Theory and Research

Theory and Research Neuman and Robson Ch. 2

What is Theory? • “a statement of relationships between concepts” • “a roadmap for organizing ideas and knowledge about the social world”

Theory Parts • Concepts • Concept clusters • Classification concepts (ideal types) • Relationships • Can be represented by a model

Dimensions • A. Empiricism vs. Rationalism • B. Deductive vs. Inductive • C. Levels of Theory • Micro • Meso • Macro

Purpose of Theory • Explain • Predict • Establish causality

Types of Explanations: • Prediction and explanation • Causal explanations • Structural Explanations • Interpretive explanations

Paradigms: • A paradigm is a fundamental image of the subject mater within a science. It serves to define what should be studied, what questions should be asked, and what rules should be followed in interpreting the answers obtained. • The paradigm is the broadest unit of consensus within a science and serves to differentiate one scientific community (or sub-community) from another.

Paradigms: • It subsumes, defines and interrelates the exemplars, theories, and methods and tools that exist within it. [9] (1975) • A paradigm is the specific collection of questions, viewpoints and models that define how the authors, publishers, and theorists, who subscribe to that paradigm, view and approach the science. [10] (1990)

Major Approaches or Paradigms in Social Science • “Quantitative and qualitative research methods involve very different assumptions about how research should be conducted and the role of the researcher

Differences between qualitative and quantitative research • Involves unstructured interviews, observation, and content analysis. • Subjective • Inductive • Little structure • Little manipulation of subjects • Takes a great deal of time to conduct • Little social distance between researcher and subject • Involves experiments, surveys, testing, and structured content analysis, interviews, and observation. • Objective • Deductive • High degree of structure • Some manipulation of subjects • May take little time to conduct • Much social distance between researcher and subject

Quantitative Methodology • Associated with: Post/positivist paradigm • Key principle: Objectivity • Theory stated: before (‘a priori’) the study (theory verification) • Process: Deductive

Quantitative Methodology • Generally involves collecting numerical data that can be subjected to statistical analysis • Examples of data collection methodologies • Performance Tests • Personality Measures • Questionnaires (with closed-ended questions or open ended but transferred to quan data) • Content Analysis • The data is generally referred to as “hard” data

Qualitative Methodology • Associated with the Interpretive paradigm • Key principle: Subjectivity/interpretation • Theory developed: during and/or after (‘a posteriori’) the study (theory generation) • Process: Inductive

Qualitative Methodology • Generally involves listening to the participants’ voice and subjecting the data to analytic induction (e.g., finding common themes) • More Exploratory in nature • Examples of data collection methods • Interviews • Open-ended questionnaires • Observations • Content analysis • Focus Groups

Mixed Method • A mixed methods research design is a procedure for collecting, analyzing, and “mixing” both quantitative and qualitative research and methods in a single study to understand a research problem

Major Approaches or Paradigms in Social Science • “integrated set of assumptions, beliefs, models of doing good research, and techniques for gathering and analyzing data” • 1. Positivism/Post positivism • 2. Interpretive Social Science • 3. Critical Social Science • 4. Feminist and Postmodern Research • A paradigm is the theoretical framework and the methodology used to investigate the theory • Multiple or competing paradigms

Positivism • “The positivist paradigm of exploring social reality is based on the philosophical ideas of the French philosopher August Comte, • emphasized observation and reason as means of understanding human behavior. • True knowledge is based on experience of senses and can be obtained by observation and experiment. • Positivistic thinkers adopt his scientific method as a means of knowledge generation. • It has to be understood within the framework of the principles and assumptions of science.

Positivism • These assumptions, as Conen et al (2000) noted, are determinism, empiricism, parsimony, and generality. • ‘Determinism’ means that events are caused by other circumstances; and hence, understanding such casual links are necessary for prediction and control. ‘ • Empiricism’ means collection of verifiable empirical evidences in support of theories or hypotheses.

Positivism • Parsimony’ refers to the explanation of the phenomena in the most economic way possible. • ‘Generality’ is the process of generalizing the observation of the particular phenomenon to the world at large.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • It emphasizes that social reality is viewed and interpreted by the individuals according to the ideological positions they possesses. • Therefore, knowledge is personally experienced rather than acquired from or imposed from outside. • The anti-positivists believe that reality is multi-layered and complex (Cohen et al, 2000) and a single phenomenon is having multiple interpretations.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • They emphasize that the verification of a phenomenon is adopted when the level of understanding of a phenomenon is such that the concern is to probe into the various unexplored dimensions of a phenomenon rather than establishing specific relationship among the components, as it happens in the case of positivism.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • Anti-positivism is marked by three schools of thought in the social science research. These are • phenomenology, • ethnomethodology and • symbolicinteractionism. • All the three schools of thought emphasise human interaction with phenomena in their daily lives, and suggest qualitative rather than quantitative approach to social inquiry.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • Phenomenology’ is a theoretical view point which believes that individual behaviour is determined by the experience gained out of one’s direct interaction with the phenomena. • During interaction with various phenomena, human beings interpret them and attach meanings to different actions and or ideas and thereby construct new experiences.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • Ethnomethodology’ deals with the world of everyday life. • According to enthomethodologists, theoretical concerns centres around the process by which common sense reality is constructed in everyday face-to-face interaction. • This approach studies the process by which people invoke certain ‘take-for-granted’ rules about behaviour which they interpret in an interactive situation and make it meaningful. • They are mainly interested in the interpretation people use to make sense of social settings.

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • Symbolic Interactionism emphasizes the understanding and interpretation of interactions that take place between human beings. • The peculiarity of this approach is that human beings interpret and define each other’s actions instead of merely reacting to each other’s actions. • Human interaction in the social world is mediated by the use of symbols like language, which help human beings to give meaning to objects. \

Interpretive Social Science/Hermanutics • Symbolic interactionists, therefore, claim that by only concentrating attention on individuals’ capacity to create symbolically meaningful objects in the world, human interaction and resulting patterns of social organizations can be understood.

Critical theory • The main protagonist of this theory was Jurgen Habermas, who worked at the Frankfurt School in Germany to develop an approach of investigation and action in the social sciences, which could describe the historical forces that restrict human freedom and expose the ideological justification of those forces. • Critical theorists like Habermas were critical of the earlier paradigms as they were not tuned to question or transform the existing situation. • Critical theorists suggest two kinds of research methodologies, namely, ideology critique and action research, for undertaking research work.

Critical theory • The main protagonist of this theory was Jurgen Habermas, who worked at the Frankfurt School in Germany to develop an approach of investigation and action in the social sciences, which could describe the historical forces that restrict human freedom and expose the ideological justification of those forces. • Critical theorists like Habermas were critical of the earlier paradigms as they were not tuned to question or transform the existing situation

Theory and Research