Research in Context, Qualitative
and Quantitative Methods and
Statistics
PSYC2005 – Block 1
1 RESEARCH IN CONTEXT
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 Understanding Research
What is research?
• Research begins with an inquisitive mind that seeks to answer a question.
• Research is about the process of discovering knowledge and is driven by curiosity.
• Research is a form of curiosity/inquiry that has been directed in a systematic,
structured, or disciplined manner.
Psychological Research
• A series of activities designed to produce data relevant to exploring a
psychological phenomenon or addressing questions regarding people’s behaviour,
cognition, emotion, social interaction and experiences.
• Research is fundamental to the production of knowledge and plays a key role in
developing theory and practice in the psychological field.
“Contingencies” of Research
• Time
o How much time do you have available to conduct research?
o When is the best time to conduct your research?
• Discipline
o Is your discipline (field of study) the right one for your research?
o Do you need the help of other disciplines?
• Place
o Is the place you are conducting your research produce accurate results?
o Do the people in that place fit into the criteria of your research?
o Will you need extra hands to help make sure your research is applicable
to them?
“Universalities” of Research
• All research contributes to knowledge production.
• It involves some sort of systematic method.
• Hels answer/provide specific truths.
• Helps to test, develop, and improve theories.
,Why do research?
• To enter the knowledge conversation
• To inform our understanding of human relations and development
• To respond to ethical obligations to inform policy in an unequal world.
• Because it is becoming the currency of the world in which we live.
1.1.2 Politics of Research
Objectivist View
• Objectivist World View: the existence of objective, absolute and unconditional
truth that exists independent of the knower.
• The objective meaning of the statement is given from a set of conditions of
universal truth, and scientific research is a matter of knowing the truth.
• From an objectivist point of view, social phenomena are comprised of distinct
objects with properties independent of the inquiring observer.
• The ideal approach to the investigation of the phenomena is the scientific method
of research and replicable observations that are considered to represent
“universal truth”.
Interrogating Objectivity
• Politics of:
o Research funding = who pays?
o Practice = who conducts research and how?
o Knowledge production = who produces knowledge and how is it regulated?
o Information decimation = who gets access to the information?
o Research uptake = who uses the results and to what end?
o Implementation = how are findings implemented?
o Evaluation = How do we decide its usefulness?
• All research involves some sort of action. Research cannot be separated from
politics.
Global and Local Research Context
• Massive inequality in the distribution of resources
• Global dominance of high-income countries and undervaluation of local research
• Poor levels of research output in South Africa, in comparison to other LMICs
• Strained education system that is slow to produce high-level researchers.
• Risk of being left out of the knowledge economy and global marginalisation.
• Drive for educational and academic institutions to become research-intensive.
Access to Knowledge-Economy
• Not everyone has access to knowledge due to various limitations:
o Having to pay to read the journal.
o Only reading those that are “free” via university resources.
o Patents
o Who wrote the book?
o Not everyone can attend industry conferences.
Political Interference can occur in 2 ways:
, • The context of justification
o Refers to the arena of objective scientific observations and deductions such
as we find in the course of scientific work in the field or the experimental
laboratory.
o Scientific method/hypothesis testing
• The context of discovery
o Is the social and subjective world of scientists as human beings, with
histories, experiences, values, and beliefs.
o The rules of scientific objectivity have little value here -- what counts are
the researcher’s private convictions about what kinds of questions are
worthy of being asked, and their social ties to friends, social groups,
political agendas and fellow researchers.
o Social/Subjective world of the researchers
Interference in the context of justification is easier to spot; interference in the context of
discovery may be hidden and difficult to cover.
Key considerations we need to make sure research is objective:
• Attention to contextual bias research.
• Reflexivity (awareness of subjectivity)
• Thorough documentation of research practices
• Transparency of the research process
1.1.3 Linking the politics of knowledge to current imperatives around
decolonisation and the Africanisation of Knowledge
Theological Foundations: Coloniality in Psychological Science
• South African psychologists are dealing with decolonisation urgently.
• The idea that the epistemic perspectives of people in oppressed communities
provide a privileged standpoint for understanding (the psychology) of the human
condition.
• The task of liberation from colonial oppression requires not only the
decolonisation of land and material resources but also the decolonisation of the
mind.
• Writing in African settings emphasises that freedom from colonial domination
requires that one confront the knowledge formations that provide a foundation
for postcolonial societies.
• The project includes the facilitation of critical consciousness that would serve as
a catalyst for liberation and revolutionary change.
• A way coloniality is evident in psychology is the coloniality of knowledge.
o Individualist habits of mind
o An adoption of this standard requires that one forget the violence that
produced modern individualist ways of thinking/being.
o Always think “how does this Western work differ from Africa?”
, 1.1.4 Three Approaches to the decolonisation of knowledge in South Africa
• The task of decolonisation requires more than the production of local
psychologists attuned to local conditions.
• It requires decolonial versions of global psychology that are conducive to the well-
being of humanity.
• Producing alternative local knowledge is necessary but not sufficient:
o This process should interrogate the “coloniality of knowledge” and the
“coloniality of being” and focus on rethinking the entire colonial research
apparatus and system.
• Approaches to decolonisation often include elements of the different approaches.
• We need to unmask standard scientific forms that masquerade as objective and
politically innocent. We need to focus on the development of concepts and tools
for a broader foundation of human liberation.
1|The Indigenous Resistance Approach
• Researchers draw on local knowledge to modify “standard practice” and produce
psychologists that are more responsive to local realities.
• Should not be done through relativity superficial forms of indigenisation.
o Such as merely populating the discipline with local or indigenous
researchers or directing closer research attention to racially oppressed or
colonised communities.
2| The Accompaniment Approach
• “Global expert” researchers from hegemonic centres travel to marginalised
communities to work alongside local people in struggles for social justice.
• Attempt to form collaborative relationships in working with marginalized
communities in the context of everyday struggles instead of adopting the expert
role.
• Implies working in marginalised settings and outside of the affluent settings
most psychologists inhabit.
3|The Denaturalisation Approach
• Researchers draw upon local knowledge and experiences of marginalised
communities as an epistemic resource to resist the coloniality of being and
knowledge in hegemonic psychology.
• Conducting decolonisation research in both WEIRD (Western, Educated,
Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) and marginalised settings.
Adopting a critical-reflexive stance to knowledge
• Questions we should ask:
o What research do we want to be done?
o Whom is it for?
o What difference will it make?
o Who will carry it out?
o How do we want the research done?
o How do we know it’s worthwhile?
o Who will own the research?
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