Research
Methods:
Research
Methods.
Designing
Research.
Sampling and
Sample Design.
Quantitative
and Qualitative Research Methods.
Surveys and
Survey Design.
Observational
Research and Secondary Data.
Interviews
for Research.
Focus Groups.
An
Introduction to Research Methods
You are most likely to have to carry out a piece of research
as part of a course of study, whether for an undergraduate or post-graduate
degree.
However, there are also plenty of times when you may need to
do some basic research as part of a job or a voluntary role, whether it’s a
simple survey to find out what customers think or a more advanced piece of
research.
This page introduces some basic principles of research design
and discusses how your view of the world affects your choice of methods and
techniques.
The Basic Principles of Research Design
According to one of the most respected management research
textbooks, written by Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson, there are four main
features of research design, which are distinct, but closely related.
They are:
Ontology. How you, the researcher, view the world and
the assumptions that you make about the nature of the world and of reality.
Epistemology. The assumptions that you make about the
best way of investigating the world and about reality.
Methodology. The way that you group together your
research techniques to make a coherent picture.
Methods and techniques. What you actually do in order to
collect your data and carry out your investigations.
Easterby-Smith and colleagues liken these four to the rings
of a tree trunk: the methods are the outermost, and most visible, but without
the inner ones, the outer one would die. All four need to be coherent and
consistent to create a viable research design.
These principles are the same, whether you are doing
scientific research in a laboratory or sending out a customer questionnaire.
Before choosing your methods, you need to understand how they
fit with your ‘bigger picture’ of the world, and how you choose to investigate
it, to ensure that your work will be coherent and effective.
The Underlying Philosophy
There are four main schools of ontology (how we construct
reality), summarised in this table.
|
Ontology
|
Realism
|
Internal
Realism
|
Relativism
|
Nominalism
|
|
Summary
|
The world
is ‘real’, and science proceeds by examining and observing it
|
The world
is real, but it is almost impossible to examine it directly
|
Scientific
laws are basically created by people to fit their view of reality
|
Reality is
entirely created by people, and there is no external ‘truth’
|
|
Truth
|
There is a
single truth
|
Truth
exists, but is obscure
|
There are
many truths
|
There is no
truth
|
|
Facts
|
Facts
exist, and can be revealed through experiments
|
Facts are
concrete, but cannot always be revealed
|
Facts
depend on the viewpoint of the observer
|
Facts are
all human creations
|
From: Management Research (4th edition), Easterby-Smith,
Thorpe and Jackson
It will hopefully be clear that the underlying philosophy
affects the choice of research methods. For example, a realist will attempt to
‘uncover the truth’, whereas a relativist will be interested in exploring
different people’s ideas of the truth. The two will require quite different
approaches. However, none of these positions are absolutes. They are
on a continuum, with overlaps between them.
Within social sciences, there are also different
epistemological approaches, or the way in which you choose to investigate the
world. The two main schools are positivism and social constructionism.
Positivists believe that the best way to investigate the
world is through objective methods, such as observations. Positivism fits
within a realist ontology.
Social constructionists believe that reality does not
exist by itself. Instead, it is constructed and given meaning by people. Their
focus is therefore on feelings, beliefs and thoughts, and how people communicate
these. Social constructionism fits better with a relativist ontology.
All these philosophical approaches, both ontological and
epistemological, are valid. There are many eminent researchers working in all
of these traditions and schools, and many others who draw on multiple
approaches depending on what they are investigating. The important thing is
that your research should be internally consistent.
If you say that you are using a social constructionist
approach within a relativist ontology, your research will need to involve
conversations. Observing people ‘doing what they do’ will not deliver the
results that you need to answer your research questions.
Your chosen ontology and epistemology will have implications
for your methodology.
Realists tend to use a positivist epistemology. They start
with hypotheses. They gather facts through experiments, with a view to proving
or disproving their hypotheses, and therefore confirming, or not, their theory.
Clinical trials for new drugs or treatments are a good example of
realist/positivist research.
Relativists, on the other hand, tend to take a social
constructionist view. They start with questions. They use case studies and
surveys to gather both words (views) and numbers, which they use to triangulate
and compare. From these, they generate theories.
Social constructionist approaches tend to draw on qualitative
sources of data, and positivist approaches on quantitative data.
Quantitative data is about quantities, and therefore
numbers.
Qualitative data is about the nature of the thing
investigated, and tends to be words rather than numbers.
A Note on Data Sources
Primary data is gathered by the researcher themselves,
whether through surveys, interviews, or by counting atoms in a laboratory.
Because it is collected for the purposes of the study, it is intrinsically
interesting, although the researcher will also need to make some comment on it
when publishing it.
Secondary data is published by someone else, usually a
public body or company, although it may also consist of archive material such
as historical records. A researcher using such data needs to generate new and
original insights into it.
Researchers can either choose to use primary or secondary
data for their studies. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and most
researchers will use a combination of the two.
The Role of the Researcher
The researcher can be either involved, or external, detached.
These two positions, again, tend to link to the ontology and
epistemology, with the positivist approach leading to a detached view, and the
social constructionists tending towards the researcher being part of the world
and therefore influencing, and being influenced by, events.
Choices and Trade-Offs
The choice of any particular research design, from ontology,
through epistemology to methodology and then methods and techniques, involves
trade-offs.
All of the main research traditions have strengths and
weaknesses.
The most important aspect of designing your research is what
you want to find out. Whatever methods you use, together with their
underpinning philosophy, must answer your chosen research questions.
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