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Summary of all course material for the Advanced Research Methods course. This includes the mandatory articles and powerpoints.
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Advanced Research MethodsLecture 1: Research Paradigms
Week 1: 9/9/2022
Research paradigms
- It defines the way we see the world and our fundamental assumptions about the world
- “the philosophy of science”
- It guides our decisions and our understanding
- It guides our understand of “good” research
- “the basic belief system or worldview that guides the investigator” (Guba & Lincoln,1994)
- Research paradigms describes the ontological (showing the relations between the concepts and
categories in a subject area or domain)and epistemological foundation of any researcher and
research.
Ontology
- How we see the world
- The philosophy of being
o Includes statements on the properties of ‘reality’ (is there an objective reality outside
our perception?)
o Statements range between radical realism (yes, there is an objectivie reality) and
radical nominalism (reality exist only in thought and has no counterparts in ‘reality’)
Epistemology
- How we study the world
- A theory of knowledge or science
- Our assumptions about how knowledge production and research work, how they are to be
conducted, what the goals are and where the limits lie.
- What is the relationship between the knower and knowledge?
- Assumptions are systematised between the poles of positivism (dualism between knowledge
and knower, knowledge can be formulated in general proposition ‘how things are’) and anti-
positivism (knowledge emerges from the interpretation and language systems of researchers, it
emerges in the interaction between the researched and the researchers). = am I the one who is
interpretating the table differently or stays the table always the same?
- If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Research paradigms and methods – same or different?
- In business Administration, quantifying social research corresponding to the natural sciences
(positivism) was predominant for years
- The current diversity of paradigms is fed by the critique of positivism
- The critique is not a critique of the (mostly quantitative) methods, but more fundamentally a
critique of the underlying assumptions about the social world and how it is studied
- Different paradigms all have a different view of the world (ontology) and how this is studies
(epistemology). This is far more then the division between quantitative and qualitative
- Therefore, qualitative research, according to Guba & Lincoln, is not a paradigm in itself but
different qualitative methods are grounded on different paradigmatic underpinnings or can be
carried out in different paradigmatic ways.
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, - Positivism: natural science, there is a reality. There is a world outside, if I’m gone the world is
still going to be there. Dualistic view on how to do research. There is an object and the
objector. “God made the world, that’s it”. Most OBJECTIVELY thinking of the world.
- Post positivism: more critical about this ‘real’ world. In a very modest way. Methods are quite
simple. Focused on falsification
- Critical theory: there is a ‘reality’. But the reality is man made. It is not objective, it is man
made and social. Research is very subjective. Social, political, cultural, economic etc.
structures.
- Constructivism: thinks are only made by doing them. Constantly process of creating reality.
Most radical way of thinking of reality. Most SUBJECTIVETELY thinking about the world.
Different outcomes when people research the same things. Researcher is very central in the
research process. Is there even a dress? (viral photo of blue-black/white-gold dress)
Research methods of the paradigms
- Positivism: experimental, focus on verification of hypotheses, mainly quantitative methods
- Post positivism: experimental, focus on falsification of hypotheses, potentially also qualitative
methods
- Critical theory: interpretive findings and survey methods. Focus on the role played by the
interest, politics, values and knowledge of the actors. The researcher is no longer neutral
observer
- Constructivism (or interpretivism): dialectical analyses. Researcher acts as participant,
approaches subjective meaning of the actors or how individuals make sense of their world (not
the world).
If you focus on something being created ‘in’ conversation, that is a good indicator that your view is
related to either critical views or constructivism. If you are more interested to learn about a particular
phenomenon and also include other people’s positions/view on this phenomenon, this is closer to post-
positivism.
Do you believe you can “turn out” your personal values/attitudes/opinions during research?
Yes -> post-positivist
No-> critical or constructivist.
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,Summary research paradigms
- Paradigms describe how we view the world and our fundamental assumptions about ‘reality’,
‘objectivity’ and the nature of ‘meaningful’ research
- Paradigms are logically superior to the choice between qualitative and quantitative research
- No position withing this coordinate system is right or wrong! But they are different
- You own position has relevant implications for how you conduct research. You should
therefore make sure of your position.
Article Guba, Egon G. & Lincoln (1994)
That this is the case is hardly surprising. The theory brought to bear on an inquiry by an
"received view" of science (positivism, transformed investigator (or the hypotheses proposed to be
over the course of this century into postpositivism; tested) may have little or no meaning within the
see below) focuses on efforts to verify (positivism) emic (insider) view of studied individuals, groups,
or falsify (postpositivism) a priori hypotheses, societies, or cultures. Qualitative data, it is
most usefully stated as mathematical affirmed, are useful for uncovering emic views;
(quantitative) propositions or propositions that theories, to be valid, should be qualitatively
can be easily converted into precise mathematical grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss &
formulas expressing functional relationships. In Corbin, 1990). Such grounding is particularly
recent years, however, strong counterpressures crucial in view of the mounting criticism of social
against quantification have emerged. Two critiques, science as failing to provide adequate accounts of
one internal to the conventional paradigm (that is, nonmaínstream lives (the "other") or to provide the
in terms of those metaphysical assumptions that material for a criticism of our own Western culture
define the nature of positivist inquiry) and one (Marcus & Fischer, 1986).
external to it (that is, in terms of those assumptions Inapplicability of general data to individual
defining alternative paradigms), have been mounted cases. This problem is sometimes described as the
that seem not only to warrant a reconsideration of nomothetic/idiographic disjunction.
the utility of qualitative data but to question the Generalizations, although perhaps statistically
very assumptions on which the putative superiority meaningful, have no applicability in the individual
of quantification has been based. case (the fact, say, that 80% of individuals
presenting given symptoms have lung cancer is at
Internal (Intraparadigm) Critiques best incomplete evidence that a particular patient
presenting with such symptoms has lung cancer).
Context stripping. Precise quantitative approaches Qualitative data, it is held, can help to avoid such
that focus on selected subsets of variables ambiguities.
necessarily "strip" from consideration, through Exclusion of the discovery dimension in inquiry.
appropriate controls or randomization, other Conventional emphasis on the verification of
variables that exist in the context that might, if specific, a priori hypotheses glosses over the source
allowed to exert their effects, greatly alter findings. of those hypotheses, usually arrived at by what is
Further, such exclusionary designs, while commonly termed the discovery process. In the
increasing the theoretical rigor of a study, detract received view only empirical inquiry deserves to be
from its relevance, that is, its applicability or called "science." Quantitative normative
generalizability, because their outcomes can be methodology is thus privileged over the insights of
properly applied only in other similarly truncated or creative and divergent thinkers. The call for
contextually stripped situations (another laboratory, qualitative inputs is expected to redress this
for example). Qualitative data, it is argued, can imbalance.
redress that imbalance by providing contextual
information. External (Extraparadigm) Critiques
Exclusion of meaning and purpose. Human The intraparadigm problems noted above offer
behavior, unlike that of physical objects, cannot be a weighty challenge to conventional methodology,
understood without reference to the meanings and but could be eliminated, or at least ameliorated,
purposes attached by human actors to their by greater use of qualitative data. Many
activities. Qualitative data, it is asserted, can critics of the received view are content to stop at
provide rich insight into human behavior. that point; hence many of the calls for more
Disjunction of grand theories with local contexts: qualitative inputs have been limited to this
The etic/emic dilemma. The etic (outsider) methodslevel accommodation. But an even
weightier challenge has been mounted by critics
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, who have proposed alternative paradigms that complementarity principle have shattered that ideal
involve not only qualification of approaches but in the hard sciences (Lincoln & Guba, 1985); even
fundamental adjustments in the basic assumptions greater skepticism must exist for the social
that guide inquiry altogether. Their rejection of the sciences. Indeed, the notion that findings are
received view can be justified on a number of created through the interaction of inquirer and
grounds (Bernstein, 1988; Guba, 1990; Hesse, phenomenon (which, in the social sciences, is
1980; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Reason & Rowan, usually people) is often a more plausible
1981), but chief among them are the following. 1 description of the inquiry process than is the notion
The theory-ladenness of facts. Conventional that findings are discovered through objective
approaches to research involving the verification observation "as they really are, and as they really
or falsification of hypotheses assume the work."
independence of theoretical and observational The intraparadigm critiques, although exposing
languages. If an inquiry is to be objective, many inherent problems in the received view
hypotheses must be stated in ways that are and, indeed, proposing some useful responses to
independent of the way in which the facts needed to them, are nevertheless of much less interest—or
test them are collected. But it now seems weight—than the extraparadigm critiques, which
established beyond objection that theories and facts raise problems of such consequence that the
are quite interdependent— that is, that facts are received view is being widely questioned. Several
facts only within some theoretical framework. Thus alternative paradigms have been proposed, some
a fundamental assumption of the received view is of which rest on quite unconventional assumptions.
exposed as dubious. If hypotheses and observations It is useful, therefore, to inquire about the
are not independent, "facts" can be viewed only nature of paradigms and what it is that distinguishes
through a theoretical "window" and objectivity is one inquiry paradigm from another.
undermined.
The underdetermination of theory. This problem The Nature of Paradigms
is also known as the problem of induction. Paradigms as Basic Belief Systems
Not only are facts determined by the theory window Based on Ontological, Epistemological,
through which one looks for them, but different and Methodological Assumptions
theory windows might be equally well supported A paradigm may be viewed as a set of basic
by the same set of "facts." Although it may beliefs (or metaphysics) that deals with ultimates
be possible, given a coherent theory, to derive by or first principles. It represents a worldview that
deduction what facts ought to exist, it is never defines, for its holder, the nature of the "world,"
possible, given a coherent set of facts, to arrive the individual's place in it, and the range of possible
by induction at a single, ineluctable theory. Indeed, relationships to that world and its parts, as,
it is this difficulty that led philosophers for example, cosmologies and theologies do.2 The
such as Popper (1968) to reject the notion of beliefs are basic in the sense that they must be
theory verification in favor of the notion of theory accepted simply on faith (however well argued);
falsification. Whereas a million white swans can there is no way to establish their ultimate
never establish, with complete confidence, the truthfulness. If there were, the philosophical
proposition that all swans are white, one black debates reflected in these pages would have been
swan can completely falsify it. The historical resolved millennia ago Inquiry paradigms define for
position of science that it can, by its methods, inquirers what it is they are about, and what falls
ultimately converge on the "real" truth is thus within and outside the limits of legitimate inquiry.
brought sharply into question. The basic beliefs that define inquiry paradigms can
The value-ladenness of facts. Just as theories be summarized by the responses given by
and facts are not independent, neither are values proponents of any given paradigm to three
and facts. Indeed, it can be argued that theories fundamental questions, which are interconnected in
are themselves value statements. Thus putative such a way that the answer given to any one
"facts" are viewed not only through a theory question, taken in any order, constrains how the
window but through a value window as well. The others may be answered. We have selected an order
valuefree posture of the received view is that we believe reflects a logical (íf not necessary)
compromised. primacy:
The interactive nature of the inquirer-inquired 1. The ontological question. What is the form
into dyad. The received view of science pictures and nature of reality and, therefore, what is
the inquirer as standing behind a one-way mirror, there that can be known about it? For example,
viewing natural phenomena as they happen and if a "real" world is assumed, then what can be
recording them objectively. The inquirer (when known about it is "how things really are" and
using proper methodology) does not influence the "how things really work." Then only those
phenomena or vice versa. But evidence such as questions that relate to matters of "real" existence
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Bohr and "real" action are admissible; other
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