1. Research methodologies (an overview)
Dr Ayaz Afsar

2. “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” -- Albert Einstein

3. Choosing research methodologies
Research Methodology springs out of the following:
The way we see the world
Subject area we are working
The specific research area
Question on which we are working on
World view
Believe = The word is knowable
Appropriate = found in the sciences & some social sciences
Hypothesis = generated, then tested, experiments carried out, results collected, data gathered to argue the case, prove a point
Carry out certain procedures many times = reliability
Replicable
e.g, before releasing drugs or other products
In SS, rigorous, reliable research = based on the theory of behaviourism. Skinner, Bandura, Pavlov

4. Pavlov Experiment
Trained dogs to salivate when their food was presented
People are seen as behaving mechanically and predictably as do in science

5. Competing positions
However not all the questions we ask of the world are predictable
e.g Human interactions, perceptions and interpretations
-based on a form of constructivism rather than predictable and proven
If you believe = definable, fixable, proven and can be discovered and described < positivistic research
However if you feel the world is indefinable, interpreted, shifting in meaning based on “who”, “when” & “why” -anyone carries out and adds the meaning = post-positivistic research
In this case we can ask questions but never gain absolutely final answers. All data collected will need to be interpreted in context. We make meaning rather than discover. We understand through making links, interpreting context and perceiving. relative-- inductive
Contributes to meaning rather than testing theory and meaning

6. Choice of methodology & methods
Follow from your worldview & philosophy
Methods : vehicles and processes used to gather data. SS range of approaches:positivism, interpretivism, structuralism, postmodernism, poststructuralism & constructivism
Methodology includes the following concepts in the context of a field of enquiry
A collection of theories, concepts or ideas
Different approaches
Critique of the individual methods
Methodology: is the rational and philosophical assumptions underlying a particular study rather than a collection of methods, though it leads to and informs the methods

7. Other key concepts
Ontology: means “being in the world”, self, subjects – how you experience and perceive yourself in the world, whether the world is knowable, we all share the same sense of reality, solidity or we perceive differently
Phenomenologists such as Husserl, Merleau Ponty & Jean-Paul Sartre
They debated how we experience and construct a sense of self in the world
Epistemology: is knowledge – the ways in which different disciplines construct, interpret and represent knowledge in the world.
Methodology affects
the research questions you ask
the kinds of research you carry out
the methods used
the modes of analysis used on your data
And what you can argue as finding from your data

8. Paradigms Positivistic paradigm Post positivistic paradigm
Concerned with hypotheses testing
Uses large samples
Data are highly specific and precise
Produces quantitative data
High reliability
Low validity
Generalises from sample to population
Post positivistic paradigm
Concerned with generating theories
Uses small samples
Data are rich and subjective
Produces qualitative data
Reliability is low
Validity is high
Generalises from one setting to another

9. Positivism:
depends on belief that human society like the natural world is subject to fixed laws; behavior can be determined; there is little room for choice or multiple interpretations
Is associated with empiricism, behaviorism, naturalism, or the scientific approach and attempts to attribute “scientific” status to social research
Is most often used in research in economics, psychology, management, marketing, some health related (non-clinical) research
Argues that knowledge and truth exist insofar as they can be proved

10. Interpretivism:
human beings are subjects and have consciousness or a mind; human behavior is affected by knowledge of the social world which exists only in relation to human beings
The mind interprets experience & events and constructs meaning from them – meaning does not exist outside the mind and the agreement of human beings

11. Constructivism:
based on similar beliefs as interpretivism, believes that human beings construct knowledge and meaning from experience and relationships betweens things, people, events
Structuralism:
all knowledge is historically and socially contingent – that is, based on its context and mediated by power relations, law and language
Objective, rational laws inform human activity, the mind, language, behaviours, identitity formation and interpretations

12. Poststructuralism:
like structuralism sees language as divorced from things and events; relations agreed on by human beings (or not) in a context where there are no stable meanings, reality or laws.
all knowledge is constructed, interpreted, in a system of relations.
Postmodernism:
similar assumptions to poststructuralism
knowledge and experience of fragmentary, and humans impose meaning and order upon them
there is debate between beliefs about the construction and control of subjects in context or the existence of a decision-making human subject.

13. Consider
What kind of assumptions about the world, meaning, subjectivity, interpretation, do you have?
What assumptions and beliefs underlie the research you are going to undertake? Where along the axis from positivism to postmodernism might your own work lie?
What do you understand now about methodology, methods, ontology, epistemology?
Do these matter in terms of your research and its design and processes? And, if so, how?

14. Research approaches (Which are yours?)
Theoretical exploration
Reflection on experience
Empirical research
Ethnographic
Experimental
Descriptive
Exploratory
Predictive
Explanatory
Practitioner – and/ or action – related
Creative

15. Descriptive research
Descriptive research aims to find out more about a phenomenon and to capture it with detailed information. Often the capturing and description is only true for that particular moment, but it still helps us to understand and know more about the phenomenon. The description might have to be repeated several times and then further exploratory questions asked about the reasons for its change or stability. It asks “what?” questions. Tells about a situation, but not its causes.

16. Exploratory research
Exploratory research asks both “what?” and “why?” questions.It begins with the question: “does X happen?” followed by “why does X happen?” and sets out, using a variety of methods, to discover whether what is in question is true or not. Essentially, it explores both simple and complex issues. Exploratory research is commonly used when new knowledge is sought or certain behaviour and the causes for the presentation of symptoms, actions or events need discovering.

17. Explanatory research
Explanatory research also asks “why?” questions. It specifically seeks to look at the cause-and-effect relationships between two or more phenomena.It can be immensely helpful when description and simple exploration have come up with a number of variables that confuse rather than clarify the assumptions and hypotheses.

18. Predictive research
Predictive research takes several variables and tries to predict an outcome. It asks “what if?” questions. The hypothesis is based on data already collected and considered on knowledge and conceptualization, as well as, probably, past experience. Predictive research is based on probability and can, for example, be used to predict. PR takes several variables into account. It is based on identification of relationships between variables, so changing one or more variables can, it can be predicted, change the outcome. You can then deduce the effect of that variable on the outcomes, to some extent.

19. Action research
Action research explores and informs practice. It also asks “what if?” questions. It is experientially based and usually set up to try and solve a problem, or try out a hypothesis that could improve a practical situation . Teachers, social workers, medical practitioners, and other professionals working with human subjects carry out versions of action research each time they try out an innovation in their work in order to solve a problem and develop a new and useful practice to achieve a developmental practical outcome. It involves collaboration with its subjects. and seeks to research practice. Action research focuses on bringing about the change process, “doing research and working on solving a problem at the same time”.

20. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods together
Although, in the above sections, I have described the different world views that underpin the inductive and deductive approaches, and the qualitative and quantitative methods in their service, nonetheless, many researchers combine both.

21. Conclusion
This lecture has considered research methodologies based on worldviews, and looked at the ways in which you might approach your research, the methods you might use, in relation to the methodology you are using.

22. Further reading
Bon Jour, L. (2005). The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Williams, M. (2001). Problems of Knowledge. A Critical Introduction to Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Jacquette, D. (2002). Ontology. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Guba, E. (ed.). (1990). The Paradigm Dialog. London: Sage.
Psillos, S. (1999). Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks the Truth, London: Routledge.
Schick, T. (1999). Readings in the Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Postmodernism. Columbus, OH: Mc Graw-Hill.
Boghossian, P. A. (2006). Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berger P. L. and Luckmann, T. (1967). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor.
Zahavi, D. (2007). Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First- Person Perspective. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

23. THE END