PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE MANION & KEITH MORRISON

STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER• The search for truth • Two conceptions of social reality• Positivism• The assumptions, nature and tools of science • The scientific method• Criticisms of positivism and the scientific method• Naturalistic approaches• Normative and interpretive paradigms• Phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism• Criticisms of naturalistic and interpretive approaches• Mixed methods research• Post-positivism, post modernism and post-structuralism• Complexity theory

PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

COMPLEXITYTHEORY

INTERPRETIVE

MIXED METHODS POST-POSITIVIST

POST-STRUCTURALIST

POST-MODERNIST

POSITIVIST

POSITIVISM (MACRO)

NOMOTHETIC, LAWS

OBJECTIVITY

CAUSALITY

NATURAL SCIENCE BASIS

GENERALIZATION

PREDICTION

CONTROL, MANIPULATION

QUANTIFICATION, LARGE SCALE

POSITIVIST DESIGN

REVIEW PREVIOUSLITERATURE

FORMULATE HYPOTHESIS

DESIGN RESEARCH

COLLECT DATA

IDENTIFY TOPIC

ANALYZE DATA REPORT FINDINGS

LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE

EXPLANATIONS

START PROCESSAGAIN

NO

YES

POSITIVIST METHODS

EXPERIMENTS

SURVEYS

TESTS

INTERPRETIVE PARADIGM (MICRO)

NATURALISTIC

SPECIFIC/NON-GENERALIZABLE

SUBJECTIVITY, INTENTIONALITY

UNDERSTANDING/INTERPRETATION

IDIOGRAPHIC

INTERPRETATION

CONTEXT-BOUND

AGENCY

FLUIDITY, CHANGE

MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES

INTERPRETIVE/ETHNOGRAPHIC

LITERATURE REVIEW

IDENTIFY TOPIC

RESEARCH DESIGN

DATA COLLECTION

DATA ANALYSIS

ELABORATION OF CONCEPTS/THEORIES

REPORT OF FINDINGS

NATURALISTIC METHODS

ETHNOGRAPHY NARRATIVES, DOCUMENTS

THICK DESCRIPTION

OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS

NUMBERS, MEASUREMENT

SURVEY, EXPERIMENT

POSITIVISTAPPROACHES

ETHNOGRAPHY

NATURALISTIC APPROACHES

INTERVIEW

OBSERVATION

CASE STUDY

ACTION RESEARCH

NUMBERS, MEASUREMENT

SURVEY

ACTION RESEARCH

MIXEDMETHODS

ETHNOGRAPHY

EXPERIMENT

INTERVIEW

HISTORICAL & DOCUMENTARY

OBSERVATION

CASE STUDY

META-ANALYSIS

VIRTUAL WORLDS

MULTIPLE REALITIES INTERPRETIVE

RELATIVIST

POST-POSITIVISM, POST-STRUCTURALISM & POSTMODERNISM

NO GRAND NARRATIVES

CONTEXT & TEMPORALITY

DIFFERENCE &DIVERSITY

DISCOURSES

PHENOMENOLOGY

CONTRADICTORYDISCOURSES

AGENCY & INDIVIDUALISM

MULTIPLE MEANINGS

COMPLEXITY THEORY

Complex adaptive systems

Non-linearsystems

Open systems

Relationships Emergence

Connected-ness

Order without control

Distributedcontrol

Feedback/ communi-

cation

Self-organization

Holism