The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods

Pertti Alasuutari, Leonard Bickman, Julia Brannen, Pertti Alasuutari, Leonard Bickman, Julia Brannen, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781848607309, 9781412919920
• eBook ISBN: 9781473971264
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods is a must for every social-science researcher. It charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods in one volume.

The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. The volume maintains that there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions research design and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics.

The Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for approaching research with an open mind. This volume maps the field of social research methods using an approach that will prove valuable for both students and researchers.

1

Social Research in Changing Social Conditions

Pertti Alasuutari, Julia Brannen, Leonard Bickman

According to Herbert Blumer (1969), methodology refers to the ‘entire scientific quest’ that has to fit the ‘obdurate character of the social world under study’. Thus methodology is not some super-ordained set of logical procedures that can be applied haphazardly to any empirical problem. In short methodology constitutes a whole range of strategies and procedures that include: developing a picture of an empirical world; asking questions about that world and turning these into researchable problems; finding the best means of doing so – that involve choices about methods and the data to be sought, the development and use of concepts, and the interpretation of findings (Blumer 1969: 23). Methods per se are therefore only one small part of the methodological endeavor.

In producing this book we address the methodology of social science research and the appropriate use of different methods. The contributors describe and question different phases of the research process with many focusing upon one or more methods, often in combination with others. What unites their contributions is the way they relate the discussion of method to the broader methodological work in which they were engaged. Thus, the contributors draw not only upon their own research experiences but relate their discussions in Blumer’s terms to the larger issue of strategy, that is tailoring methodological processes to fit the empirical world under study.

Across the social sciences and humanities, there are differences in the development and popularity of particular methods, differences that are also evident cross-nationally. From the 1930s onward survey research and statistical methods have assumed a dominant position, whereas qualitative methods have gained ground more recently. There has also been a recent resurgence of interest both in the social sciences and humanities in quantitative methods and in mathematical modes of inquiry, for example, fuzzy logic (Ragin 2000). Mixing different methods (e.g. Goldthorpe et al. 1968) and the innovative use of statistical analysis (e.g. Bourdieu 1984) are not, however, recent phenomena. The growth of explicit interest in mixed-methods research designs dates from the late 1980s, resulting in a number of specialist texts (Brannen 1992, Bryman 1988, Creswell 2003, Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003) but the practice has historically been intrinsic to many types of social science research. In qualitative research, many researchers have incorporated several quantitative approaches such as cross-tabulation of their data (Alasuutari 1995, Silverman 1985, 2000); and some have adopted a multivariate approach (Clayman and Heritage 2002). In 1987 Charles Ragin published his text on qualitative comparative methods (Ragin 1987), which lies in between qualitative and quantitative methods and draws upon logic rather than statistical probability. Historically there has been a plurality of practices of social research.

What distinguishes the social sciences today is a positive orientation toward engaging in different types of research practice. Present-day scholars undertaking empirical research view methods as tools or optics to be applied to several different kinds of research questions that they and their funders seek to address in carrying out research. Coding observations and subjecting them to statistical processes is one way of creating and explaining patterns. Case study and comparative approaches are others: the explication of the logic that brings together the clues about a case and has an explanatory purpose with reference to other cases. These two approaches can also be combined as in embedded case studies that employ both a case study design and a survey design.

Although qualitative and quantitative methods have evolved from very different scientific traditions as, among others, Charles Ragin (1994) points out, from the viewpoint of how empirical data are used to validate and defend an interpretation, they form a continuum. It can be argued that the two concepts, ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’, are not so much terms for two alternative methods of social research as two social constructs that group together particular sets of practices (see Chapter 2). For instance, quantitative research draws on many kinds of statistical approaches and is not necessarily epistemologically positivistic in orientation. While the social survey is the current dominant, paradigmatic form, there is no uniform ‘quantitative research’. Similarly, there is no uniform ‘qualitative research’ either. Because much of the craft of empirical social research cannot be classified as either qualitative or quantitative, an increased permissiveness toward mixing methods and questioning of the binary system formed by the terms ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ are welcome trends.

In this new paradigmatic situation many contemporary scholars no longer regard it as reasonable to divide the field of methodology into opposing camps. On the one hand, researchers are willing to learn more about the possibilities of applying survey methods and statistics to their data analysis. On the other hand, what is known as ‘qualitative research’ has gone a long way since Malinowski’s (1922) principles of ethnography or Glaser and Strauss’ (1967) grounded theory. Different methods of analyzing talk, texts and social interaction have multiplied the ‘optics’ available to scholars who want to study social reality from different viewpoints.

This book charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology in an age of increasing pluralism. By putting together different approaches to the study of social phenomena within a single volume, the Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for researchers who wish to approach research with an open mind and decide which methodological strategies to adopt in empirical research in order to understand the social world. Given the scope of the field of social research methodology, this volume concentrates on mapping the field rather than discussing each and every aspect and method in detail. In this way the Handbook serves not only as a manual but also as a roadmap. If and when the reader wants to learn more about a particular aspect of methodology or method, he or she can consult other literature.

CHALLENGING THE PROGRESS NARRATIVE

Why social research seems to be heading toward greater open-mindedness in methodological strategies can easily be interpreted as proof of scientific progress. It is tempting to think that after decades of hostility between different methodological camps, notably between qualitative and quantitative researchers, we have now finally acquired the wisdom to see that the best results can be achieved by addressing different ways of framing research questions and by bringing to bear the means to ensure the validity of data analysis and interpretation. This may imply the use of a mixed method design; in qualitative research it may mean employing innovative approaches such as hypermedia or, in social surveys, multi-mode approaches. When researchers adopt new methods they will require the guidance of methodological texts. The Handbook represents our attempt to provide such guidance.

When discussing developments in social research methodology, it is also common to justify change through a narrative in which problems and omissions in past research practices and paradigms have led to new approaches. For instance, in the influential Handbook of Qualitative Research Denzin and Lincoln recount the development of qualitative research in terms of a progress narrative (Denzin et al. 2000). According to them, the history of qualitative research in the social and behavioral sciences consists of seven moments or periods: the traditional (1900–1950); the modernist or golden age (1950–1970); blurred genres (1970–1986); the crisis of representation (1986–1990); the postmodern, a period of experimental and new ethnographies (1990–1995); postexperimental inquiry (1995–2000); and the future (2000–). As informative as their description of the development of qualitative research is, their story also testifies to the problems and dangers of such a narrative. Despite their caveats, their progress narrative functions implicitly as an enlightenment discourse, suggesting where up-to-date, well-informed researchers should be heading if they are not already there and likewise identifying exemplary studies that represent the avant-garde or the cutting edge of present-day qualitative research. It is hardly a surprise that the researchers in question are a very small band and that practically all of them are American, because both authors come from the United States. Moreover, the closer to the present, the more frequently there are new moments, and the narrower the group.

To follow suit in this book, it would be quite easy to find good reasons for arguing that the methods represented here are a natural outcome of scientific progress in social research methodology. One such argument may be that scientific progress constitutes the closure of the gap between qualitative and quantitative methods; that by pursuing a multi-method approach we can best tackle the tasks of the social sciences in today’s society.

Even though we are not unsympathetic to such a view, there are also problems with that argument. Unlike natural science, whose development can be described as the vertical accumulation of knowledge about the laws of nature, human sciences are quite different. They are more like a running commentary on the cultural turns and political events of different societies, communities, institutions and groups that change over time. Social science research not only speaks to particular social conditions; it reflects the social conditions of a society and the theories that dominate at the time. Because there is no unidirectional progress in social and societal development, the theoretical and methodological apparatus available to social scientists change as they too are shaped by historical, structural and cultural contexts. The notion that eventually methodology may consist in a collectively usable toolbox of methods is illusory. Methodological traditions vary across societies and they are also subject to fashion with some more popular at one moment in time and in a particular context than others. In any case it is rare for a wholly new method to be developed.

METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM AND EVIDENCE-BASED RESEARCH

From this viewpoint, changes in social research must always be seen in their social and historical contexts. Thus, our assumption that there is a trend toward greater permissiveness in methodology stems from our own experience as scholars working in countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)¹. In addition, our experience stems from primarily following the English language literature. According to our analysis, that trend is due to the position that social research has been required to adopt. During recent decades, the OECD countries have experienced a climate of increased accountability in public expenditure and a requirement that research should serve policy ends and ‘user’ interests². In particular the promotion and dominance of the concept of new public management by the OECD and its member countries is a key factor. As part of the growing pervasiveness of neoliberal principles, public policy decisions are required to be grounded in evidence-based, scientifically validated research. This has also led to developments in social science research: the ‘systematic review’ process, one of the catchwords also promoted by the OECD, has become a major area of methodological investment in the social sciences.

For instance in the United States, although the emphasis on policy is not as strong, the tradition of action research and the accountability of research to a diversity of ‘user’ groups is longstanding. Program evaluation is a significant player in the policy environment. Most government agencies require that their demonstration programs be evaluated. One research agency, the Institute of Educational Sciences, has in the last few years shifted to rigorous randomized experiments. There are forces promoting evidence-based treatments in health, mental health and education. Even though the evidence-based medicine approach originated in Great Britan, the United States is emphasizing the existence of such evidence in the funding of health and mental health services. The U.S Department of Education, through its No Children Left Behind programme is requiring quantitative evidence of academic improvement. The establishment of the Campbell Collaborative, modeled after medicine’s Cochrane Collaborative, focuses on systematic evidence of the effectiveness of programs in mental health, education and criminal justice. At the federal level of government the agencies themselves are now responsible for providing formal reviews of their agency’s performance through the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).

The systematic review of social research evidence is widespread in quantitative research whose quality is seen to be measurable in ‘scientific terms’. Systematic review is also being applied to qualitative research, a process that is requiring researchers in this genre to develop more rigorous and convincing arguments for their evidence as well as criteria against which such studies may be measured.

Social research is also affected by the increasing prevalence of cross-disciplinary pilot or applied projects that serve as tools to develop solutions to social, economic and environmental problems. Typically such projects, often developed in co-operation between public, private and civil society sectors, include a practical research element and the evaluation of results. One of the aims is to generate ‘best practices’ that are to be promoted worldwide³. Such a model for the improvement of governance creates new roles and requirements for social research. The close co-operation of researchers with policy-makers and the merging of the roles of project manager and researcher challenge the ideals of rigorous science, thus creating an increased interest in action research methodology. Second, the evaluation of pilot or demonstration projects has contibuted to the further development of a whole evaluation research industry. Additionally, the marketing of such pilot projects as best practice creates an aura of research as scientifically systematic, although the emphasis is on practical, policy-directed research.

The growing market for policy-directed and practice-oriented social research does not necessarily or directly affect academic social science the same way in all contexts. In some contexts universities need to complement shrinking public funding with money from external sources, while in other countries such as the UK universities are increasingly being seen and run as businesses, with research income from external sources sought at ‘full economic cost’. Within Academe, one consequence of the growing market of policy-directed research is that the position of traditional disciplines is weakened as a result of the growth of cross-disciplinary theme-based research programmes, which are fishing in the new funding pools of research and development. This, in turn, affects the field of methodology. Cross-disciplinary applied research improves the transfer of knowledge between hitherto bounded disciplines, thus constructing methodology as an arena and area of expertise that spans disciplines. In some ways, this has also meant that methodology has become a discipline in itself, or at least it has assumed part of the role of traditional disciplines. Vocational apprenticeships conducted within a particular discipline have been overtaken by training courses for the new generation of researchers who are schooled in a broad repertoire of methods. While it is always useful to master a large toolbox of methods, the danger is that without a strong link between theory and practice via a particular discipline, for example sociology, people lack what C. Wright Mills (1959) called the ‘sociological imagination’. As methodology acquires a higher status across all the social sciences and more emphasis is placed on displaying methodological rigour, there is the need to be mindful of Lewis Coser’s admonition to the American Sociological Association in 1975 against producing researchers ‘with superior research skills but with a trained incapacity to think in theoretically innovative ways’ (Coser 1975).

THE RELEVANCE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

In recent years advanced capitalist societies have indeed witnessed increasing methodological pluralism and a resurgence of interest in quantitative methods. This development, however, must be seen against the larger picture in which qualitative research can be placed at the forefront, because qualitative methods have gained popularity particularly during the past two or three decades. Despite increasingly pluralist attitudes toward quantitative methods, a major proportion of British sociologists, for instance, conduct qualitative inquiries. A recent study shows that only about one in 20 of published papers in the mainst...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Advisory Board
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Social Research in Changing Social Conditions
• PART I: DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL RESEARCH
• PART II: RESEARCH DESIGNS
• PART III: DATA COLLECTION AND FIELDWORK
• PART IV: TYPES OF ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF EVIDENCE
• Index