PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH © LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE MANION & KEITH MORRISON

STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER The search for truth Two conceptions of social reality Positivism The assumptions, nature and tools of science The scientific method Criticisms of positivism and the scientific method Naturalistic approaches Normative and interpretive paradigms Phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism Criticisms of naturalistic and interpretive approaches Mixed methods research Post-positivism, post modernism and post-structuralism Complexity theory

PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH COMPLEXITY THEORY INTERPRETIVE MIXED METHODS POST-POSITIVIST POST- STRUCTURALIST POST-MODERNIST POSITIVIST

POSITIVISM (MACRO) NOMOTHETIC, LAWS OBJECTIVITY CAUSALITY NATURAL SCIENCE BASIS GENERALIZATION PREDICTION CONTROL, MANIPULATION QUANTIFICATION, LARGE SCALE

POSITIVIST DESIGN REVIEW PREVIOUS LITERATURE FORMULATE HYPOTHESIS DESIGN RESEARCH COLLECT DATA IDENTIFY TOPIC ANALYZE DATA REPORT FINDINGS LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS START PROCESS AGAIN NO YES

POSITIVIST METHODS EXPERIMENTS SURVEYS TESTS

INTERPRETIVE PARADIGM (MICRO) NATURALISTIC SPECIFIC/NON- GENERALIZABLE SUBJECTIVITY, INTENTIONALITY UNDERSTANDING/ INTERPRETATION IDIOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION CONTEXT-BOUND AGENCY FLUIDITY, CHANGE MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

INTERPRETIVE/ETHNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE REVIEW IDENTIFY TOPIC RESEARCH DESIGN DATA COLLECTION DATA ANALYSIS ELABORATION OF CONCEPTS/THEORIES REPORT OF FINDINGS

NATURALISTIC METHODS ETHNOGRAPHY NARRATIVES, DOCUMENTS THICK DESCRIPTION OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS

NUMBERS, MEASUREMENT SURVEY, EXPERIMENT POSITIVIST APPROACHES ETHNOGRAPHY NATURALISTIC APPROACHES INTERVIEW OBSERVATION CASE STUDY ACTION RESEARCH

NUMBERS, MEASUREMENT SURVEY ACTION RESEARCH MIXED METHODS ETHNOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT INTERVIEW HISTORICAL & DOCUMENTARY OBSERVATION CASE STUDY META- ANALYSIS VIRTUAL WORLDS

MULTIPLE REALITIESINTERPRETIVE RELATIVIST POST-POSITIVISM, POST- STRUCTURALISM & POSTMODERNISM NO GRAND NARRATIVES CONTEXT & TEMPORALITY DIFFERENCE & DIVERSITY DISCOURSES PHENOMENOLOGY CONTRADICTORY DISCOURSES AGENCY & INDIVIDUALISM MULTIPLE MEANINGS

COMPLEXITY THEORY Complex adaptive systems Non-linear systems Open systems Relationships Emergence Connected- ness Order without control Distributed control Feedback/ communi- cation Self- organization Holism