In my view, it's crucial for the social sciences to embrace a research culture that balances hypothesis testing with hypothesis generation, embracing exploratory studies alongside confirmatory ones.
In an exploratory study, the group might ask parents about the children's aggressive behaviour and collect information about household habits, individual characteristics and media content that could influence the children.
The patterns that emerge, alongside theoretical background knowledge, could then be used to build specific predictions - for instance, that parents' explanation of violent content might decrease media-induced violence.
To conduct a confirmatory study properly, best practice dictates that researchers outline their analysis plan before beginning their work, often through preregistration - recording it in a public repository.
#social-sciences #hypothesis-testing #exploratory-research #confirmatory-studies #research-methodology
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