VARIETIES OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION
Social research is complex, diverse and pluralistic. The way research is conducted, its goals and its basic assumptions vary significantly. This diversity appears in well-constructed designs, which ultimately provide the standards and principles of research practice. The two major and most popular forms of research are quantitative and qualitative research. These methodologies guide the work of the vast majority of researchers in the social sciences.
THE BASES OF THE METHODOLOGICAL DISTINCTION
Diversity in research means diversity in the ontology and epistemology that underlie the methodology, which in turn guides the research. Ontology and epistemology influence methodology, and this guides the choice of research designs and instruments.
Ontology
Epistemology
Methodology
Designs
Instruments
Theoretical foundations of social research
| Ontology | The nature of reality ASKS: What is the nature of reality? Is it objective (out there), constructed, subjective? OR BETTER: What does research focus on? |
| Epistemology | The nature of knowledge ASKS: How do we know what we know? What is the way in which reality is known to us? OR BETTER: What kind of knowledge is research looking for? |
| Methodology | The nature of research design and methods ASKS: How do we gain knowledge about the world? OR BETTER: How is research constructed and conducted? |
| Research | The execution of research designs |
Ontological, epistemological and methodological prescriptions of social research are 'packaged' in paradigms which guide everyday research. More specifically, the positivist paradigm, which contains realist/objectivist ontology and an empiricist epistemology, guides the strategy of quantitative methodology and therefore prescribes fixed designs and quantitative methods. Similarly, the paradigms of symbolic interactionism and phenomenology, which contain constructionist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology, guide the strategies of qualitative methodology and prescribe mostly flexible designs and qualitative methods.
Briefly, a paradigm (model) is a set of propositions that explain how the world is perceived; it contains a worldview, a way of breaking down the complexity of the real world, telling researchers and social scientists in general 'what is important:, what is legitimate, what is reasonable'. It is a philosophical stance that informs the methodology, provides the arena (ground) in which the logic and structure of research are embedded, and guides the process of research. Examples of such paradigms are positivism, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and phenomenology.
Paradigms: theoretical construction of research
| | Positivism | Symbolic Interactionism; Phenomenology Feminism etc: |
| Ontology: Epistemology: Methodology: Research: | Realism/Objectivism Empiricism Quantitative Fixed design | Constructionism Interpretivism Qualitative Fixed/flexible design |
In general, methodologies are closer to research practice than paradigms; it is therefore understandable that researchers refer to methodologies rather than paradigms when describing their work. Hence, it is more common that researchers report conducting 'quantitative' than 'positivist' research.
QUANTITATIVE METHODOLOGY
Theoretical background of quantitative research
The theoretical foundations of quantitative methodology are those of positivism, as guided by a realist (see Box 2.1) and objectivist (see Box 2-2) ontology and an empiricist epistemology (see Box 2.3). This results in quantitative methodology being an empiricist methodology, and its methods empirical methods. Its main research parameters are presented below.
Perception of reality: It is characteristic of quantitative methodology that it perceives reality to be objective, simple and fixed. Reality consists of sense impressions, that is, only of what is perceived through the senses, furthermore there is one reality in nature, and only one truth. Reality is independent of human consciousness and rests on order, which is governed by strict, natural and unchangeable laws; knowledge of these laws can help to predict and control the outcomes of human action. All members of society define reality in the same way because objects generate the same meanings and people see and name them in the same way.
Perception of human beings: Human beings are rational individuals who are governed by social laws; their behaviour is learned through observation and governed by external causes that produce consistent results (the same causes produce the same consequences). Human beings are shaped by their social world just as the physical world is governed by fixed laws; they are subject to fixed pattern; of life that are empirically observable (the thesis of nomological thinking). There is no free will. The world is, however, not deterministic; causes produce effects under certain conditions, and predictions can be controlled by the occurrence of such conditions.
The nature of social science: Here, science, the tool of knowledge extraction
- is based on strict rules and procedures, and is fundamentally different from speculation, reason and common sense
- is deductive, proceeding from the general/abstract to the specific/concrete
- is nomothetic; that is, it is based on universal causal law, which influence the course of social events and relationships
- relies on knowledge gained through the sense experiences; Other sources of knowledge are unreliable. Observation and experience offer the basis of knowledge. The task of the scientist /researcher is to discover the scientific laws that explain human behaviour using quantitative methods, similar to those of natural sciences.
- The purpose of social research: The quantitative researcher perceives social research in an instrumental way; research is a tool for studying social events and learning about them and their interconnections so that general causal laws can be discovered, explained and documented. Knowledge of events and social laws allows society to control events and to predict their occurrence and outcomes.
- Gender: Quantitative research has a gendered character based on the inherent trend to separate the world into fundamental dichotomies, one of which is the masculine versus feminine division. This separation is strengthened by the fact that men are presented as the experts, the 'knowing' subjects, while women are seen as the 'known' (inferior) objects. This ignores and downgrades women, and hence, fails to address reality fully and effectively.
| What is realism? Realism is the doctrine that...
(Hiigliand Lubcke, 1997: 185) |
| Features of objectivism?
|
| What is empiricism? Empiricism goes back to the writings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and is directly associated with the work of Francis Bacon (l651-!626), John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776). Empiricism supports the view that knowledge comes through experience mediated through the senses, and that insight can only be achieved through pure experiences. Empiricism assigns a high value to experience and gives primacy to facts. Hence, observation and experience offer the basis of knowledge. For Hume, opinions are reflections of our impressions of reality. In a more radical form (logical empiricism), empiricism argues that only things that can be verified empirically exist. What cannot be verified does not exist; truths that are not based on experience are meaningless. |
| Central criteria of quantitative research
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QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY
Unlike quantitative methodology, qualitative methodology is diverse, pluralistic and in some cases even ridden with internal contradictions. This is due to the fact that it contains elements from many different schools of thoughts which are integrated within this research model. This justifies the belief expressed by some writers that there are not one but: many qualitative methodologies and that they cover almost everything that is not qualitative. Nevertheless, the central principles of this methodology are taken from a relativist orientation, a constructivist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology.
Theoretical foundations of qualitative methodology
Constructionism
Constructionism focuses on the firm belief that there is in practice neither objective reality nor objective truth. On the contrary, reality is constructed. Although physical reality exists, it is not accessible to human endeavour (hard to achieve). Constructionism is about realities and relationships. Trees, rivers, forests and mountains may exist outside people's consciousness but have no meaning before they are addressed by people. Their meaning is not fixed but emerges out of people's interaction with the world. Meanings do not exist before a mind engages them. There is no meaning without mind.
Constructing reality means making accounts of the world around us and gaining impressions based on culturally defined and historically situated interpretations and personal experiences. This means that what people perceive as reality is not ‘the reality’, but what they constructed through experiences and interpretations. Hence, impressions of realty gained by researchers who listen to respondents talking about their constructed reality.
| Basic assumptions of constructionism
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| The many faces of reality
(Rescher. 2002: 43-51) |
For instance, an accident at the street corner is an objective reality, but it is not accessible to researchers. The impressions of witnesses are constructions of what they thought happened. The information gathered by reporters who interviewed these witnesses is a reconstruction. This allows two major observations. Firstly, there is no single reality but three levels of reality; and secondly, reality does not exist in a frozen state. Interpretations vary from one person to another, constructed realities are not uniform. Hence there are many forms of constructed realities and they therefore cannot be thought of as the only source of knowledge about reality.
| Popular facets of constructionism
|
Central to reality construction is 'communication', which is more than a means of exchanging information. Communication is a selective process of producing meanings in social contexts. This process entails three components: (a) the choice of a piece of information; (b) the choice of the form of information that will be shared and finally (c) the choice of understanding of this information.
| Collective generation of meanings Although the collective generation of meanings through socialization and through the media is generally highly valued, this process has been criticized by a number of writers. The main point made is that this process sets people's minds into pre-existing structures and inherited meanings, thus significantly restricting their options and chances in life. Simply, cultures and symbols, created and transmitted from generation to generation, or imposed upon them by their contemporaries, are thought to alienate people from the world they created, and ultimately imprison them in these structures. The media add to this problem by creating images of the world that are fed to the people without their consent or even knowledge, and so control their life. It is argued that the collective generation of meanings subjects people to hegemonic interests. |
Interpretivism
The processes of construction and reconstruction are laden with personal inputs. Life in a social world makes it necessary for objectivity and rationality to become rather relative concepts. The key process that facilitates construction and reconstruction is interpretation.
Interpretivism, as the framework within which qualitative research is conducted, looks for culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world' which are based on the views, opinions and perceptions of people as they are experienced and expressed in everyday life. Here the qualitative researcher is interested in the subjective meaning, namely the way in which people make sense of their world, and in which they assign meanings to it. The researcher may be interested in what divorce means to children, or in what it means to be a woman working in a job traditionally held by men. Methods commonly used in this context are intensive or narrative interviews and content analysis. An emphasis on the subjective meaning is evident in research based on symbolic interactionism and phenomenology.
The qualitative research often goes beyond identifying the subjective meaning and explores the processes of constructing social situations and everyday structure; that guide and explain personal views and opinions, and focuses on the mode of production of social structures. For instance, the manner in which structures that oppressed women were created, imposed and maintained. An emphasis on this type of research is evident in paradigms such as ethno-methodology and constructionism.
| Is interpretivism fool-proof?
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Central elements of qualitative research
The brief reference to the main features of the theoretical background of qualitative research highlights the nature of the research focus of this methodology as well as the way knowledge is constructed. In summary, and contrasting qualitative research with quantitative research, the following points are more relevant.
The two methodologies: a comparison
| Criterion | Quantitative methodology | Qualitative methodology |
| Reality is | objective, 'out there', to be 'found' perceived through the senses perceived uniformly by all governed by universal laws based on integration | subjective, in people's mind perceived not through senses only diverse; perceived differently created, constructed; not found interpreted differently by people |
| Human beings are | rational individuals obeying external laws without free will | creators of their world making sense of their world not restricted by external laws creating systems of meanings |
| Science is | based on strict rules ft procedures deductive relying on sense impressions objective and value free | based on common sense ft reason inductive relying on interpretations subjective and not value free |
| Social research | employs quantitative methods aims to explain social life aims to predict the course of events aims to discover social regularities | employs qualitative methods aims to interpret social life alms to understand social fife arms to discover people's meanings , |
Qualitative paradigms
Qualitative methodology is diverse, and this is evident not only in the way in which research is conducted but also in the variety of paradigms that are associated with this research strategy. We shall focus, very briefly, on only two well-known and popular qualitative paradigms. These are symbolic interactionism and phenomenology.
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism was developed by George Herbert Mead, from the Chicago School, whose work was published posthumously by Blumer (1969,1973,1979a, 1979b). The main tenets of this theory, which proved useful to symbolic interactionists, are summarized below.
- Social life is formed, maintained and changed by the basic meaning attached to it by interacting people who respond to each other on the basis of meanings they assign to their world. Social life and objects become significant: when they are assigned meanings.
- Social life is expressed through symbols. Language is the most important symbolic system.
- The purpose of social research is to study the structure, functions and meaning of symbolic systems.
- The most appropriate method of social research is the naturalistic method, which incorporates two major procedures: exploration and inspection (Blumer, 1969; Vlahos, 1984; Wallace and Wolf, 1986). Exploration studies new areas, looks for; details and-offers a clear understanding of the research question. Any method is useful here. Inspection, on the other hand, is an analytical method and contains a more intensive and more concentrated testing. (Blumer (1969) called this type of approach sympathetic introspection.)
Elements of symbolic interactionism
(Blumer, 1969:2. 5) |
- Data and interpretations depend on context and process and must be steadily verified and, when necessary, corrected.
- Meanings are established in and through social interaction. They are learned through interaction and not determined otherwise.
- Meanings are employed, managed and changed through interaction. The relevance of this theoretical paradigm for qualitative methodology if; more than obvious (Denzin, 2000). Most of the principles of this methodology are derived from symbolic interactionism.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology has a long history (HusserI, 1950). Its contribution to qualitative methodology is evident in a number of aspects of its research theory and practice, a number of which share elements of symbolic interactionism. In a brief perhaps oversimplified, point form, the central contributions of phenomenology to qualitative research are shown below.
- There is an objective world.
- Reality is not divided into objects and subjects.
- The objective world is experienced and becomes real only through consciousness, and not through the senses.
- Becoming conscious entails reaching out to reality and knowing it; this is called intentionality.
- Social norms reach people without them being aware of it; they guide them about how to see and interpret the world, and people follow them without question. This is called natural attitude.
- Neutralizing this natural attitude can be facilitated through bracketing through disconnecting or setting aside preconceptions, ignoring cultural prescriptions, symbolic patterns and meanings, using intuition, universal meanings and structures, and going back to the things themselves.
- Husserl called the suspension of previously set rules and judgments epoche.
Features of qualitative research
Qualitative research is:
- Naturalistic: It is a research process undertaken in a natural setting (it is field focused).
- Dynamic: It focuses on processes and structural characteristics of settings, and tries to capture reality in interaction through intense contact in the field.
- Subject-centered: It describes life-worlds ‘from inside out’, from the view of the subjects.
- Informative and detailed: It offers ‘thick’ descriptions, and allows entry to subjective social constructions of people; it presents the information gathered verbally in a detailed and complete form, not in numbers or formulae (no statistical analysis).
- Normative: It employs a value-laden inquiry.
- Constructionist: It assumes that the social world is always a human creation, not a discovery.
- Context-sensitive: It focuses on contextuality, with the aim of gaining an impression of the context, its logic, its arrangement, its explicit/implicit (open/hidden) rules.
- Reflexive: It values the reflexivity- the self-awareness - of the researcher.
- Open: It stresses the principle of openness; also, it enters the field with no preconceived ideas or pre-structured models and patterns. There is no strict design; no hypotheses; no limits in its focus, scope or operation.
- Flexible Design: methods and processes are open to change.
- Empathetic: It aims to understand people, not to measure them.
- Communicative: It focuses on communication which is considered a selective process of meaning production in social contexts. Qualitative research operates within communication, of which it is a part.
- Subjective: It values subjectivity and the personal commitment of the researcher; it is against objectivity.
- Interpretive: It values the reflective assessment of the reconstructed impressions of the world.
- Holistic: It focuses on the whole study object in its entirety.
- Inductive: It proceeds from the specific data to general categories and theories.
- Small-scale: It studies a small number of people.
Critique of qualitative research
- Efficacy: Qualitative research is unable to study relationships between variables with the degree of accuracy that is required to establish social trends or to inform social policies.
- Representativeness: Qualitative research is based on small samples and hence does not produce representative results.
- Generalisability: Since qualitative studies are not representative, their findings cannot be generalized.
- Objectivity: The methodological approach does not ensure objectivity, and hence the quality of the findings is questionable.
- Validity and reliability: The research structure and procedure do not ensure the validity and reliability of methods.
- Interpretation: There is no way of assuring that the researcher fully and correctly captures the true meanings and interpretations of the respondents,
- Comparability: Qualitative studies do not produce data that allow comparisons.
- Replicability: Given the individualist and subjectivist nature of this research model, replicability of studies is not possible.
- Ethics: The nature of research that allows close contact with respondents can lead to ethical problems.
- Quality of data: Often, the nature of data collection leads to the production of large amounts of useless information.
- Anything goes: The lack of strict research procedures and the high level of subjectivity and relativism give the impression that 'anything goes in this research'.
- Time: Qualitative inquiry is very time consuming.
- Costs: Qualitative research is relatively very expensive.
The nature of quantitative and qualitative research
| Quantitative research | Qualitative research |
|
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QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH IN COMPARISON
Major differences between the methodologies
The discussion above demonstrates very clearly that quantitative and qualitative research models rest on different assumptions about the world and therefore use different approaches to social reality. They are two different ways of addressing different aspects of reality, and both offer legitimate impressions of their study objective (see Box 2.13). Amore detailed contrast of the two types of research is presented in Table 2.4.
Perceived differences between quantitative and qualitative methodology
| Features | Quantitative methodology | Qualitative methodology |
| Nature of reality Causes and effects The role of values Natural and social sciences Methods Researcher’s role Generalizations | Objective; simple; single; tangible sense impressions Nomological thinking; cause – effect linkages Value neutral; value-free inquiry Deductive; model of natural sciences; nomothetic; based on strict rules Quantitative, mathematical; extensive use of statistics Passive; distant from the subject dualism Inductive generalizations; nomothetic statements | Subjective; problematic; holistic; a social construct Non-deterministic; mutual shaping; on cause effect linkages Normativism; value-bound Inquiry Inductive; rejection of the natural sciences model; ideographic; no strict rules', interpretations Qualitative, with less emphasis on statistics; verbal and qualitative analysis Active; equal; both parties are interactive and inseparable Analytic or conceptual generalizations; time-and-context specific |
METHODOLOGICAL SYMBIOSIS OR INCOMPATIBILITY
The main question here is whether these methodologies are two incompatible strategies or whether they can be employed together to address the same research question. One very common position to the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methodologies is that they are not only different but also incompatible paradigms. Methodologies are reflections of the perception of reality and of knowledge acquisition, and hence they are as incompatible as the ontological and epistemological principles that guide them. It is argued that one cannot and should not try to interchange them and their measures.
A different position to the relationship between the two methodologies is taken by another group of researchers who see in principle no difficulty in integrating them into the same project. They acknowledge the differences between the methodologies but recognize their compatibility which they accept and value, and are content that such a practice is possible, for example, in paradigm triangulation. Successive paradigm triangulation entails the notion that qualitative and quantitative methodology can be employed together in the same project in succession. For instance, the qualitative methodology is used first and then the quantitative methodology, or vice versa. This is the case, for instance, when the researcher conducts a qualitative preliminary study in order to establish some basic parameters (definitions, hypothesis, indicators etc.) that are required to conduct the quantitative study. Similarly, researchers may conduct a quantitative study in order to establish the demographic and/or social context, within which the in-depth qualitative study can be conducted.
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE METHODS
The most common Quantitative methods are surveys, documentary methods, observation and experiments. In many instances, quantitative researchers employ qualitative methods in their studies, adjusted to meet the criteria of quantitative research.
Qualitative research employs 'standard" designs and methods as well as projective procedures, nevertheless, the methods employed by qualitative researchers, in most cases, are those employed by quantitative researchers, adjusted to meet their methodological standards. For instance, while both research models employ interviews, quantitative researchers usually employ structured interviews and qualitative researchers employ intensive ones. Similarly, while quantitative researchers usually employ structured observation, qualitative researchers employ participant observation.
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