A Guide to Scientific Research

The issues addressed in this book constitute the essential elements for the development of a scientific methodology, as applied in inductive studies in the sciences in general, and in the social sciences and humanities in particular. To speak of scientific research is necessarily to refer to a method or technique aimed at explaining the perspective adopted in the study of social reality. This involves not only examining its moral aspects, but also uncovering its root causes and the factors capable of explaining it. However, research must lead to scientific knowledge by drawing on specific techniques which serve as working tools designed to identify the reality or phenomenon under consideration. It is only on this condition that we can attain scientific knowledge or science. In other words, science is a body of systematic knowledge which, through causes, seeks to examine or explain effects.

The issues addressed in this book constitute the essential elements for the development of a scientific methodology, as applied in inductive studies in the sciences in general, and in the social sciences and humanities in particular. To speak of scientific research is necessarily to refer to a method or technique aimed at explaining the perspective adopted in the study of social reality. This involves not only examining its moral aspects, but also uncovering its root causes and the factors capable of explaining it. However, research must lead to scientific knowledge by drawing on specific techniques which serve as working tools designed to identify the reality or phenomenon under consideration. It is only on this condition that we can attain scientific knowledge or science. In other words, science is a body of systematic knowledge which, through causes, seeks to examine or explain effects.