Paradigms & MethodologyDr Bryan Mills

Frame Work /Paradigm/ Culture/Methodology Positivist - Scientific Method, Empiricism, ReductionismPhenomenology - InterpretavistPost-modernFeministMarxist

Ontology, Epistemology, MethodologyOntology: being, existence , realityEpistemology: knowledge (nature and limits)Methodology: approach adopted

ProcessInductive Deductive (Note: sometimes Positivism is called hypothetico-deductive )

MethodQualitative Quantitative

Bryan MillsThe beginning of the Enlightenment (modern era)Scientific MethodPhenomenologyFeminismPositivismNatural ScienceSocialTheologicalKey interpretations of the natural and social world

Positivism Concerned with experience and empirical knowledge Personal knowledge backed up by scientific verification - objective.Named by in the 19th Century by Auguste Comte (French Mathematician and Philosopher) - though its origins date back to the Enlightenment.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.-Frank Herbert, Dune

Positivism Logical Positivism (just one of many offshoots) Wittgenstein. Moore, Russell (1920s/30s),

And then Logical Empiricism;

Both of which saw movements still further away from metaphysics and towards logic and empiricism, claiming that the positivist belief in scientific verification is itself unverifiable.

How to identify Positivism Has an interest in cause and effect (this is caused by that) and generalisability (the findings are true for all) uses the testing of hypotheses, seeks objectivity and believes that an external object truth exists, will emphasise correlation, will probably be quantitative (numerical) but may also include qualitative work (interview, etc.)

HypothesesA hypothesis is a "statement that can be falsified"Coates (1996) gives us 5 'virtues' that make up a hypothesis:SimplicityGeneralityRefutabilityModestyConservatism

It is possible to see from this list why hypotheses are used by positivists, or, inversely, why phenomenologists have no use for them.

HypothesesH1 Team working improves productivity in medium sized, labour intensive, manufacturing companies.

H0 Null - Team working has no measurable effect on productivity in medium sized, labour intensive, manufacturing companies.

But:If you hit a tuning fork twice as hard it will ring twice as loud but still at the same frequency. That's a linear response. If you hit a person twice as hard they're unlikely just to shout twice as loud. That property lets you learn more about the person than the tuning fork.-Neil Gershenfeld

Phenomenology Interested in events as they appear to the consciousness, without reference to theory, deduction or assumptions

Named by Edmund Husserl (1913) - the study of structures of consciousness that enable consciousness to refer to objects outside of it.

Adapted by sociologists (Schutz) and emphasises peoples' experiences rather than scientific deduction - subjective.

Criticised for its habit of producing: Descriptions and uncontrolled hypotheses rather than explanation

How to identify Phenomenology Very unlikely to have any quantitative work.

Will use interviews, case studies, logs or focus groups. May even use ethnography (living/working amongst subjects).

Seeks interpretation - not cause and effect.

May use action-research or grounded theory

Post Modernism Towards the middle of the last century a shift began away from the importance of personal interpretation to the importance of discourse. Positivists believed in an external objective world, phenomenologists in an internal subjective one and post-modernist in a world created by discourses. Thus to understand the world we have to understand the discourse we operate within. These discourses (conversations) can be actual conversations (creating cultural discourses), the media, academic disciplines, religions, professional discourses, etc

The world is not made of molecules, the world is made of stories.-Muriel Rukeyser

Deductive and/or Inductive Process

Deductive and/or Inductive Process

TriangulationYou believe staff are not happy.

Qualitative interviews with staff: Pay is too low, more pay needed.

Quantitative research shows: Pay is better than equivalent firms, there are no problems.

TriangulationBOTH TOGETHER Whilst pay is better than could be expected the staff still have a feeling of being hard done by. This may indicate a problem with management style or morale, more research is clearly required. On their own neither approach would have produced the right 'answer'.

Validity & ReliabilityValidity The research must lead to the collection of valid data. How valid will depend on the method used and the type of information elicited. Research is valid if it is what it claims to be - truly representativeReliabilityReplicability and measurability are of prime importance. It is this requirement of replicability that encourages positivists to use quantitative methods. The 'rule' is - you must be confident that another researcher would match your findings.

Problem or lack of understandingMethodology ChoicePositivist or ScientificHypothesisdeductiveMostly quantitativephenomenologicalinductivequalitativePost ModernDiscourse analysis ?