Ways of Seeing Perspectives on Research Process - Essay Example

Perspectives on Research Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation: Perspectives on Research Apparently, the research process may as well appear relatively simple when you properly carry out the basic steps carefully and methodically. This will absolutely help you in arriving at useful conclusions. Conversely, the nature of research at times becomes complex especially in ensuring systematic and rigorous conduct in any research approach. This paper compares and contrasts the main criteria followed to ensure that the research project conduct is rigorous and systematic. It discusses mainly these four approaches including deconstructive, predictive, emancipatory and interpretative research approaches. The paper also examines the epistemology of the respective research approaches as discussed. Predictive research is mainly involved with making forecasts or predictions of a possibility or likelihood of happenings. The research usually starts with, or leading to, forecasting what will happen, from the fact that you already have some baseline information with you. This research particularly involves some human behavior condition or decision. For instance, knowing that teens in lower grade schools, aged 13-16, are vulnerable and prone to very high dropout rates, predictive research assess or predicts a strong relationship between gender and age and dropping out of school without having graduated (Maria, 2004). This paper uses a market research to discuss the criteria taken to ensure systematic and rigorous conduct of a research in predictive research approach. Within market research, an existing shifting focus in the predictive-ness of research is inevitable. The dilemma stands out whether it is possible to use current data, to assess accurately tomorrow’s outcomes. The issue is generally very controversial. One solution to these problems is through using longitudinal predictive research. It uses intensive measurement predominantly of criterion outcomes. Longitudinal research eliminates methodological artifacts and serves as very vital in making a study of long-range human behavior patterns. It also encourages methodological strictness in several ways. The only disadvantage with this method is the costs in amount of money, effort and time. Generally, human behavior does not change overnight. Therefore, market research always holds predictive expectation. For accuracy and rigorous results, the research uses past behaviors since they are most predictive of what the future behaviors will be. For instance, the buying patterns in the past for certain products. Therefore, using the past is very essential in predictive research. The research also uses consumer attitudes knowing the consumers attitude towards self-image, makes it possible to handle the predictions of the customer’s preference. Using demographics is also a good way of predictive research. However, it is not very sufficient than the current situation and the past use in predictions (Hughes, 1992). Four main variables make predictive research complex than merely extrapolating from the past and making trend lines for the future. Consumers change is subject to compromising the predicted behaviors, market changes may also draw in another aspect in the market than predicted, there might also be environmental changes altering the predictions in the market research. What predictive research users need is to have ample knowledge on the trends and fads ongoing within our society, game theory and randomness understanding. Interpretive research assumes that people associate and create their own subjective meanings when interacting with the real world around them. Interpretive researchers therefore attempt to understand fully the phenomena at stake through the access of meanings that participants assign to them. The research starts from the position of argument that our knowledge of what we term as reality, including the human action domain is a social construction done by human actors and that this directly applies equally to respective researchers. Therefore, there exists no objective reality, which can be of discovery from the researchers and as well replicated by others, in vivid contrast to the positivist science assumptions (John, 2007). Interpretive Ontology involves internal realism and subjective idealism. The main relations between interpretive research approach and theory and practice is that in no way can the researcher make assumptions for a value-neutral stance and that there is no access to reality directly from language and preconception. This way, the researchers ensure systematic and rigorous conduct in the process of doing research. This has made it possible to critically transform and evaluate social reality that is under investigation. In this case, the whole lot possesses an unfulfilled potentiality. Recognition of these possibilities by the people can act to bring in changes to their social and material circumstances. An interpretive methodology assumes that there is no unmediated reality access. This is the basic claim in the limelight of interpretive epistemology. In turn, it means that interactions of humans with their respective external worlds always remain mediated by the cultural, historical, contexts that they find themselves. However, more to this, human respond to external stimuli while still actively making a better understandings of the respective stimuli (John, 2007). If interpretive methods use varying methodological grounds, from qualitative and quantitative, it has nothing against the legitimating of their ‘truth claims’ resting on different criteria. A good example is when one no longer asserts to the fact that social scientific theories represents the social world and that it is never possible to ascertain a development of human activity science that is objective. This is because the social scientist cannot stand outside of what he studies. Then criteria designed to articulate the best capturing of the real world, reliability and validity are not anymore measures useful of the scientific claims trustworthiness (King, 1994). The emancipatory paradigm just as its name is more of facilitating of a strong politics of the possible situation by making confrontations to the social oppression at respective levels that it occurs. Emancipation as a word means, setting free. As Maria (2004) argued, you cannot perform oppression research when independent. It is either you are on the oppressors or the oppressed side. In understanding, emancipatory research, it is understood first as the emerging paradigm for in the field of research. Emancipatory research paradigm is not concerned more on approaches of empowering people but after the people’s decision to empower themselves, the research is done on the way to go about facilitating the entire process. This therefore means that research production social relations do have to be changed. This way, it is mandatory for researchers to learn ways of putting their knowledge at their research subjects’ disposal, for use in whatever ways they choose (Maria, 2004). Emancipatory research puts major focus on experiences and lives of historically marginalized people, why and how inequities reflect in power relations, how you link results of social enquiry to social and political action. The research characteristics include empowerment and reciprocity. Generally, social science incorporates an emancipatory potential. In deciding to do emancipatory research, a criterion is in place to decide why. It endeavors to identify the wrong and suggest approaches for improving the situation for instance research to assist in realigning of power, establishing dialogue, reflective ness in addressing power relations, building capacity and publishing in world journals. Deconstructive research is the most common research method using computer science. This approach demands validation not specifically empirically based like in other research types for instance exploratory research. However, there has to be objective conclusions well defined and argued. This may actually involve evaluation of the “construct” developed analytically next to some predefined criteria or otherwise a performance of some benchmark tests with the respective prototype. Deconstruction actually analyses the behavior of humans as a textual production or otherwise as a kind of writing (Addleson, 1996). Based on the work of Addleson, deconstruction takes social life as a make of texts constantly read by different individuals in different ways. Through multiple readings, the respective social texts do not develop a fixed meaning as since there are many ways of reading the text. Where a modernist perspective defines text as a true reflection of a social reality, postmodernism, sees text as the main ways of understanding the general world. To enhance systematic conduct in this form of research, the emphasis lies on how texts, words, and stories have different meanings. It however takes each of the meanings as arbitrary (Oliver, 1997). To make sure it is rigorous, deconstructive research takes its starting point as a critique of binary or dualistic ways of thinking. This suggests that respective texts be placed around some oppositional categories including reason or emotion, subjective or objective and feminine or masculine. In each case, one side of the binary has a privilege over the other. This privileging does not occur naturally but results rather through a definition of one term as the opposite of the other. However, deconstruction does not attempt the reconciliation of these dualisms to a privileged structure of meanings. It rather opposes the main constraining hierarchies by making a disruption to a closure of meaning (Oliver, 1997). The epistemology of Deconstructive research approach argues that it is not possible to recover meaning unambiguously from discourse or text. Texts contain elements and contradictions excluded and suppressed textually. A postmodern epistemology emerging from deconstruction of systematic and scientific approaches to organizational learning and knowledge includes foundationless-ness. This implies that actual human knowing is the interpretation and outcome and that any possible claims to universal or transcendent knowledge are in doubt. Fragmentation is also part of the epistemology. This is in where actually the 'real' is just a fragmented accumulation of elements and not a unitary integrated system. Diversity is in cases where major difference is valued as the basis for communication and language, where variety permeates all social relations presenting opportunity rather than creating a problem demanding a solution. Constructivism is whereby the knowledge of humans is constructed socially. The constructions are open to ontological reification where creations of humans are naturally timelessly. Neo-Pragmatism accepts the conclusion that coherent predictive knowledge basis on an objective reality. Epistemology is the nature of construction and knowing of knowledge. It is divided into the anti-positivist and positivist stance. These are the two main applications in the all approaches of research. Positivist stance believes that true objectivity is possible from an external observer. The anti-positivist believes that the known and the knower are interdependent. In addition, social science is fundamentally subjective. The positivist mainly studies the parts to wholly understand a concept and look for causal relationships and regularities to predict and understand the social world. The anti-positivist take it that understanding the social world can only happen by occupying the participant in action frame of reference. Research scientists act as professional epistemologists. Their work is to generate knowledge out of the research. The knowledge has to be warranted through making explicit processes that are reliable. In the four main approaches of research, the application of epistemology revolves in validating the research conduct. Generally, application of epistemology is the attempt to know the authenticity of research. It is to know things, why we know, what we know, what the knowledge limits are and are what we know true. Epistemology in all these approaches deals with the nature of knowledge and actually with the how-to of knowledge. It entails knowing the relationship between reality and the truth. In the four approaches, epistemology recognizes four different knowledge sources including intuitive knowledge taking some forms for instance belief, intuition, faith, among others, authoritative knowledge based on people’s information, logical knowledge arrived at through reasoning, empirical knowledge based on objective and demonstrable facts. In making good use of techniques, the research uses several means including intuitive, authoritative, logical and empirical. The organizational and management research use two major research approaches namely qualitative and quantitative approaches during the conduct of a particular research. Sometimes the approaches might not have a rigorous conduct meaning that interventions are necessary. Otherwise, the results of the research will not be valid either way. The quantitative approach is taken to be objective, relating to conditions and phenomenon individual thought that is perceptible to all observers. Qualitative approach on the other hand is subjective. It relates to knowledge or experience as conditioned by mental characteristics of a person and prefers description and language. Either way, the research approach has to adopt criteria to make it authentic and rigorous. A predictive approach uses events in the past together with numerical extrapolations to aid in the support of the findings validity. The interpretative, emancipatory and deconstructive approaches increase their respective validity by the level of discourse they engage in preliminary to making of the consensus. In emancipatory approach, it validates its findings further by putting its main theories into a form of practical approach. If the theory does not entirely work in the practical application, the researchers using the conduct a study again to modify or make changes to their theory. The interpretative approach makes validations to its findings by making sure that all participants and the existing relevant literature correlate. A deconstructive approach validates its findings by the fact that its preliminary findings come directly from a discourse among the main groups. References Addleson, M. (1996). Resolving the spirit and substance of organizational learning. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 7(5) 56-67. Barnes, C. & Mercer, G. (Ed) (2006). Doing Disability Research Leeds: New York: The Disability Press. Clare, O. (1996). The relative merits of qualitative and quantitative research approaches in music therapy. Australian Journal of Music Therapy. Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan Cook, T.D. & Campbell (1979). Design & Analysis Issues for Field Setting. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process: St Leonard, New South Wales, Australia: Allen. Hughes, P. (1992). Monitoring student’s progress: A framework for improving student performance and reducing attrition in Epistemology and method. The Australian Community Psychologist, Volume 19 No 1 May 1992. John, G. (2007). Case study research: Principles and practices: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. King, G. (1994). Designing social inquiry: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Maria, S. (2004). Possibilities for and of Emancipatory Research Social Aspects of Ethnicity and Health: Research and Service Provision University of Warwick: Coventry 16 June 2004. Oliver, M. (1997). ‘Emancipatory Research: Realistic Goal or Impossible Dream?’ Academy of Management Review 4, No. 1:13-19, 1997 Read More