CHAPTER 1 1. Discuss the assumptions underlying the scientific approach. 2. Social policy is one of the hottest issues in the social sciences these days. Perhaps the most perplexing questions surrounding this issue involve the formulation of social policy. When we set out to engineer and enact social policy, we want to be confident that the outcome will match our intentions. Accomplishing this goal will depend upon what social scientists call evaluation research. In this project, choose a current social policy issue and to evaluate its intended effects. You can use the periodical index in order to obtain information on public reactions to the policy issue in question. Finally, construct a summary statement based upon their evaluation, wherein you forecast what the long-term effects of the social policy will probably be. 3. Choose a social issue that is amenable to scientific investigation and then plug this issue into the seven stages of the research process. You are expected to state a research problem using this issue, to advance preliminary hypotheses, to formulate a research design and measurement techniques, to specify data gathering techniques and method of data analysis, and finally to advance a hypothetical generalization on the basis of the findings you would predict.