COM704C Research Methods

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COM704CResearch Methods

• Main Philosophical Traditions
• (Paradigms)

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Paradigm

• Paradigms help us understand phenomena they
  advance assumptions about the social world, how
  science should be conducted, and what constitutes
  legitimate problems, solutions, and criteria of
  proof.
• J W Cresswell, 1994

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Paradigm

• T Kuhn - a philosophical template or framework
  that guides the production of knowledge
• Concerns beliefs about what can be known about
  the (social) world and how we can come to know it

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Paradigm Assumptions

• Assumptions across three dimensions
• Ontology
• concerns the nature of reality what can be known
  about the world
• Epistemology
• concerns the bases (nature and forms) of
  knowledge it is the relationship between the
  knower and the known
• Methodology
• concerns how the knower (researcher) goes about
  the task of knowing

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Positivism and Phenomenology

• Positivism
• the social world exists externally, and its
  properties should be measured through objective
  measures (Easterby-Smith, 1991)
• It is a scientific approach which attempts to
  explain social processes in terms of cause and
  effect relationships

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Positivism and Phenomenology

• Phenomenology
• reality is socially constructed, rather than
  objectively determined (Easterby-Smith, 1991)
• This approach argues that we know social
  processes if we can interpret what they mean

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Positivism - Central Tenets

• Reality is external and objective observer is
  independent
• The only data that can be used are those that
  are directly observed, recorded and measured in
  some way
• Causality Phenomena are inter-related via causal
  propositions and thus the aim of social science
  research is the discovery of cause/effect laws
• Objectivism Scientific enquiry should be
  objective and value-free

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Phenomenology - Central Tenets

• The social world is not grasped simply by looking
  at surface appearances
• Interpretation People are conscious beings and
  are able to construct their own reality
• Causal laws do not, therefore, operate in the
  social world
• Meaning The world makes sense only in terms of
  the meanings actors attribute to it

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Positivism -v- Phenomenology
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Different Types of Knowledge

• Everyday knowledge
• Scientific knowledge
• Interpretive knowledge

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Induction Deduction

• Induction
• Begins with data and looks for patterns in the
  data

• Deduction
• Forms hypothesis and tests this in data collected
  earlier

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Key Issues

• Are paradigms incommensurable?
• Is a middle ground possible?
• Are they recognizable in the research literature?
• Are you expected to choose one?