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Interpretivism is the research philosophy that requires the researcher to seek to understand the subjective reality
and meanings of participants.
People may place many different interpretations on the situations in which they find themselves. These different
interpretations are likely to affect their actions and the nature of their social interaction with others. In this sense, people
not only interact with their environment, they also seek to make sense of it through their interpretation of events and the
meanings that they draw from these. In turn their own actions may be seen as being meaningful in the context of these
socially constructed interpretations and meanings. The role of the interpretivist is to seek to understand the subjective
reality of those that they study in order to be able to make sense of and understand their motives, actions and intentions
in a way that is meaningful for these research participants.
Realism is based on the belief that a reality exists that is independent of human thoughts and beliefs. Realism is the
research philosophy that seeks to understand the existence of an external and objective reality that influences people’s
social interpretations and behaviours but which may not be perceptible to them. It recognises that people themselves are
not objects to be studied in the style of natural science.
3. The two main approaches to research are deductive and inductive. Deductive approach involves the develop-
ment of a theory that is subjected to a rigorous test. As such it is the dominant research approach in the natural sciences.
There are five stages through which deductive research will progress:
1) deducing a hypothesis (a testable proposition about the relationship between two or more events or concepts )
from the theory;
2) expressing the hypothesis in operational terms (that is, ones indicating exactly how the variables are to be
measured), which propose a relationship between two specific variables;
3) testing this operational hypothesis (this will involve an experiment or some other form of empirical inquiry);
4) examining the specific outcome of the inquiry (it will either tend to confirm the theory or indicate the need for
its modification);
5) if necessary, modifying the theory in the light of the findings.
There are several important characteristics of the deductive approach. First, there is the search to explain causal
relationships between variables. To test the hypothesis you utilize another characteristics, the collection of quantitative
data. A further important characteristic is controls to allow the testing of hypotheses, that is ways of being sure that the
outcome being measured (the dependent variable) is caused by the predicted phenomena alone (the independent vari-
able) rather than unpredicted variables. In order to pursue the principle of scientific rigour, the deductive approach dic-
tates that the researcher should be independent of what is being observed. An additional important characteristic of de-
duction is that concepts need to be operationalised in a way that enables facts to be measured quantitatively. Reduction-
ism is the next important principle which holds that problems as a whole are better understood if they are reduced to the
simplest possible elements. The final characteristic of the deductive approach is generalization – the making of more
widely applicable propositions based upon the process of deduction from specific cases.
4. The emergence of the social sciences in the 20
th
century led social science researchers to be wary of the deduc-
tive approach. They were critical of an approach that enabled a cause-effect link to be made between particular vari-
ables without an understanding of the way in which humans interpreted their social world. Developing such an under-
standing is, of course, a strength of inductive research.
In an inductive approach theory would follow data rather than vice versa as in the deductive approach. Research
using the inductive approach would be particularly concerned with the context in which such events were taking place.
Researchers in this tradition are more likely to work with qualitative data and to use a variety of methods to collect
these data in order to establish different views of phenomena.
5. Research strategy is a general plan of how you will go about answering the research question(s) you have set. It
will contain clear objectives, derived from your research question(s), specify the sources from which you intend to col-
lect data, and consider the constraints that you will inevitably have (for example access to data, time, location and
money, ethical issues). The main research strategies are experiment, survey, case study, grounded theory, ethnography,
action research.
Experiment is a classical form of research that owes much to the natural sciences, although it features strongly in
much social science research, particularly psychology. It will involve typically:
• definition of a theoretical hypothesis;
• selection of samples of individuals from known populations;
• allocation of samples to different experimental conditions;
• introduction of planned change on one or more of the variables;
• measurement on a small number of the variables;
• control of other variables.
The survey strategy is usually associated with the deductive approach. It is a popular and common strategy in
business and management research. Surveys allow the collection of a large amount of data from a sizable population in
a highly economical way. Often obtained by using a questionnaire, these data are standardized, allowing easy compari-
son. In addition, the survey strategy is perceived as authoritative by people in general. This is because it is easily under-
stood. Every day a newspaper reports the results of a new survey that indicates, for example, that a certain percentage of
the population thinks or behaves in a particular way.
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