RESEARCH METHODS

RESEARCH METHODS

Challenges to the Notion of being "Objective" and "Value-free":

Technical and moral senses must be developed within researchers in order to be aware of constructive and destructive consequences of research investigations.
There are values and subjectivity in the research methods chosen by the researcher.
Which vantage point do we take? Any single view provides a biased outlook.
Gather multiple perspectives and the full integration of this information is where sustainable development rests.
"Sociology is the most general of the social sciences, or, to put it less politely, the least defined" (Abbott, 2001). The flexibility of the discipline provides the opportunity to surround an issue from multiple vantage points.
The focus of research and the strategy it is conducted supports or undermines the status quo.

                        --Sociologists, as human beings, cannot escape from their own values.
                   --Critical social researchers (influenced by Marx) attempt to confront the injustice of
                                a particular society and transform social relations.
                   --Feminist research seeks to correct the male-oriented perspective of the social sciences,
                                focusing more on interconnected human relations.
                   --Community-based action research seeks the establishment of local projects that satisfy
                                community needs, and if the result is not this, CBAR has failed to achieve
                                its objective.
                   --Conflict managers also claim neutrality under the guise of acting purely as neutral
                                "facilitators".
                   --Researchers should reveal their biases and be careful about generalizations.

Approaches to Social Science Research:
1. Positivism--The Approach of the Natural Sciences:
Positivist researchers prefer precise quantitative data and often use experiments, surveys, and statistics. Analyzing numbers and measures lend towards "objectivity."

Discover universal causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns of human activity. The same cause has the same effect on everyone--in all historical eras and all cultures.
Replication of the study is, therefore, important. Claims to transcend personal biases of the researcher.
EXAMPLE: A positivist uses a theory that class size and study habits are factors that determine the amount that students learn. A study is conducted (using surveys and experiments) that gathers precise measures and that verify the causal relationships between class size and amount learned. The education official using this information can then alter the school environment accordingly.

2. Interpretive--Learning what is Meaningful to the People being Studied:
The goal of the interpretivist is to share the people's perspective. Non-human species lack reasoning. Therefore, interpretivists study what is distinctly human--the subjective purposes we attach to our behavior. Social reality is based on people's definition of it.

Interpretivists employ field research and participant observation, spending many hours and days with those they are studying ("passionate participant"). Generalizations are limited. Facts and actions are contextual.
EXAMPLE: Economically and based on positivist assumptions, it may prove effective to install a water pump in a community to save time and energy for the women who fetch the water for their households. However, after using the interpretivist method, it is learned that the women value the time spent fetching water because it offers one of the few opportunities to interact with their friends. Thus, the viability and utility of installing a water pump is diminished. Individual or local motives are crucial.

3. Critical Social Science--Helping People See False Illusions and Transforming Social Relations:
Positivism ignores social context (and defends status quo) while interpretivists are too subjective and see all points of view as equal.

Action oriented, seeks dramatic improvement, analyzes the conditions of unequal power, exposes hypocrisy--the goal is to empower. Change is rooted in the evolution of conflicting social relationships. Objectivity lies behind myths and false beliefs.
They use any research technique, but tend to focus on the inner faculties of the researcher--the use of theory, observation of conflicts, and the study of history.
EXAMPLE: Critical researcher conducts a study showing there is discrimination in rental housing. The critical social science researcher mobilizes political action in the name of social justice--for example, by flooding landlords with racial minority applicants for apartments.

4. Post-modern--All Descriptions Equally Valid:
Post-modernists distrust systematic empirical observation.

Post-modernists object to results being presented in a detached way. The researcher's experience must be part of the report. Reports can be in the form of fiction, a movie, or a play. The idea is to stimulate an experience within the people who encounter or read it.
Post-modernists doubt that knowledge is generalizable.

For Thought:

"For every sociologist who believes in objective knowledge, another denies it. For every reflective interpretivist there is a rigorous positivist." (Abbott, 2001)
Where do you stand among these approaches?
Mobilizing a sustainable community development initiative requires 1) the sensitivity to local perceptions as that of an interpretivist, 2) the commitment to social action as that of a critical social scientist, 3) statistical project viability assessments as that of a positivist, and 4) an awareness of where you (the researcher) stands and influences the development process as that of a post-modernist.