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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This unique book explains the central role that research paradigms play in the design and conduct of social research. The authors argue that social research should not just describe or confirm a social problem but should seek to find an explanation for it and to do so requires research with eyes philosophically wide open . Important philosophical and practice elements of three widely recognized paradigms Neo-Positive, Interpretive and Critical Realist are carefully elaborated and their use in action illustrated with detailed examples. The authors show that the philosophical assumptions of a chosen paradigm must match those embedded in a characterization of a research problem and its context. This paradigm orientation is shown to be fundamental to appropriately framing a problem, formulating research questions, deciding on a logic of inquiry and selecting and using methods to investigate it. Ultimately, an appropriate paradigm orientation to social research provides a dispassionate, rigorous and effective basis for the production of new social scientific knowledge. Following on from Blaikie s Approaches to Social Enquiry and Designing Social Research, this innovative book will be invaluable to upper-level and research students, their lecturers and supervisors, and researchers across the social sciences.
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Seitenzahl: 462
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Introduction
What kind of book is this?
What are its key themes?
Why is the book structured this way?
Notes
1 Fundamental Choices in Social Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
What are the book’s philosophical and methodological foundations?
Worldviews are everywhere
Generating new knowledge
Why the choice of research paradigm is more important than the choice of research methods
Choosing a research paradigm
Conclusion
Notes
2 Road Maps for Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
Road maps
Different roads to travel with different stops along the way
An Illustration of the Three Paradigms in Action: Sexual Abuse of Children and Young People in the Catholic Church
Introduction
The research problem
Regularities
Further research questions
Choice of research paradigms
Research paradigms in action
Comment
Conclusion
Further reading
Notes
3 Principles of Neo-Positive Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
Origins
An alternative: Neo-Positivism
Main characteristics
A different logic of inquiry: from pattern explanations to deductive theories
Limitations of the Neo-Positive paradigm
Review
Characteristic steps of the paradigm
Review questions
Further reading
Notes
4 The Neo-Positive Research Paradigm in Action
Chapter summary
1 Age and Environmentalism
Introduction
The problem
Research questions
Review of extant literature
A possible explanation for the regularity
Concepts
Testing the theory
Summary
2 The Impact of Leaders’ Experience on the Effectiveness of First-responder Actions: Background to Crisis Leadership Illustrations in Chapters 4, 6 and 8
Leadership in natural disaster crises
3 Crisis Leadership in Australia's 2009 East Kilmore Fire
Problem and regularity
Characteristics of the problem
Research questions
The ‘maverick theory’ about leading in a crisis
Theory simplified
Context, data and concepts to test the theory
Sources of data to test the theory: population and sampling
Testing the theory
Concepts and their formal and operational definitions
More about testing the theory
Notes
5 Principles of Interpretive Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
Origins
Main characteristics
Description and beyond: the use of typologies
Limitations of the Interpretive paradigm
Characteristic steps of the paradigm
And what about grounded theory?
Summary
Review questions
Further reading
Notes
6 The Interpretive Research Paradigm in Action
Chapter summary
1 Technology Management
Introduction
Road map for this illustration
The phenomenon, problem and regularity
Literature
Research questions
Research design
The population
The sample
Data generation
Data analysis
Analysis that led to the braided-work type
Analytic work that identified ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-brain’ types of work
Deriving sociological constructs from the analytic notes
Findings: a typology to help answer the ‘what’ question
Conclusion
2 First-Responder Leaders’ Experiences and Perceived Effectiveness of Agency Response Effort
Road map for this illustration
Study’s focus and scope
Analysis and types
Analysis and understanding
Answering the ‘what’ question with more than one typology
Analysis and theorizing
Findings: typology-based answers and theory-based answers
Conclusion: a critique of the study, practice implications and further research
Notes
7 Principles of Critical Realist Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
Origins
Main characteristics
Relationship to critical theory
The critic’s standpoint
Limitations of the Critical Realist paradigm
Conclusion
Characteristic steps of the paradigm
Review questions
Further reading
Notes
8 The Critical Realist Research Paradigm in Action
Chapter summary
1 Gender and Environmentalism
Introduction
The problem
Research questions
Review of extant literature
A possible explanation
Possible explanatory mechanisms
Concepts
Establishing and confirming the model
Summary
2 Why Leaders’ Broader Experiences Support Better Outcomes of First Responders in Crises
Introduction
Road map for this illustration
The phenomenon of interest and the research problem
Context and regularity
Purpose and population
Relevant literature
Construct a causal mechanism
Evidence from data and analysis
When to stop
Notes
9 Multiple Paradigm Research
Chapter summary
Introduction
Two types of multi-paradigm research
Two illustrations
1 Sexual Abuse of Children and Young People in the Catholic Church
Introduction
Research questions
Choice of paradigms to answer three research questions
2 Crisis Leadership: A Multi-Paradigm Research Programme
Notes
10 And Another Thing . . .
Chapter summary
Introduction
The neglected craft of theory construction
Creative theoretical imagination
A porous paradigm boundary
Influences on choice of research paradigm
Conclusion
Appendix: Review Questions
Starting questions relevant to all three research paradigms
Questions peculiar to the Neo-Positive research paradigm
Questions peculiar to the Interpretive research paradigm
Questions peculiar to the Critical Realist research paradigm
Concluding questions common to all three research paradigms
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Figures
7.1 Realist explanations of regularities
8.1 A causal mechanism in context
8.2 Five types of interrelated reasoning resources
Tables
2.1 Differences and similarities between the typified research paradigms
2.2 Differences and similarities between the three research paradigms in the investigation of institutional sexual abuse of children and young people
6.1 Opposite types of work combined for a common purpose
6.2 Illustration of coding that identified ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-brain’ types of work
6.3 Deconstruction of abstracted categories and their everyday typifications of experience-based influences on leaders’ repertoire
6.4 Typology of experienced-based influences on leaders’ repertoire as a result of abductively constructing types from components of meaning
6.5 Co-frequency of types of experiential influences referred to by leaders in ‘well-handled’ and ‘poorly handled’ responses to bushfire emergencies
6.6 Co-occurrence of types of influences that are most distinct or most similar across ‘well-handled’ and ‘poorly handled’ responses to bushfire emergencies
6.7 Signature characteristics of types of leader orientation
6.8 Co-frequencies of leader orientations in ‘well handled’ and ‘poorly handled’ responses
6.9 Co-occurrences of experiential influences and leader orientations in cases of ‘well-handled’ and ‘poorly handled’ responses
6.10 Co-frequency of leader orientations in each sampled bushfire emergency
6.11 Type characteristics most and least suited to leadership of effective bushfire responses
7.1 Domains of reality
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Also from Polity
Approaches to Social Enquiry, 2nd edition, Norman Blaikie (2007)
Designing Social Research, 2nd edition, Norman Blaikie (2010)
Social Research
Paradigms in Action
Norman Blaikie and Jan Priest
polity
Copyright © Norman Blaikie and Jan Priest 2017
The right of Norman Blaikie and Jan Priest to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2017 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1540-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Acknowledgements
Any work of this kind is based on intellectual influences, inputs and contributions from a variety of sources over many decades. We are grateful to countless methodologists and social researchers, students and colleagues, research participants and sponsors, who, over the years, have provided useful ideas and intellectual resources, stimulation and challenges, opportunities and support which have proven valuable in shaping our orientations towards, knowledge of, and skills for doing social research.
We are particularly indebted to Erica Hallebone who travelled with us during the planning phase and in the early stage of writing this book. She made significant contributions to the setting of its aims and provided insightful comments on early drafts. In particular, the selection of the illustration on the institutional sexual abuse of children and young people was hers, and she was responsible for its initial draft.
We also wish to acknowledge the material support provided by the Graduate School of Business and Law at Melbourne’s RMIT University and the support of InfoServ Pty Ltd for access to its research and practice files.
Introduction
‘[T]he purpose of social enquiry is to produce ever more adequate knowledge … [and] ever more powerful explanations of social phenomena.’
Layder 1998: 9
What kind of book is this?
The aim of this book is to contribute to what Layder has identified as the purpose of social inquiry. While this purpose may be regarded as uncontroversial, its achievement is a constant challenge – ‘to produce ever more adequate knowledge’ and ‘ever more powerful explanations’. The ultimate challenge for social researchers is to go beyond description to explanation; to be able to say why something is as it is or is happening that way, not just what exists or is going on. This book presents and illustrates three major ways in which this can be achieved in the social sciences.
It is important to state at the outset that this is not a standard research methods textbook. It differs from such books in a number of important ways. First, it makes only passing references to the techniques that are currently used to collect, generate or analyse data. Secondly, it deals with a range of decisions that have to be made before a researcher gets to the point of needing to think about data. It is our view that there is a tendency in many social research methods textbooks to neglect or not deal adequately with many if not most of these decisions.
What this book does is pick up and develop themes that have been expounded in its two forerunners, Approaches to Social Enquiry
(Blaikie 2007) and Designing Social Research (Blaikie 2010). Both of these books identified a number of research paradigms, classical and contemporary, which have dominated the social sciences from their beginnings. However, what these two books did not do was to show what roles these paradigms play in social research. The unique feature of this third book is that it makes this connection and explains, with illustrations, how research paradigms can be used in practice.
What are its key themes?
There are two key themes: that successful social research requires much more than collecting, generating and analysing data; and that moving beyond description to explanation is the most challenging aspect of social research.1
While social researchers must have the skills to be able to produce and manipulate data, many prior steps and decisions have to be taken before an appropriate selection of methods can be made. In particular, a researcher has to be clear about the research question(s) to be investigated, a choice has to be made between different assumptions about the nature of the social reality being studied, and a decision has to be made about how knowledge of that reality can be generated – about which logic of inquiry will be used to answer the research question(s).
The foundation of an investigation of any social phenomenon is an adequate description of what exists, of what is going on and, maybe, of how it is changing. Description requires taking an array of specific pieces of data and producing generalizations from them. For example, a research topic may be concerned with the nature and extent of homelessness, and the problem to be investigated may be who these people are and the circumstances that led them to this situation. Hence, the research requires descriptions of the characteristics of these people and of their biographies and contexts.
Achieving appropriate descriptions can be challenging and requires a great deal of background knowledge and research skills. For some research problems, description may be all that is required. This is the case in the above example. However, if the researcher added another research question – Why have these people become homeless? – the complexity of the research will have been considerably elevated. The ultimate challenge for a social researcher is to be able to explain what exists or what is happening. Furthermore, without adequate explanations, it is not possible to begin to find solutions to social problems. Description alone may help to make a problem more intelligible but cannot suggest reliable solutions.
We believe that a major weakness in much contemporary social research is that the nature of social explanation, and how it can be achieved, is not well understood. It is for this reason that this book explores social research through the prisms of three alternative research paradigms. Each paradigm provides a strategy for explaining social phenomena. The main task for a researcher is to select the paradigm that is judged most likely to produce the desired explanation to answer a ‘why’ research question.
A choice of paradigm entails making a set of fundamental philosophical assumptions. While this might sound like an unnecessary part of social research, we believe that all researchers make such assumptions, whether or not it is recognized. These assumptions need to be made explicit and all elements of a research design made consistent with them. When they are not articulated, consumers of the research do not have the whole story and cannot readily compare the findings with other research on the same topic. Hence, it is our conviction that to be able to make important and useful contributions to knowledge of social life it is necessary to conduct research with eyes philosophically wide open. This requires researchers to be fully aware of the assumptions that they are making, and have to make.
Another vital aspect of arriving at explanations of social life is the need for a creative theoretical imagination. This cannot be achieved by following a set of rules or procedures. Like all forms of creativity, it requires a great deal of background knowledge and an ability to make connections and to see possibilities. In fact, bringing together ideas that are not normally related can stimulate creative thinking. In social research, this creativity is disciplined by the use of different logics of inquiry for moving beyond descriptions to explanations. Because theories start out as untested ideas, a process is necessary to establish whether a particular theory is an adequate explanation. The three paradigms that we discuss entail the use of very different logics of inquiry, different ways of producing potential explanations and testing them. The role of creativity in social research is noted with references in chapter 10. The intervening chapters elaborate the principles, procedures and practical use of the research paradigms.
Why is the book structured this way?
As well as dealing with these themes, the book takes the reader through a discussion of research planning and practice. It focuses particularly on the characteristics of, and differences between, the three research paradigms, including the ways in which they lead to different research processes and outcomes. In order to deal with these complexities in an intelligible and manageable way, the book is structured as a set of logically distinct but interrelated steps.
Chapters 1
and
2
introduce important social research issues, challenges and themes that are developed throughout the book.
Chapters 3
to
8
form three pairs. The first of each pair outlines and discusses the principles of one of the typified research paradigms, including historical, philosophical and theoretical elements, and then highlights how the paradigm is used. The second chapter in the pair provides two illustrations of the paradigm in action, one basic and one more advanced. As the aim of the illustrations is to indicate how the research paradigms can be used in practice, they are presented schematically rather than using an academic-journal structure. All are based on the authors’ research but modifications have been made to satisfy this aim, and some parts are research designs rather than research reports.
Chapter 9
discusses how the research paradigms can be used in combinations, either in parallel or in sequence, and then provides two brief research illustrations of multi-paradigm research.
By way of review, the final chapter returns to the issues of theory construction and paradigm choice: it discusses the complex and creative processes involved in both constructing testable theories and in developing theory in a bottom-up manner; it refers to a source of ideas that can stimulate creativity in social research; it raises questions about the relationships between two of the research paradigms; and returns to the influences and processes that lead to the choice of a particular research paradigm.
The book concludes with an Appendix of review questions, chapter endnotes and the usual bibliography and index.
Readers wanting to further explore the three paradigms in action or aspects of the crisis leadership illustrations may go to
www.InfoServ.com.au
and select appropriate menu items.
Throughout this book, the reader will be alerted to specific additional content at this website wherever the address www.InfoServ.com.au appears.
Because of its structure, this book should be read, at least initially, like a novel, by starting at the beginning and working through the chapters systematically.
Notes
1
. Blaikie (2003) has dealt with this latter theme in the limited context of the analysis of quantitative data. Here, the approach is theoretical and logical, rather than data centred.
1Fundamental Choices in Social Research
Chapter summary
The book’s philosophical and methodological foundations are outlined using the following questions.
What is social research?
What is a research paradigm?
What have research paradigms got to do with social research?
Why these three paradigms?
What are logics of inquiry?
What is the relationship between research paradigms and logic of inquiry?
The ubiquitous role of social actors’ and social researchers’ worldviews is elaborated, particularly how social researchers should regard social actors’ worldviews.
Weaknesses in current approaches to the processes by which new knowledge is generated are briefly discussed.
Arguments are presented in support of the core theme: the choice of research paradigm is more important than the choice of research methods, and that this choice needs to be conscious and explicit.
Introduction
A superficial glance at popular research methods texts, and published research, reveals that there is an underlying concern about whether quantitative or qualitative methods should be used. Over recent decades, there has been a movement from the defence of one type of method to a willingness to use either type where appropriate. Now the trend is to deliberately use both types together, as mixed methods, and researchers are encouraged to triangulate a variety of methods (see Blaikie 1991 for a critique of naive uses of triangulation).
An appropriate form of mixed methods is to be encouraged. Throughout the book, we support the idea of using a variety of methods in social research. However, we propose to shift the primary consideration to research paradigms and how they can be used singly or in combination. To make this shift it is necessary to recognize the role that worldviews play, not only in everyday life but also in social research.
What are the book’s philosophical and methodological foundations?
What is social research?
Social research is about solving problems, which include both intellectual puzzles and practical problems. As Robert Merton stated many years ago, ‘every problem in a science involves a question’ (Merton 1959b: x). Social scientists want to be able to describe, understand and explain puzzling aspects of social life. They may also want to try to influence or change some features of a social situation. We want to know what is going on, why it is happening and, maybe, how it could be different (see Blaikie 2010: 10–11 for a ‘manifesto of social research’).
In order to research a problem, it must be translated into one or more research questions – ‘what’, ‘why’ and/or ‘how’ questions. (For a detailed discussion of research questions, see Blaikie 2010: 58–69). Some studies may only require one research question while others may need a set of questions. Some studies may concentrate on ‘what’ questions while others may also include ‘why’ questions. It is also possible to include all three types of research questions. Just how many and what types of questions will be entertained depends on the nature and complexity of the research problem and, more importantly, how much of it the researcher wishes to investigate.
Once a research problem is defined, and research questions established, it is then necessary to begin to think about all the other decisions that have to be made in order to answer the research questions. These include:
the research paradigm or paradigms to be adopted, including the logic or logics of inquiry;
the context in which the research will be conducted;
the concepts and theories that will be used;
who or what will be the sources of data;
how selections will be made from these sources;
what kind(s) of data will be required;
how the data will be collected/generated and analysed; and • how the findings will be communicated (see Blaikie 2010).
It is important to stress that, while this series of decisions is set out here as a linear sequence, in practice the research problem, research questions and the context of the research may emerge, or need to be revisited, as work proceeds. Whether this happens depends to a large extent on which research paradigm is adopted. Therefore, the most important decision in this list is the point of view from which the research will be conducted. This involves the selection of one or more research paradigms, with their philosophical assumptions and associated logics of inquiry.
What is a research paradigm?
Thomas Kuhn (1962) is responsible for introducing the concept of ‘paradigm’ into philosophical, scientific and everyday discourse. It found its way into sociology in the 1970s (Friedrichs 1970) and debates about the relative merits of paradigms continued for decades (see e.g. Lincoln and Guba 1985; Guba 1990; see also Lakatos 1970; Masterman 1970; Barnes 1982).
Kuhn (1970a) argued that scientific communities share a paradigm, or ‘discipline matrix’, which consists of views of the nature of reality (ontological assumptions), concepts, theories and techniques of investigation that are regarded as appropriate (epistemology), and examples of previous scientific achievements that provide models (exemplars) for scientific practice. Our use of ‘paradigm’ is consistent with Kuhn’s views.
According to Kuhn, the adherents to rival paradigms live in different worlds. As their concepts, theories and practices are based on different ontological and epistemological assumptions, it is difficult for adherents to different paradigms to communicate effectively; there is no common vocabulary with shared meanings, and there is no neutral ground from which to adjudicate the merits of the paradigms or their products. While Kuhn may have somewhat overstated the case for the incommensurability of paradigms, the relevance of paradigms to research cannot be overstated.
The role of paradigms in the natural sciences has been well demonstrated by Kuhn. He saw disciplines in the natural sciences as being dominated by a single paradigm that, over time, is replaced by another, usually in a slow revolution. However, the social sciences are characterized by concurrent, competing research paradigms. It is the research paradigms that currently dominate the social sciences, and that we believe to be the most useful for social researchers, that are the focus of this book.
The idea that social theories can be seen as adopting different points of view is now well established. Consult any review of social theories and you will be confronted by an array of philosophical and theoretical perspectives. The defining characteristics of these perspectives are the assumptions made about the nature of social reality (ontology) and the basis of social order.
The key point is that different theoretical perspectives provide different kinds of explanations of social life. However, social researchers have to go further than this; they need another set of assumptions; epistemological assumptions that indicate how knowledge of this (assumed) social reality can be obtained. Social researchers have to select and argue for assumptions that are judged to be the most appropriate for investigating the problem at hand. They have to decide on the best way to obtain the knowledge necessary to answer research question(s).
To reiterate, the key feature of a research paradigm is its ontological and epistemological assumptions. In any attempt to produce new knowledge about social life, it is vital that the choice of these assumptions be made explicit. Then the descriptions, understanding and explanations produced from the point of view of a particular research paradigm can be evaluated in terms of those assumptions and sense made of different findings from research conducted from different points of view.
Two important arguments that run through the book are: paradigms are unavoidable in research; and loyalty to one paradigm is both unnecessary and undesirable. Research paradigms offer alternative ways of addressing research problems; they are like different tools for different tasks. Rather than declaring allegiance to only one, and using it to address every research problem, research paradigms provide a range of possible ways of approaching and investigating a research problem. This choice is not about methods of investigation but about ontological and epistemological assumptions and logics of inquiry. The challenge is to select a paradigm that will provide the greatest chance of answering a research question, given the entailed assumptions.1
What have research paradigms got to do with social research?
In spite of all the arguments and claims made that researchers should be ‘objective’, and that research is used to produce truths about the social world, it is our view that it is not possible to adopt a neutral point of view to achieve this; there is no alternative but to view the social world from somewhere. As a consequence, all knowledge generated by social research is tentative because it is conducted from a particular point of view. This has an influence on:
the kinds of problems that are selected for research;
how they are defined;
how they are investigated; and
how the products of investigation may be understood and used.
The question arises as to whether the need for researchers to adopt a point of view in social research jeopardizes the possibility of making useful contributions to knowledge. The purists might argue that to allow such a subjective element to enter into the research process is to destroy the credibility of the findings. It is certainly true that adopting a point of view affects the value of contributions to knowledge by putting limits on their utility; limits on what is seen and discovered, on what is included and excluded from consideration. However, the critical question is: have we any alternative?
When complex problems are researched, it is likely that more than one research paradigm will need to be used. While the notion of a single truth must be abandoned in the social sciences, what a multi-paradigm approach produces is the possibility of increasing the comprehensiveness of knowledge.
There is a close relationship between how the social world is viewed and the choices available for advancing knowledge of that world, i.e. between ontological and epistemological assumptions. Blaikie (2010: 92–5) has set out six dominant types of both ontological and epistemological assumptions and has shown how they are related. Not all of these are relevant to the three research paradigms being considered here.
It should now be obvious that the decisions about methods of data collection and analysis occur late in the research design process and are largely determined by the research question(s) and the context of the research. However, as we shall see, the extent to which the choice of methods is influenced by the ontological and epistemological assumptions adopted is an open question.
Another aspect of the role of these assumptions needs to be highlighted here. Users of social research approach findings from a point of view and they will ‘appropriate’ findings for their own purposes, within their point of view. Users are bound to pay attention to different things; to ‘see or not see’ particular outcomes. Also, their interpretation of the findings may be rather different from what the researcher intended or assumed would occur. If the aim is to use research findings for policy development, they may be interpreted and applied in quite different ways.
In adopting a point of view, we need to have reasons for what is included and excluded. When research paradigms are adopted explicitly, rather than taken for granted, they expose this.
Why these three paradigms?
The literature on theoretical perspectives (e.g. Ritzer and Stepnisky 2013) and, more particularly, on research paradigms, reveals a wide array of alternatives. For example, Blaikie (2007, 2010) has discussed four classical paradigms (positivism, critical rationalism, classical hermeneutics and interpretivism) and six contemporary paradigms (critical theory, ethnomethodology, social/critical realism, contemporary hermeneutics, structuration theory and feminism). Baronov (2015) has also reviewed a similar range of paradigms, including embryonic positivism, logical positivism, post-positivism, structuralism, hermeneutics, anti-foundationalism and pragmatism. However, it should be noted that not all these paradigms can be regarded as ‘research’ paradigms; they have philosophical and theoretical components but are not generally articulated into research practice.
Given that the core idea in this book is how to put research paradigms into practice, we have reduced these paradigms to just three. The aim has been to create a user-friendly set of paradigms that relate to current research traditions and that are also practical and manageable while still being scholarly. However, these three paradigms can be traced back to the approaches to social inquiry advocated by the three main founders of sociology, Durkheim, Weber and Marx, and this provides some legitimacy for working with them.
The classic positivist paradigm has been dropped but an updated version, with some of the same elements modified to overcome its deficiencies, is included. The second paradigm incorporates elements of the classic version of interpretivism advocated by Weber, as well as contributions from hermeneutics and structuration theory. The third paradigm draws mainly on the more recent developments in realist social science and is also known as ‘scientific realism’.
These three paradigms must be regarded as typifications, as abstractions that bring together similarities and recognize differences. They are not intended to be prescriptive. Readers who wish to use other paradigms are encouraged to apply our scheme and template to elaborate them into research practice. However, it is necessary to ensure that the philosophical assumptions adopted (ontological and epistemological) are compatible and are made explicit, and that other research design decisions are consistent with them.
We recognize that other paradigms are likely to emerge and are being advocated (see, for example, the ‘new materialism’ advocated by Fox and Alldred (2015) and others, with its machine ontology and the behaviour and affects of impersonal assemblages). However, an examination of the fashions in social theory over the past seven decades indicates that many do not last very long. We believe that the traditions on which our three are based have persisted long enough to be taken seriously.
We also recognize a current trend to adopt an eclectic and pragmatic approach to social research, be it in the use of mixed methods or in this ‘new materialism’. (This is discussed in more detail later in this chapter, pp. 20–1) This trend seems to be designed to avoid any consideration of many of the things we argue for in this book, particularly the recognition of the role of philosophical assumptions.
What are logics of inquiry?
In order to answer research questions, a decision has to be made about where to start and what steps to follow. The different starting points and steps are referred to here as ‘logics of inquiry’ and have been discussed elsewhere as ‘research strategies’ (see Blaikie 2007: 8–10; 2010: 80–92).
Four main logics of inquiry are available: inductive, deductive, abductive and retroductive. Inductive logic produces generalizations from data; deductive logic involves the construction of theories and the testing of them by gathering and analysing data; abductive logic generates social scientific accounts from everyday accounts of social life; and retroductive logic proposes underlying explanatory mechanisms and/or structures and tries to establish their existence.
Inductive
logic starts with data about the characteristics associated with some phenomenon of interest; general descriptions, including patterns (as regularities or associations between concepts), are derived from these data, and used particularly to answer ‘what’ research questions.
Deductive
logic begins with regularities that have previously been identified and that need to be explained; a theory that might offer an explanation is either borrowed or constructed, one or more hypotheses are deduced, and these are then tested by matching them against some data.
Abductive
logic starts by discovering the lay concepts, meanings and motives that social actors use in the area of social life under investigation and, from the recording of these everyday accounts, technical or social scientific accounts are produced by an iterative process of typification
2
and abstraction, each of which can involve other logics, such as iterations using induction and deduction. The movement is from lay descriptions and explanations to social scientific descriptions and explanations.
In
retroductive
logic, characteristics of a regularity are documented and modelled, using a combination of
inductive
and
deductive
logic; a possible mechanism is developed and hypothesized, its context of operation defined and efforts made to establish whether the mechanism exists. It is a case of inferentially working back from a known regularity to an unknown explanatory mechanism.
What is the relationship between research paradigms and logics of inquiry?
The choice of a particular research paradigm entails a choice of a particular logic of inquiry. However, there are four logics and only three paradigms. This brings us to the key role that paradigms play in social research. Each research paradigm provides a particular way of explaining social phenomena by answering ‘why’ research questions, and this is largely determined by its dominant logic of inquiry.
Neo-Positivism principally uses deductive logicInterpretivism principally uses abductive logicCritical Realism principally uses retroductive logic
The reason why each research paradigm is not exclusively associated with just one logic of inquiry is that steps in the processes involved in producing explanations can involve the informal use of more than one logic. This informal use is part of a researcher’s thinking processes, particularly during the stages when creativity is required. For example, an explanatory idea may tentatively be entertained and its consequences explored in mental experiments, requiring the use of both inductive and deductive thinking. Hence, these two logics of inquiry can stand in their own right as ways of answering research questions, and they can also play the role of under-labourers in the use of both abductive and retroductive logics. However, in the end, a dominant logic is used in the formal process of knowledge generation. We shall come back to these issues in later chapters.
It is important to note that the research paradigms are not required to answer ‘what’ research questions, although both ontological and epistemological assumptions are involved. ‘What’ questions need descriptions to answer them; descriptions of some characteristic of, or regularity in, some social phenomenon. A logic of inquiry is needed to do this and the predominant logic here is induction. However, as we shall see, in certain circumstances, abductive logic can also be used to produce descriptions as well as to generate theory.
‘Why’ questions are posed about some established regularity, most likely one that was discovered in answering a prior ‘what’ question. ‘Why’ questions need some form of theorizing to answer them, and this is where the logics of deduction, abduction and retroduction come into their own.
To anticipate an illustration that will be presented in chapter 4, a research project might begin with the question: ‘What is the form of the relationship between age and environmentalism?’ (This question presumes there is one.) Let us assume that an investigation found the relationship to be linear and negative, with the highest level of environmental concern and action being amongst youth, and the lowest level amongst the elderly. This relationship between these two concepts, age and environmentalism, is a regularity or pattern.
How do we answer this ‘what’ question? One way is to translate these two concepts into variables, measure them quantitatively and then look for a statistical relationship between them. A logic of inquiry is involved here – it is induction – as the pattern of association between these two concepts is derived from data collected, say, from a sample of individuals. From a set of particulars about a number of individuals, a generalization is produced that summarizes the results obtained from these individuals into a pattern or an association between the two concepts.
Another way to answer this question would be to do in-depth interviews with a sample of people covering all ages. Assuming that the data remain qualitative, as text rather than numbers, statistical generalization is not possible. Any patterns in the data will be discursively described using abductive logic. An elaboration of this logic will be provided in later chapters.
Then we come to the more difficult question: ‘Why does this relationship exist?’ To answer this, we need to choose one of the research paradigms, each of which entails a different combination of ontological and epistemological assumptions.
To reiterate: choice of research paradigm is definitely required for answering ‘why’ research questions, but is not required to answer ‘what’ questions. However, choice of assumptions is required in both cases. ‘What’ questions can be answered using inductive logic, and also abductive logic, and answering ‘why’ questions requires a choice to be made between deductive, abductive and retroductive logics. The choice of research paradigm will determine which assumptions are adopted (see Table 2.1).
Worldviews are everywhere
Social actors’ worldviews
Human beings view and interpret the world around them, as well as their place in it, from a variety of points of view or perspectives. We cannot avoid doing so. How an individual views the social world is determined by a complex set of factors that can include: family, community and society of origin; life trajectory and experiences; level of self-awareness; the occupations and career(s) that we take up; the social relationships that we develop; and, of course, the period of history in which we live. The extent to which we freely choose the view of the world we adopt is an interesting question, but it is probably less free than we might like to think.
These everyday points of view are sometimes called ‘worldviews’, although the ‘world’ that is ‘viewed’ may be quite limited. Over time, our worldview can change as a result of new and different influences.
Social actors invariably take their view of the world for granted and may defend it in the face of others as being objectively true and legitimate. Social researchers are not immune from these tendencies!
How should researchers regard social actors’ worldviews?
The social worlds studied by social researchers were inherited from the research participants’ predecessors and are continually reconstructed and maintained by them. Social researchers have a choice as to how much attention they give to the way research participants view their social world and their place in it. Researchers have two fundamental alternatives: to conduct research from the outside or the inside – top-down or bottom-up.
In the outside/top-down position, participants’ points of view are largely ignored and research is conducted using the researcher’s chosen or assumed point of view. This latter position might be supported by an argument that, as a result of their education and training, and their capacity for detachment, social researchers are in a much better position than social participants to be able to describe and explain what is happening in any social world. Social participants only have their limited, perhaps distorted, points of view to go on, while researchers have the benefit of being able to draw on a large body of social scientific knowledge.
In the other major alternative, the inside/bottom-up position, a social researcher endeavours to view a social world from the participants’ points of view, at least in the early stages of the research. The understanding gained can then be used as an ingredient in the accounts that a researcher produces. However, the ability of any outsider to grasp the participants’ points of view is a matter of degree. It requires intensive engagement with them, usually over an extended period of time. The only sure way to fully achieve this is to become part of that social world. The key point is that participants’ points of view are taken seriously as being what their social world is for them; and the researcher does not prejudge it.
Regardless of whether social researchers adopt a top-down or bottom-up stance, what they produce are social constructions, perhaps more correctly sociological constructions. These differ from everyday social constructions in their nature and purpose but are constructions nevertheless. When the top-down stance is adopted, the construction will be entirely from the researcher’s point of view. When the bottom-up stance is adopted, the construction will have the participants’ social constructions as its fundamental ingredients. The researcher cannot simply report participants’ points of view; the reporting process is also an interpretive one, from a point of view. However, a researcher has considerable control over the balance of influence of the two points of view.
Therefore, the extremes in the choice that social researchers make about how to deal with participants’ points of view range from complete detachment to complete immersion. The three research paradigms differ in the way they deal with this issue, each sitting somewhere along this continuum. Hence, the choice of research paradigm determines the researcher’s stance vis-à-vis participants’ points of view.
The traditional view of ‘the scientific method’ is that everything should be done to eliminate researchers’ ‘subjective’ influences. As we shall see in later chapters, this is just not possible. The alternative is to accept that social scientists approach research from some point of view; they have to stand somewhere. The point of view adopted should be made explicit and the role that this plays should be acknowledged.
Of course, social researchers are also social actors, and they also live in specialized social worlds that can have dominant points of view. However, unlike in everyday life, social researchers can consciously choose to adopt one or more points of view, i.e. research paradigms, as they endeavour to answer research questions.
Current attempts to recognize the role of researchers’ worldviews
While philosophical assumptions (ontological and epistemological), as worldviews or paradigms, are referred to in some textbooks, what is generally missing is an explicit recognition and understanding of the role they play not only in the framing of research problems but also in how research problems are investigated.
Creswell (2014) has referred to four worldviews, three of which resonate with ours, but he and Plano-Clark (Creswell and Plano-Clark 2011) have a preference for a fourth, the pragmatic worldview. They argued (2011: 50) that researchers need to acknowledge the worldview they bring to a research project, identify its components and relate them to the mixture of methods being used. This is a tall order for novice researchers, particularly when no guidance is offered as to how this is to be done. In fact, the authors reveal their own insecurities about this aspect of social research: ‘One of the most confusing issues for individuals designing a mixed-method study is whether to discuss the philosophical foundations and assumptions that provide a framework for conducting their studies … and their proposals and reports’ (2011: 278). Yes, it can be confusing, and we are here to help!
Punch (2015) identified two paradigms: positive and interpretive/ constructivist. This oversimplified classification may be attractive to researchers who prefer not to be overwhelmed with more complex categories and a more nuanced discussion, but this type of oversimplification is highly unsatisfactory to say the least. In the end, Punch, like so many other authors, discussed social research in terms of the crude quantitative/qualitative dichotomy and associated the former with the positive paradigm and the latter with the interpretive/ constructive.
Over many editions, Neuman (2014) has also made a gesture in this direction by proposing three approaches to social research: positive social science, interpretive social science and critical social science. For Neuman, the positive approach emphasizes the discovery of causal laws involving careful observation and value-free research, the interpretive approach emphasizes meaningful social action, socially constructed meaning and value relativism,3 and the critical approach places emphasis on combating surface-level distortions, while also recognizing multiple levels of reality and value-based activism for human empowerment.
Neuman claimed that few academic researchers adopt the critical approach. He also proposed two more embryonic approaches, which he regarded as not yet fully-fledged paradigms; feminist research and post-modern research. Apart from being broader classifications, these latter two categories are not mutually exclusive from the other three; amongst other things, feminist research is explicitly critical, and post-modernism just takes the relativizing element, which Neuman attributes to the interpretive approach, much further. If these two categories are to be included, then other candidates should be considered as well.
Our solution is to regard what we call research paradigms as typifications, as abstractions from the wide range of philosophical and methodological approaches discussed in the literature (see e.g. Blaikie 2007: 109–205; 2010: 96–104) and used in practice. This range has been reduced to three to facilitate understanding of the complexities and to make their use manageable. In the process, we are quite explicit about the principles on which each paradigm is based and how they can be used in practice.
Generating new knowledge
The major weakness in most if not all research methods textbooks is a lack of attention to the processes by which new social science knowledge is produced and tested and, in particular, the logics of inquiry that are used to bring explanatory ideas and data together. In this regard, Neuman referred to deduction as characteristic of the positive approach, and abduction gets a brief mention in the critical approach, but just why and what role they play is unclear; the other two logics that we regard as essential – induction and retroduction – are not mentioned.
Neuman (2014) devoted the whole of chapter 4 to the elaboration and discussion of these approaches, but that is as far as it goes; they are not connected with or used in the following discussion of research methods; the qualitative/qualitative dichotomy takes over. The same is true for the discussion of theory and research in chapter 3. While stating that top-quality research needs theory (2014: 88), the researcher is left to her or his own devices to work out the connections of research approaches (paradigms) and theory to research practice.
Neuman’s books on social research methods have much to commend them (some years ago, one author thought an earlier edition was worthy of being set as a text in his research methods course), particularly in giving a place to philosophical assumptions and theory in social research. However, there are a number of important missing links in his research chain. In contrast, many textbooks on social research methods just ignore these issues, and even the best of them do not go far enough in making the connections and helping researchers build these fundamental elements into their research practice.
While the classification of research paradigms used by us has a superficial resemblance to Neuman’s approaches to social research, we elaborate a full spectrum of characteristics of each paradigm, including philosophical and methodological positions, and pay particular attention to how the paradigms can be used. Apart from an earlier work in business and management research by Hallebone and Priest (2009), no other book on the market contrasts research practice in terms of paradigmatic differences in ontology and epistemology, logic of inquiry and methods.
Why the choice of research paradigm is more important than the choice of research methods
The now common practice of characterizing social research as being either quantitative or qualitative (see, e.g. Bryman 1988; Kaplan 2004; Denzin and Lincoln 2011; Neuman 2014; Punch 2014) has, more recently, had a third mixed category added (e.g. Brannen 1992, 2005; Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998, 2010; Bryman 2006b, 2007; Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009; Creswell and Plano-Clark 2011; Creswell 2013, 2014, 2015; Plano-Clark and Ivankova 2015). Some writers go even further and refer to the three categories of methods – qualitative, quantitative and mixed – as research paradigms. In other words, what began as a choice between working with words or numbers, or working with both, is now used to distinguish fundamentally different approaches to social research (e.g. Bryman 1988; Brannen 1992, 2005).
What this trend has done is to elevate to a fundamental level a feature of data collection and analysis that is secondary when compared with the fundamental choice between research paradigms, between ontological and epistemological assumptions and logics of inquiry. It is our view that decisions about the latter have to be made before a choice of methods can be made.
The move to promote the use of mixed methods arose in the wake of the paradigm wars that raged in sociology, particularly in the last quarter of last century (such as between positivism, interpretivism, Marxism, and the like), and sometimes between related theoretical perspectives (such as structural-functionalism, symbolic interactionism, conflict theory and exchange theory). This move towards a focus on the legitimacy of all types of social research methods was seen as providing some kind of rapprochement between positions that had been vehemently defended and were regarded by some as being incompatible (e.g. Bryman 2006a, 2014: 121; Greene 2007). However, it is difficult to see how encouraging researchers to use both kinds of methods, either singly or in some combination, provides a way of dealing with the much more fundamental choices that need to be made.
What this move seems to have encouraged is a pragmatic approach to research in which philosophical and methodological complexities are downplayed or sidestepped entirely. This can be seen, for example, in Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2005), when they argued that using both quantitative and qualitative methods makes for pragmatic researchers, and in Creswell (2014) and Creswell and Plano-Clark (2011) when they introduced a pragmatic worldview (read ‘research paradigm’ in our parlance) alongside post-positive (read Neo-Positive), social constructivist (read Interpretive paradigm) and advocacy and participation (partly related to our Critical Realist paradigm). They expressed a preference for this pragmatic position, so it would seem, to avoid the complexities of having to address the fundamental differences between these other paradigms when methods are mixed within a research project. Greene (2007) went a step further and argued that mixed-method research should be guided by pragmatism, as traditional paradigms are no longer relevant. Pragmatism is seen as a new emerging paradigm along with ‘scientific or critical realism’ and ‘transformative emancipation’. (As we shall see in chapter 7, the latter is associated with critical theory, which is not a research paradigm as such, and is also present in some versions of Critical Realism.) We totally reject this trend.
Rather than follow any of the traditions that dominate the social research literature at present, particularly those that conflate all aspects of social research into the quantitative/qualitative dichotomy, and that downplay or fudge their way through fundamental issues in the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences, we focus attention on the differences between research paradigms. This might be seen by some as a retrograde step, back to the era of paradigm wars. However, our intention is just the opposite. By identifying the differences, we wish to highlight the fundamental choices that researchers now have in how they attempt to generate new knowledge and, in particular, how they can offer explanations for puzzling aspects of social life.
