Reflections on method in human sciences: quantitative or qualitative, theories and ideologies 1 (original) (raw)

Background of the debate on qualitative and quantitative methods

The importance and meanings of the contemporary debate on quantitative and qualitative methods in social sciences and management research comes out from the fact that the participants defend their ideas in the name of science. Discussions take place at different levels, from basic epistemological topics to current decisions and evaluations of scientific communities. They involve subjects about what is science and what is a scientific theory and about what are the functions of quantitative and qualitative methods and what aspects of social world can be captured by each of them. The paper will focuss on the philosophical conceptual background of the debate and it will point out that the main concepts are considered in different ways: there are different notions of science and scientific theories; quantitative methods are defined some times as non-numerical methods and some times as interpretative methods of the meanings and purposes of social actors; finally quantitative methods include measurements, mathematical models and statistical inferences, which have different basics and rules. The first part of the paper will present a short historical overview on science and method. It will comment the geometry of Euclides and the Aristotelian physics, the legitimation of quantitative methods in the scientific revolution by Galileo and the mathematical physics of Newton; the qualitative approaches of Linnaeus and Darwin; the introduction of new scales of measurement and the creation of statistics; and the positivism of August Comte. The second part of the paper will introduce the contemporary debate on positivist and interpretativist methods. It will comment the evolution of positivism, and interpretativist approaches to the science of history; the phenomenological and hermeneutical justifications of interpretative methods in sociology; the criticism of measurement theory, the structuralist methods of the French school and the legitimation of narratives in social sciences research. That background will facilitate the development of further research about the debate. Key words: Positivist, classificatory and interpretative methods; and epistemology of science.

Pondering on methods. A variety of methodological concerns

2012

In this book, ten doctoral students share and discuss a number of metho- dological concerns they have faced in the process of doing research. In the first part, “Capturing the field,” the contributors grapple over issues regarding how to define and demarcate the field of research, for instance in studies on immigrant organizations, red light districts on the Internet, and telephone interviewing. In the second part, “Relations in the field,” the authors deal with methodological concerns regarding the relation- ship between the researcher and the researched, adressing for example research on disabled people, children, and people with HIV and AIDS. The third and final part, “Theory as methodology” contains contributions that emphasize methodological implications resulting from theoretical choices, such as the concepts of culture and discourse. This book is the outcome of the course Qualitative Methods offered as an interdisciplinary course within the PhD programme in the social science...

Meaning in Method: The Rhetoric of Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Educational Researcher, 1987

The current debate about quantitative and quahtative methods focuses on whether there is a necessary connection between method-type and research paradigm that makes the &fferent approaches mcompahble. This paper argues that part of the ~i onnection is rhetorical. Quanktatwe methods express the ssumptwns of a posltwlst paradigm whzch holds that behavior /. can be explained through objective facts. Design and mstrumenta-~--kon p_ersuade by shozvmg how bias and error are eliminated. ~Quahtahve~nethods express the assu,~nphons~of a /~henomenol-~ogi-I cal para&gm that there are mulhple realities that are socially '~ defined. Rich descnphon persuades by showing that the researcher was immersed m the setting an~l ~wm~. the reader enoueh detad l~to 'make sense" of the sztuahon. Whde rhetorically_different, ?"the results of---~the tw~dologzes can be"co~Ipleme'~Jary. [Examples are drawn from tzvo studies using different ~, methodologies to study the same problem.

From methodology to methodography?

Methodological Innovations, 2020

This article examines the character of a small but detailed observational study that focused on two teams of researchers, one engaged in qualitative sociological research, the other developing statistical models. The study was presented as investigating ‘the social life of methods’, an approach seen by some as displacing conventional research methodology. The study drew on ethnomethodology, and was offered as a direct parallel with ethnographic and ethnomethodological investigations of natural scientists’ work by Science and Technology Studies scholars. In the articles deriving from this study, the authors show how even the statisticians relied on background qualitative knowledge about the social phenomena to which their data related. The articles also document routine practices employed by each set of researchers, some ‘troubles’ they encountered and how they dealt with these. Another theme addressed is whether the distinction between quantitative and qualitative approaches accurat...

The distinction between qualitative and quantitative research methods is problematic

The distinction between qualitative and quantitative research is abstract, very general and its value is usually taken for granted. In contrast, this article attempts to show that the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research is unclear, poor and therefore of limited value and that its popularity risks leading to unfortunate consequences. Various arguments are presented for this conclusion. For example, it is argued that the heterogeneity of different stand-points on important issues among qualitative researchers (for example with respect to the use of quantification and causal analysis) makes the distinction as such unstable. Moreover, the presence of substantial overlap between many features of qualitative and quantitative research often makes it difficult to separate qualitative and quantitative research. It is also shown that three obvious ways of making the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research are unsatisfactory. Use of the distinction may restrict creativity in the development of new research methods and create confusion and unnecessary work. In general, it may be preferable not to conceptualize research approaches at such abstract levels as done in the context of qualitative or quantitative approaches. Instead, it is suggested that it is more fruitful to discuss the pros and cons of specific research methods, preferably in the context of specific research problems.