or whether in fact there might be a gap in the application of a particular theoretical tradition in that area of research, it might offer you an opportunity to offer something new. So have a look at cognate studies whether it be articles, PhD thesis or books and think about how they've used theory and whether theory has been used appropriately in those studies. Similarly as you read the literature and as you engage with it, ask what theoretical traditions have been used there and why. But most of all have a look at your own research questions and think about what kind of theory would be most valuable in helping you to answer them or perhaps would be valuable in augmenting them to lift your study beyond the descriptive and beyond the particular. And finally there is the question of the robustness of a particular theoretical traditional theory. Carl Popper in Conjectures and Refutations talks about the hypothetical deductive model and he demolishes the idea that theories can become laws once they're proven. Basically he says that theories can't be proven but they can simply withstand to date attempts to disprove them, to demolish them. So we've got strong theories and weak theories in the Popperian approach. So for example there are strong theories that most of us know about, the theory of global warming for example or Darwinian natural selection. But even though strong theories are not accepted by everyone and some characteristics within them or even the whole theory themselves might at some stage according to Popper be demolished and replaced by a new theory. So the question about choice then isn't only about the value of the work that the theory is doing but also about the quality of the theory which you may have to defend. You need to see what it occludes as well as what it illuminates, what its weaknesses are as well as what its strengths are. So I hope you found the video valuable and thanks very much for watching.