Theoretical frameworks and ontological position
Social inquiry can be approached in several different ways, and researchers will have to select between varieties of approaches. Whilst often making a choice on practical grounds, they must also understand the theoretical and philosophical ideas on which the research is based.
Approaches to social inquiry consist not only of the procedures of sampling, data collection and analysis, but they are rooted in particular ideas about the world and the nature of knowledge which sometimes reflect conflicting and competing views about social reality. Some of these positions towards the social world are concerned with the very nature of reality and existence (ontology). From this, basic assumptions about knowledge arise: epistemology is the theory of knowledge and is concerned with the question of what counts as valid knowledge. Methodology refers to the principles and ideas on which researchers base their procedures and strategies (methods). To assist in understanding the background to the interpretive/descriptive approach to research, the following section will describe epistemological and methodological ideas about the rise and development of qualitative research. (See the discussion in the book by Willis (2007), Chapters 1 and 2 in particular.)
Conflict and tension between different schools of social science have been in existence for a long time. Several sets of assumptions underlie social research; in their most basic form they describe the dichotomy between the positivist and the interpretivist (interpretive) paradigms (Bryman, 2008).
In the early days of positivism, the focus was on the methods of natural science that became a model for the social sciences such as psychology and sociology. Interpretivists stressed that human beings differ from the material world and the distinction between humans and matter should be reflected in the methods of investigation. Much social research developed from these ideas. Qualitative research was critical of the natural science model and a reaction against the tenets of this model. Researchers held a ‘separatist’ position and believed the world views of qualitative and quantitative researchers to be incompatible. They initially rejected a mix of the two (Murphy and Dingwall, 2001).
Social scientists continue to raise the paradigm debate but stress that simplistic polarisation between positivist and qualitative inquiry will not do. Atkinson (1995), in particular, criticised the use of the concept of the term paradigm and the ‘paradigm mentality’. Health researchers, too, accused their professions of unwarranted ‘paradigmatic thinking’ and maintain that it restricts rather than extends knowledge (Thorne et al., 1999). Nevertheless, qualitative researchers are still defensive of their methodology and tend to develop arguments against other approaches. Indeed, they sometimes do that of which they accuse quantitative researchers and seem to be absolutist in their statements and uncritical of their own approach.
The natural science model: positivism, objectivism and value neutrality
From the nineteenth century onwards, the traditional and favoured approaches to social and behavioural research were quantitative. Quantitative research has its root in the positivist and early natural science model that has influenced social science throughout the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. The description that follows here is core to the debate.
Positivism was an approach to science based on a belief in universal laws and attempts to present an objective picture of the world. Positivists followed the natural science approach by testing theories and hypotheses. The methods of natural – in particular physical – science stem from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Comte (1798–1857), the French philosopher who created the terms ‘positivism’ and ‘sociology’, suggested that the emerging social sciences must proceed in the same way as natural science by adopting natural science research methods.
One of the traits of this type of research is the quest for objectivity and distance between researcher and those studied so that biases can be avoided. Investigators searched for patterns and regularities and believed that universal laws and rules, or law-like generalities, exist for human action. Behaviour could be predicted, so they believed, on the basis of these laws. Researchers thought that findings would and should be generalisable to all similar situations and settings. Even today many researchers think that numerical measurement, statistical analysis and the search for cause and effect lie at the heart of much research, and of course, that is so. Not many researchers now feel that detachment and objectivity are possible, and that only numerical measurement results in objective knowledge. In the positivist approach, researchers control the theoretical framework, sampling frames and the structure of the research. This type of research seeks causal relationships and focuses on prediction and control.
Popper (1959) claimed falsifiability as the main criterion of science. The researcher formulates a hypothesis – an expected outcome – and tests it. Scientists refute or falsify hypotheses. When a deviant case is found the hypothesis is falsified. Knowledge is always provisional because new incoming data may refute it. (There has been criticism of Popper’s ideas but the debate cannot be developed here. It is discussed in philosophy of science texts.)
The positivist approach develops from a theoretical perspective, and a hypothesis is often, though not always, established before the research begins. The model of science adopted is hypothetico-deductive; it moves from the general to the specific, and its main aim is to test theory. The danger of this approach is that researchers sometimes treat perceptions of the social world as objective or absolute and neglect everyday subjective interpretations and the context of the research.
Nineteenth-century positivists believed that scientific knowledge can be proven and is discovered by rigorous methods of observation and experiments, and derived through the senses. However, this is a simplistic view of science and there has been major change. Even natural scientists – for instance biologists and physicists – do not necessarily agree on what science is and adopt a variety of different scientific approaches and inductive methods as well as deduction. Social scientists too, use a number of approaches and differ in their understandings about the nature of science. Scientific knowledge is difficult to prove.
The search for objectivity may be futile for all scientists. They can strive for it, but their own biases and experiences intrude. Science, whether natural or social science, cannot be ‘value free’, that is, it cannot be fully objective as the values and background of the researchers affect the research.
The paradigm debate
In the 1960s the traditional view of science was criticised for its aims and methods by both natural and social scientists. The new and different evolutionary stance taken within disciplines such as biology and psychology had gone beyond the simplistic positivist approach. Qualitative researchers go further still. Lincoln and Guba (1990), for instance, argue that a ‘paradigm shift’ occurred – in line with the ideas of Kuhn (1962, 1970).
Kuhn’s thinking has had great impact on the paradigm debate. ‘Normal science’, with its community of scholars, he asserts, proceeds through a series of crises that hinder its development. Earlier methods of science are questioned and new ways adopted; certain theoretical and philosophical presuppositions are replaced by another set of assumptions taking precedence over the model from the past. Eventually, one scientific view of the world is replaced by another. Although Kuhn wrote about the physical sciences and was a natural scientist, later writers have used his work to draw analogies with the shift in the ideas of social science. Kuhn’s (1962: 162) definition of paradigm is ‘entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on, shared by the members of a given community’.
Thus a paradigm consists of theoretical ideas and technical procedures that a group of scientists adopt and which are rooted in a particular world view with its own language and terminology. Kuhn’s ideas have been extensively criticised (Fuller, 2000), but the critique cannot be developed here.
Qualitative social researchers often claim that a ‘paradigm shift’ in social science has occurred – in the same way in which Kuhn discussed it – that a whole world view is linked to the new paradigm. They attack the positivist stance for its emphasis on social reality as being ‘out there’, separate from the individual, and maintain that an objective reality independent of the people they study is difficult to grasp.
Quantitative research, in all its variations, is useful and valuable, but it is sometimes seen as limited by qualitative researchers, because it neglects the participants’ perspectives within the context of their lives. Lather (2004) reminds researchers, that the shift to qualitative approaches in the 1970s was partly due to the difficulties of measurement and the ‘limits of causal models’. (Although she speaks of education in particular, her ideas can also be applied to health research.)
The controlled conditions of traditional approaches sometimes limit practical applications. This type of research does not always or easily answer complex questions about the nature of the human condition. Researchers using these approaches are not inherently concerned about human interaction or feelings, thoughts and perceptions of people in their research but with facts, measurable behaviour and cause and effect; of course both types of research are necessary.
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