Ch.7.Research Process
Kinds of Evidence, Ways of Thinking
Qualitative and quantitative – and it is useful to consider two kinds of thinking which are referred to here as
narrative and paradigmatic. Qualitative evidence uses words to describe situations, individuals, or circumstances surrounding a phenomenon while quantitative evidence uses numbers usually in the form of counts or measurements to attempt to give precision to a set of observations.
Narrative thinking involves the construction of a consistent and convincing description of the process or subject matter under investigation.
Paradigmatic thinking involves the construction of laws, rules or conjectures from which it is hoped deductions can be made that can be tested against the evidence or observations. The construction of a narrative will depend largely, but not exclusively, on the qualitative information that is available, while be construction of paradigms will generally depend on both qualitative and quantitative evidence.
Sometimes the researcher will find him or herself drawing on quantitative evidence for a narrative. In other words quantitative evidence is also incorporate in the narrative.
It is possible to regard narrative thought and paradigmatic thought as two poles of a continuum along which ideas are refined from descriptive generalisations to quite specific statements of relationships.
From Primary Narrative to Paradigm
The transition from narrative to paradigm can be described in five distinct steps,
Primary Narrative - -> Higher order narrative --> Theoretical conjecture --> Hypotheses -> Paradigm
Narrative analysis
The most difficult part of the transition process from primary narrative to paradigm or scientific statement often lies in the first two steps leading to the theoretical conjecture.
From the narrative to the theoretical conjecture
Creativity in research lies primarily in the narrative mode of thinking which dominates the five steps and it is mostly here that new discoveries are made and new ideas are developed.
By reformulating narrative accounts of the world in terms of paradigmatic laws and theories, however, one is then able to do several important things.
First of all, the relatively loose narrative description is developed into a tighter paradigmatic framework that enables the consistency of the ideas expressed in the narrative to be more rigorously tested. Secondly, by a process of measuring and quantifying observations made on the environment and suggested by the theory, it is possible to begin to make predictions that can then be tested (testing the theory).
Finally, the paradigms so developed may be used to make predictions about what will happen in other situations, making it possible to discover both the extent to which the paradigmatic theory is of general applicability and the areas in which it breaks down and requires further elaboration (Further testing as well as use of theory).
Definition of a Primary Narrative
A primary narrative may be defined as a detailed textual description of the phenomenon being studied, based either on the literature or on a combination of the literature and other evidence collected through a grounded theory approach.
Typically a primary narrative will be a lengthy document that tells the story of the phenomenon being researched in a comprehensive way.
It is from this story that the theory will ultimately be distilled.
Definition of a Higher Order Narrative
A high order narrative may be defined as a description which both captures the essential aspects of the information represented in the primary narrative but provides a more parsimonious conceptual framework in which the ideas, concepts relationships have been defined. The high order narrative will form the basis of the theoretical conjecture that will eventually be presented, reduced to hypotheses or empirical generalisations, and rigorously tested.
Theoretical conjecture.
The theoretical conjecture can simply be the formalisation of the conclusions of the higher order narrative in such a way that it will be relatively easy to produce empirical generalisations or hypotheses for the purposes of further testing.
Paradigmatic Thinking
In paradigmatic thinking, the theoretical conjecture be developed into one or more hypotheses or empirical generalisations. Once this has been done quantitative evidence needed is collected and the hypotheses is be rigorously tested using appropriate statistical techniques
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More Details given in the Chapter
Introduction
In this chapter some of the basic issues involved in the early stages of constructing a research project are discussed, and in particular the relationship between the collection of evidence and the formulation of a theoretical framework or model within which to interpret the results of the study are examined.
From the narrative to the theoretical conjecture
Creativity in research lies primarily in the narrative mode of thinking which dominates the five steps and it is mostly here that new discoveries are made and new ideas are developed.
By reformulating narrative accounts of the world in terms of paradigmatic laws and theories, however, one is then able to do several important things.
First of all, the relatively loose narrative description is developed into a tighter paradigmatic framework that enables the consistency of the ideas expressed in the narrative to be more rigorously tested. Secondly, by a process of measuring and quantifying observations made on the environment and suggested by the theory, it is possible to begin to make predictions that can then be tested (testing the theory).
Finally, the paradigms so developed may be used to make predictions about what will happen in other situations, making it possible to discover both the extent to which the paradigmatic theory is of general applicability and the areas in which it breaks down and requires further elaboration (Further testing as well as use of theory).
Of course this is a positivistic view which would not always be shared by a phenomenologist, who might not be interested in generalisation in this sense.
The Point of Departure
It is possible that a researcher might wish to investigate an entirely new aspect of a subject on which little has been published, perhaps based on ideas or thoughts that arise from the research worker’s own experiences in organisations.
In such cases various empirical techniques such as grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), or concept discovery (Martin and Turner,1986) can be used to establish the point of departure.
Whichever technique is used, the information generated in this way will form what is referred to as the primary narrative.
This was done in a dissertation on Strategic Information Systems: Current Practice and Guidelines(Remenyi,1990a) where a grounded theory approach was applied to 55 interviews in order to develop a primary narrative.
Definition of a Primary Narrative
A primary narrative may be defined as a detailed textual description of the phenomenon being studied, based either on the literature or on a combination of the literature and other evidence collected through a grounded theory approach.
Typically a primary narrative will be a lengthy document that tells the story of the phenomenon being researched in a comprehensive way.
It is from this story that the theory will ultimately be distilled.
In the dissertation mentioned above(Remenyi,1990a) the primary narrative was some 200 pages long.
An example of this process is discussed later in this chapter.
Qualitative versus Quantitative Evidence
It is necessary to produce a primary narrative if a theoretical conjecture is to be competently developed.
The importance of the primary narrative and the theoretical conjecture
Figure 7.3 also shows how a positivistic approach to research leads to an analytical test of hypotheses or empirical generalisations, whereas a phenomenological approach may, or most probably will not lead to a formal test of the hypothesis.
A phenomenological approach will generally be judged by the extent to which it provides a convincing synthesis of the available information.
In the dissertation referred to above (Remenyi,1990a) both qualitative and quantitative evidence was collected and approximately equal effort was expended on the collection and analysis of qualitative evidence through structured interviews and quantitative evidence collected through the use of self-completion, postal questionnaires.
Evidence Collection
During the course of a research project a large amount of information may be collected and incorporated into the primary narrative.
The problem now is how to use this to construct a higher order narrative.
A high order narrative may be defined as a description which both captures the essential aspects of the information represented in the primary narrative but provides a more parsimonious conceptual framework in which the ideas, concepts relationships have been defined. The high order narrative will form the basis of the theoretical conjecture that will eventually be presented, reduced to hypotheses or empirical generalisations, and rigorously tested.
Narrative Thinking
Unfortunately the importance of narrative thinking, the construction of a consistent story that describes the essential features of the problem under investigation, is frequently not recognized or at least not openly acknowledged in academic research.
Language and the Free Invention of the Mind
Starting from observations made on the environment, how can the laws be discovered or inferred, from which by a process of education, observations can be explained?
Einstein (1954) states the problem quite explicitly: ‘I am convinced that… concepts which arise in our thought and in our linguistic expression are all, when viewed logically, the free creations of thoughts which cannot inductively be gained from sense experiences.
‘The justification (truth content) of the system rests in the proof of usefulness of the resulting theorems on the basis of the sense experiences, where the relations of the latter to the former can only be comprehended intuitively’.
The challenge to modern science, according to Einstein, is that there is no strict, well-defined inductive method that can lead to the formulation of laws and theories, i.e. the creation of knowledge, but rather that these are ’the free invention of the human mind’ (Einstein,1936). The issue then is how to go about inventing theories and discovering paradigms.
Mental Models
Einstein as quoted by Holton(1978) makes reference to different types of thinking when he describes the drive to understand the world:
Man seeks to form for himself in whatever manner is suitable for him, a simplified and lucid image of the world, and so to overcome the world of experience by striving to replace it to some extent by this image.
This is what the painter does, and the poet, the speculative philosopher, the natural scientist, each in his own way. Into this image and its formation, he places the centre of gravity of his emotional life, in order to attain the peace and serenity that he cannot find within the narrow confines of swirling personal experience.
Scientific discovery is akin to explanatory story telling, to myth making and to poetic imagination.
Moszkowski(1970) quotes Einstein as describing the process of scientific discovery:
In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence; for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions. The aspect of knowledge which has not yet been laid bare gives the investigator a feeling akin to that experienced by a child who seeks to grasp the masterly way in which elders manipulate things.
Imagination and Models
When one attempts to develop models of the world, these start as narrative descriptions within which the imagination is allowed to range freely and widely over many possibilities. After many years he arrived at his now celebrated theory in which a combination of random variation and survival of the individuals best adapted to their environment leads to selection for particular traits and eventually the appearance of new species.
Darwin developed his theory entirely narratively without the use of any formal paradigms. The strength then of narrative thinking is that it encourages the free play of the imagination.
The Researcher’s Natural Aptitude
It is interesting to note that some individuals have much greater skill at narrative thinking than others and it is perhaps this skill which attracts them to qualitative rather than to quantitative research. Various quantitative techniques, such as content analysis (Berelson,1980) and correspondence analysis(Greenacre,1984), may be used to help develop a higher order narrative based on the primary narrative before this is in turn developed into theoretical conjectures.
The importance of the list in table 7.1 is that it suggests that there are 16 key concepts which arise out of the primary narrative which need to be incorporated in the higher order narrative and perhaps ultimately in the theoretical conjecture.
In the research referred to above, only the nine top-scoring concepts were eventually incorporated into the theoretical conjecture. This is because it was felt that these were the most important issues that had been brought to the researcher’s attention, and also that more than nine issues might make the theoretical conjecture unwieldy and difficult to understand.
Honing a Paradigm
According to the positivistic tradition, narrative thinking on its own does not generally yield sufficient rigour for what one now regards as modern science and it is usually necessary to progress beyond the purely narrative presentation. Such as fitness, inheritability, rates of mutation and population growth rates.
It can now be said that if a certain trait in an individual has a certain inheritability and produces individuals with a certain degree of fitness relative to others, it will in a predictable period of time become the dominant trait in that population.
In other words, one can subject Darwin’s theory to much more stringent tests than were previously possible. One can now do more than simply argue (as Darwin did) that the validity of his theory follows from its consistent explanation of a large class of facts, but can make precise and testable predictions based on quantitative analysis of the theory.
It is equally true that many years elapsed between Einstein’s reflections in the patent office and the development of his field equations and eventually the general theory of relativity which explains the nature of gravity in terms of the curvature of space-time brought about by the presence of massive bodies. However, in both cases, the narrative description can be seen as a necessary prelude to the formulation of the fully paradigmatic quantitative theory .
Medawar(1984) express this connection between the two modes of thought as follows:
Scientific theories…. begin as imaginative constructions. They begin, if you like, as stories, and the purpose of the critical or rectifying episode in scientific reasoning is precisely to find out whether or not these stories about real life.
To synthesise the many thoughts into a few more powerful explanations.
To see what is general; in what is particular and what is permanent in what is transitory is the aim of scientific thought.
In the eye of science, the fall of an apple, the motion of a planet round a sun, and the clinging of the atmosphere to the earth are all seen as examples of the law of gravity. This possibility of disentangling the most complex evanescent circumstances into various examples of permanent laws is the controlling idea of modern thought.
The next step in the research process is to use the higher order narrative to develop a theoretical conjecture. If the narrative has been constructed with this in mind then the theoretical conjecture can simply be the formalisation of the conclusions of the higher order narrative in such a way that it will be relatively easy to produce empirical generalisations or hypotheses for the purposes of further testing.
At this stage a substantial amount of research has been done and it is clearly, the case that if this has been conducted well, a major contribution could have been added to the body of knowledge and, in some cases, may be sufficient for a research degree.
For this to happen paradigmatic thinking is needed which requires that the theoretical conjecture be developed into one or more hypotheses or empirical generalisations. Once this has been done quantitative evidence is required that can allow the hypotheses to be rigorously tested using appropriate statistical techniques.
The Range of Evidence
Research workers who espouse the qualitative or narrative approach to research sometimes argue that a single case study is enough to enable the researcher to add to the body of knowledge.
This single case study approach has interesting implications. Clearly the discovery of a phenomenon as a result of a single case study may add significantly to the body of knowledge simply because it is established that this phenomenon exists. A broader exercise, including multiple case studies or evidence from a variety of sources, is more likely to lead to interesting generalisations about the phenomenon under investigation.
The steps involved in qualitative research
Quantitative Research and Paradigms
For quantitative research it is usually obvious what evidence is required and this evidence may usually be collected within a tight structure. Thus in the social sciences in general and information systems research in particular, evidence collection often involves the use of questionnaire. Information systems research especially information systems management research that relies exclusively on evidence obtained from techniques such as questionnaires, should be regarded with particular circumspection.
Scientific understanding proceeds by way of constructing and analysing ‘models’ of the segments or aspects of reality under study. The purpose of these models is not to give a mirror image of reality, not to include all its elements in their exact sizes and proportions, but rather to single out and make available for intensive investigation those elements which are decisive. We abstract from non-essentials, we blot out the unimportant to get an unobstructed view of the important, we magnify in order to improve the range and accuracy of our observation.
A model is, and must be, unrealistic in the sense in which the word is most commonly used.
Nevertheless, and in a sense paradoxically, if it is a good model it provides the key to understanding reality.
A Model of the Quantitative Research Process
It omits the development of the primary and the higher order narratives as these techniques are not necessary, given that the researcher will already have a model or paradigm with which to work.
References - Latest
Interesting article
Narrative: An ontology, epistemology and methodology for pro-environmental psychology research
Philip Brown
Energy Research & Social Science
Volume 31, September 2017, Pages 215-222
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629617301767
ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Bourdieuian Criticism Of The Narrative Paradigm: The Case Of Historical Texts
by: Junya Morooka - University of Pittsburgh
http://rozenbergquarterly.com/issa-proceedings-2002-bourdieuian-criticism-of-the-narrative-paradigm-the-case-of-historical-textsi/
Barbara Czarniawska, Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity, University of Chicago Press, 1997
http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Narrating_the_Organization.html?id=oIHB7aJEipQC
The book referenced in the chapter Jung C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections is available on archive.org
An article containing the process using primary narrative, higher order narrative and conjuncture development
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=S7CDl-cbPnUC&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false
Full thesis of the above paper by Marian Carcary
http://issuu.com/academic-conferences.org/docs/marian_carcary_june20
Full thesis having the primary narrative - higher order narrative - theoretical conjencture
A Model for the Formulation of Strategic Intent Based on a Comparison of the Business and the Military
by Colin George Brand
Supervisor: Dr. D. Remenyi
November 2010
University of South Africa
http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/4926/thesis%20brand%20cg.pdf?sequence=1
Full Thesis
ECommerce Information Systems Success: A South African Study
Shaun Pather
Supervisor: Prof D. Remenyi
November 2006
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
http://academic-publishing.org/pdfs/ECIS_Success_ShaunPather.pdf
Narrative method of enquiry
http://www.sonic.net/~rgiovan/essay.2.PDF
Theorizing or Coneptualizing Research in Economics
Chapter 7
http://home.sandiego.edu/~sumner/econ490/Lecture_7.pdf
Analyzing Qualitative Data and Concept Discovery
Ch. 8 From Filing Cabinet to Computer
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zuCIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT224#v=onepage&q&f=false
in
Analyzing Qualitative Data
Alan Bryman, Bob Burgess
Routledge, 09-Sep-2002 - Social Science - 246 pages
This major inter-disciplinary collection, edited by two of the best respected figures in the field, provides a superb general introduction to this subject. Chapters include discussions of fieldwork methodology, analyzing discourse, the advantages and pitfalls of team approaches, the uses of computers, and the applications of qualitative data analysis for social policy. Shrewd and insightful, the collection will be required reading for students of the latest thinking on research methods.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zuCIAgAAQBAJ
Updated 15 September 2019, 8 September 2016, 23 December 2014
