Also from Polity
Approaches to Social Enquiry, 2nd edition, Norman Blaikie (2007)
Social Research: Paradigms in Action, Norman Blaikie and Jan Priest (2017)
Third Edition
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Copyright © Norman Blaikie and Jan Priest 2019
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First edition published in 2000 by Polity Press
Second edition published in 2009 by Polity Press
This third edition first published in 2019 by Polity Press
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Names: Blaikie, Norman W. H., 1933- author. | Priest, Jan, 1949- author.
Title: Designing social research : the logic of anticipation / Norman Blaikie, Jan Priest.
Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019605 (print) | LCCN 2018020875 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509517442 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509517404 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509517411 (pbk.)
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Social research has three main phases: planning, execution and reporting. In some research, these three phases are discrete and follow this sequence. In other research, they may be intertwined. This book is about the first phase, the designing of social research, not about the details of how to do it. Of course, the planning has to anticipate how it will be done, and detailed knowledge of research methods is necessary at this stage in order to make good decisions.
Planning is vital in any kind of social research. Failure to plan is to run the risk of losing control of the project and failing to complete it successfully. The fact that certain kinds of research require some decisions to be made as the research proceeds is no excuse for avoiding careful planning at the outset. In some studies, preliminary or exploratory research may be needed to inform research design decisions.
A discussion of the core elements of a research design, and the connections between them, may look very much like the steps involved in doing social research. However, it is important to recognize the differences between the planning process, the execution of the research and the reconstruction of this process at the reporting phase. Kaplan (1964) distinguished between how research is done and how it is made to appear to have been done; between ‘logic in use’ and ‘reconstructed logic’. The latter frequently converts a somewhat messy process into an apparently ordered and controlled one. This is particularly true of field research or ethnography.
In the research worker’s mind little did happen the way it is put down on paper, in terms of substance and sequence. What was ultimately assembled and ascertained, got caught in the familiar bouts of rationalizations that straighten out a zig-zag approach and turn the entire study into a well-organized logical design with a beginning and a rounded-off ending. (Hutheesing 1990: 10)
The ‘logic of anticipation’ can be added to Kaplan’s two categories, i.e. the process of planning how the research will be conducted. Of course, it is always possible that the logic of anticipation cannot be followed in its entirety; changes may be required as unanticipated obstacles are encountered and the researcher’s understanding of the phenomenon increases. It is possible for research to be written up to make it look as if it began with an anticipated logic when there was none, or it was poorly conceived at the outset.
A common approach to social research is to just muddle through. Novice researchers may be unaware of the dangers in not planning thoroughly and, without appropriate guidance, may end up with very precarious, sometimes disastrous, outcomes. It is hard enough to do good social research without building in limitations due to poor planning. Hakim argued that while individual researchers may be able to muddle through, ‘large-scale studies, contract research for central government and other organizations, studies involving multi-disciplinary teams, and research programmes that involve a range of studies concerned with a central topic or set of issues’ (2000: 2) require highly visible designs at the beginning. We certainly agree with the latter but not with the former. Individual researchers also need to design their research carefully.
This book reviews the major elements of a research design and discusses the choices that need to be made with regard to each element. All or some of these elements may be discussed in textbooks on social research methods, but their treatment is usually rather superficial. These books are primarily concerned with introducing undergraduate students to the techniques of collecting and analysing data. While knowledge of these techniques is necessary, choices from among them have to relate to more fundamental aspects of research, the research questions that are to be answered and the logics of inquiry that will be used to answer them.
The process of formulating a research design is probably the most difficult part of social research. Experience from many years of teaching courses in research design to postgraduate students, courses in research methods, statistics and the philosophy of social research to undergraduates, extensive supervision of student research, and in conducting our own research, has led to the development of strategies and techniques to help students through this process. This book explicates these strategies and techniques.
We are fully aware that readers will come from a diverse range of disciplines and will have individual views about social research and preferences for particular types of research. It is impossible to provide in-depth illustrations that will relate directly to diverse discipline fields and also individual preferences. However, we consider that the structure and processes for designing social research that we present are sufficiently generic that readers will be able to relate them to their fields of interest. In situations where lecturers/instructors use the book as a text, it should not be difficult to find suitable, relevant illustrations. In fact, this is a task that students can be given as an exercise. From our experience, the best way to learn how to start to design a research project is to choose a topic of interest, select and formulate a research problem related to it, and then to translate this into one or more research questions to investigate the problem – the more this is done the better! The illustrations in chapter 12, and in Appendix II, provide models for this.
The first two editions of this book have been used extensively in courses and workshops with students from a wide variety of disciplines and from many countries. Comments from lecturers and students who have used the earlier editions indicate that two new topics should be added – research ethics and using the Internet. In addition, we have made some relatively minor changes and updated references.
We need to make it very clear that this book is not a standard, undergraduate textbook for introductory courses on research methods. The target audiences are:
By ‘an empirical research project’ we mean research that attempts to produce answers to research questions by collecting and/or analysing data related to some aspects of social life. While they may find it useful, the book is not intended for students who are undertaking purely theoretical theses or projects that rely entirely on existing literature as a resource.
The emphasis of the entire book is on the process of designing research projects, not on how to do research. Nevertheless, common methods for collecting, generating and analysing data are discussed, but with the purpose of exposing the reader to methods that are available and facilitating appropriate choices of methods for answering research questions. While we stress the differences between this book and standard research methods texts, it can provide a useful complement to such texts, particularly in courses that may aim to introduce students to the fundamental foundations and principles of social research rather than just techniques.
The stimulus for writing the first two editions of this book, and Approaches to Social Enquiry (Blaikie 2007), came from the task of offering postgraduate students a (usually compulsory) course that would prepare them to conduct their own research. Many students were approaching research for the first time, and/or came from disciplines that provided no undergraduate foundation in social research. The course was based on a strong belief that social research is more than just collecting and analysing data, that before data collection begins a great deal of thought, planning and decision making has to occur, and that this needs to be based on a grasp of the philosophical issues and dilemmas of which social researchers should be aware and be able to address. In addition, the apparent lack of an adequate understanding of the role of social theory in research was a primary concern.
In the brief span of a semester, the challenge was to provide these students with:
As there seemed to be no suitable textbook that met these requirements, Approaches to Social Enquiry was written to deal with the first requirement and Designing Social Research reviewed the first and dealt with the other three. As numerous books deal with the techniques of data collection and/or generation and analysis, neither of these books attempted to do this. The third book in the series, Social Research: Paradigms in Action (2017), draws the first two books in the series together, outlines three fundamental research paradigms and illustrates in detail how they can be used.
The structure and content of this book is based on a set of firm convictions, including:
Two underlying principles have been used in writing the book. The first is to introduce the reader to new ideas and activities in stages, with each successive encounter taking an idea further. The second is to revisit an idea or activity from different points of view, or from the points of view of different themes. Therefore, if you experience a degree of repetition as you work your way through the book, you will know that it is intentional.
The book reviews and elaborates the main elements that need to be addressed in preparing a research design. It focuses on the critical decisions about each element and the choices that are available. The path covers both conventional and unconventional ground.
In this edition, we have identified four broad components of a research design, each representing a particular task or stage in the research process. The chapters are grouped under these components: Part 1: Focusing (chapter 5); Part 2: Framing (chapter 6); Part 3: Selecting (chapters 7 and 8); and Part 4: Distilling (chapter 9). These four components are preceded by three foundational chapters – the first on the requirements of research designs and research proposals (chapter 2), the second on these four research design tasks (chapter 3) and the third on research ethics (chapter 4). They are followed by two other sections: one dealing with the design and ethics implications when researching networked worlds (chapters 10 and 11); and the other providing four illustrations of different types of design (chapter 12).
Chapter 2 sets out the requirements for a research design and anticipates the major elements to be discussed in detail in the following chapters. It also distinguishes between research designs and research proposals in terms of their purposes and the audiences or stakeholders to whom they are directed. In brief, a research design is a working document used by a researcher and close associates, while a research proposal is used mainly to obtain academic and other necessary approval for a research project, to satisfy the requirements of research ethics committees or to apply for research funds.
Chapter 3 begins with a review of conventional views on designing research in the social sciences, and the types of designs that are commonly discussed. An alternative view is then proposed in which the fundamental requirements and core elements are elaborated. The implication is that, instead of the usual limited set of designs discussed in most textbooks, there is a wide variety of possible designs that are produced by the range of possible combinations of choices that can be made on each core element. This is followed by a discussion of how to get started on a research design by stating the research problem to be investigated and formulating the topic. Some consideration is given to the possible influences on this process. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the differences between basic and applied research, and the various stances a researcher can take towards research and the researched.
In most countries strict ethical requirements have to be met in the design and execution of social research. Chapter 4 reviews these ethical principles and codes, their origins, the theories on which they are based and some of the problems in putting them into practice.
The major design elements are dealt with in Parts 1 to 4, in chapters 5 to 9. Chapter 5, in Part 1, commences with a discussion of the nature, role and development of research questions. This is followed by an elaboration of research purposes, and of the links between research questions, research purposes, hypotheses and the literature review. The rest of the book stands on the foundations laid in this chapter.
Chapter 6, in Part 2, outlines the four logics of inquiry that are available to advance social scientific knowledge. These logics provide alternative procedures for answering research questions by setting out a series of steps for producing knowledge about some part of the social world. The logics embody particular combinations of ontological and epistemological assumptions, which provide a view of social reality and ideas on how knowledge can be generated. It is necessary to choose one or more logics of inquiry to provide answers to research questions. This choice will have a major influence on the decisions to be taken on the remaining design elements, and will largely determine the way the research proceeds. Chapter 6 also includes a brief review of a range of ontological and epistemological positions and the paradigms with which these and the logics of inquiry are associated.
In Part 3, chapter 7 covers four of the more complex and perplexing aspects of designing and undertaking research: the role of concepts, theories, hypotheses and models. Different views of the role of concepts are discussed, followed by an examination of what constitutes ‘theory’ and a review of some classical and contemporary views on the relationship between theory and research. This leads to a brief examination of the major views on the use of models in social research. To conclude, the role of concepts, theories and models in the four logics of inquiry is reviewed to expose a core set of choices that need to be made.
Chapter 8, the second in Part 3, deals with a more practical set of choices concerning the sources of and methods for selecting data: it examines the types and forms in which data are produced in the social sciences; discusses the variety of contexts from which data can be obtained; compares the techniques used to select data, particularly sampling methods; and concludes with a critical review of the role of case studies.
Chapter 9, in Part 4, is concerned with the methods for collecting, reducing and analysing data. This begins with a discussion of the important role that the timing of data collection has in determining the nature of a research design. Many discussions of research design focus almost exclusively on this element and its relationship to experimental procedures. In this book, timing is related particularly to data collection; decisions about it will follow from the form of the research questions. The bulk of the chapter centres on the qualitative/quantitative distinction and the use of mixed methods. It does not include a detailed discussion of the actual techniques or methods used in social science research. Instead, attention is given to the links between logics of inquiry and methods. The main argument is that while logics of inquiry entail ontological assumptions, methods do not. In other words, at least some methods can be used in the service of different logics and, hence, different ontological assumptions.
This century’s Internet age differs markedly from all previous centuries in the scale and way in which personal, social, economic, political and legal (re)arrangements have evolved with rapidly expanding and intelligently responsive networks of computing, communications and storage technologies and services. It is prudent to ask which design considerations and types of decisions that apply to comparatively ‘low tech’ and ‘low networked’ worlds can be carried forward and applied to the design and conduct of studies of today’s socio-technical environments and lifeworlds. In order that the reader is better prepared to consider the portability to today’s networked worlds of the many design considerations and decision types already outlined, this next Part – titled Researching Networked Worlds – introduces design considerations (chapter 10) and ethics considerations (chapter 11) that are associated with today’s electronically networked public and private lifeworlds. These two chapters set the scene for: a logic of inquiry other than the four discussed earlier; non-human centred knowledge and intelligence; social activity that involves not only humans; and alternatives to pre-defined and bounded ethical arrangements. The challenge for the reader involved in researching today’s fast-evolving technology-intensive networked worlds is to establish sufficient awareness of these types of developments so that design options and choices, which account for the character of Internet-mediated lifeworlds, can be identified and clearly justified.
The book concludes with illustrations of four research designs using all four logics of inquiry. The designs come from one research programme, with some modifications for illustrative purposes. The intention of the designs is to show how individual choices about each of the core design elements can be brought together into a cohesive package.
It is a common practice in introductory books on sociology and social research methods to include a brief discussion of ‘the scientific method’ (see e.g. Chadwick et al. 1984; Kidder and Judd 1986; Sedlack and Stanley 1992; Ellis 1994; Neuman 2006, 2014; Kumar 2014; Babbie 2016). This usually includes an outline of a set of criteria that must be satisfied if social research is to be regarded as scientific. Unfortunately, many of these discussions perpetuate outdated notions of both science and social research. What is missing is a discussion of the different logics of inquiry that are available in the natural and social sciences.
It is not possible here to engage in a discussion of the nature of science. There is now an extensive literature on this topic, as well as on whether and, if so, how social science can be a science. (See e.g. Chalmers 1982, O’Hear 1989 and Riggs 1992 on the natural sciences, and Giddens 1976, Williams and May 1996, Hughes and Sharrock 1997, Smith 1998 and Blaikie 2007 on science in the social sciences.) However, the elaboration of the logics of inquiry in chapter 4 will deal with some aspects of these issues.
This latter discussion is intended, among other things, to show that there are four possible views of science in the social sciences, differing in how new knowledge is generated by using each logic of inquiry. Three logics of inquiry that have been used in the natural and physical sciences have been advocated, by different scientific communities, as also being appropriate for the social sciences. However, there is another logic, with many versions, that has been presented as being exclusive to and, according to some writers, the only one appropriate for the social sciences.
For well over one hundred years, advocates of these four views of social science have engaged in heated debates about their relative merits. For those readers unfamiliar with these views and debates, all that is necessary for the moment is to recognize that there is no such thing as the scientific method, that there is a variety of logics of inquiry available in the social sciences and that, in order to conduct social research, it is necessary to choose from among them. These logics, and the considerations relevant to choosing between them, form an integral part of what follows.
This discussion of research design uses five key concepts: research questions, research purposes, logics of inquiry, paradigms and methods. The first concept, research questions, should be uncontroversial. It refers to the questions researchers pose and which they try to answer by undertaking social research. While this is a straightforward idea, it is surprising how much research is conducted without them. A core argument running through this book is that well-formulated research questions are the peg on which all research activities hang. For the most part, hypotheses play a limited and very specific role in social research.
The second concept, research purposes, identifies the types of knowledge a researcher wishes to produce, such as descriptions and/or explanations. Research purposes are closely related to research questions as each of the three types of questions, ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’, produces a particular type of knowledge.
While ‘aims’ and ‘objectives’ are in common usage in texts on research design and methods, for the most part we have avoided using them. If attention is given to research questions and purposes, ‘aims’ and ‘objectives’ are superfluous in the process of designing social research. However, it may be necessary to discuss them in a research proposal (see chapter 2) to satisfy local requirements.
‘Research objectives’ was used in the first edition for what is now called research purposes. The reason for the change is to, hopefully, avoid confusion with the various uses of ‘objectives’ in the literature, and to focus on the type of knowledge that is desired rather than the activities to be undertaken or the goals to be achieved. Research questions identify what the research wishes to achieve, and a research design states what activities are to be undertaken to do this.
The fifth concept, research methods, is also not controversial. It is used here to include the procedures and activities for selecting, collecting, generating, organizing and analysing data. Another core argument here is that the choice of methods occurs late in the process of designing social research. A number of fundamental decisions have to be made before methods of investigation can be considered.
The third and fourth of these concepts, logics of inquiry and paradigms, require some clarification. In the first and second editions ‘research strategy’ was coined to identify a feature of social research that is usually overlooked, i.e. the logic used to generate new knowledge. As ‘strategy’ has come to have a variety of meanings in social research, this edition uses the more philosophical concept of ‘logic of inquiry’, as is the case in Social Research: Paradigms in Action (Blaikie and Priest 2017).
The use of a logic of inquiry occurs in the context of assumptions about the nature of social reality and the ways in which we can come to know that reality, i.e. ontological and epistemological assumptions, respectively. Following the discussion of the four logics of inquiry in chapter 6, six types of both ontological and epistemological assumptions are reviewed, based on the discussion in Blaikie (2007). When you encounter this discussion, it is important to recognize that the range of types and the labels used for them, while following the literature in this field, include some types and concepts that have been devised to help elaborate the logics of inquiry.
The use of the concept paradigm may cause some controversy and confusion. Following Thomas Kuhn’s (1970) introduction of the concept into the literature of the history and philosophy of science, and its application to sociology by Robert Friedrichs (1970), this concept has attracted a variety of usages and has since entered the popular vernacular. Our use of paradigm is consistent with Kuhn’s primary usage. It refers to major traditions in the natural and social sciences that incorporate particular ontological and epistemological assumptions and one or more of the logics of inquiry. Some also incorporate general theoretical ideas. The four classical and seven contemporary paradigms that are reviewed here (see also Blaikie 2007) provide theoretical and methodological contexts within which research is frequently conducted. This set of paradigms reflects progressions and fashions in ways of thinking about ontology and epistemology, as well as debates among protagonists from diverse points of view. Some paradigms have been subjected to such severe criticism that they are unlikely to be considered to be useful, while others have been adhered to dogmatically. It is our view that paradigms should be selected to suit the research questions being investigated.
In the first edition of Approaches to Social Enquiry (Blaikie 1993a), ‘approaches’ rather than paradigms was used. This was changed in the second edition (2007) as the former concept was found to be rather too broad and it did not identify the features that the concept ‘paradigm’ incorporates. Again, it is important to note that this concept has a specific meaning here and should not be confused with other usages.
In Social Research: Paradigms in Action (2017) we reduced the eleven paradigms discussed here to three research paradigms – Neo-Positivism, Interpretivism and Critical Realism. There is an important distinction to be made between paradigm and research paradigm. The eleven paradigms reviewed in this book are not all directly related to the conduct of social research; some simply provide an intellectual context of theoretical and philosophical ideas. However, the three research paradigms in Blaikie and Priest (2017) have been devised specifically for use in research. (See Appendix I for a summary of these research paradigms.)
We recognize that by changing key concepts in this way we could be confusing readers who have worked with more than one book or edition. We apologize in advance, but believe the changes are necessary.
The approach to social research taken in this book deviates in a number of ways from conventional wisdom and the views of social research expounded in many standard texts on the subject. Rather than leave the reader to discover these differences along the way, they are set out here as assertions.
This book is located in the middle of a series that started with Approaches to Social Enquiry (Blaikie 1993a, 2007) and ends with Social Research: Paradigms in Action (Blaikie and Priest 2017). The former deals with the philosophy of social research, while the latter puts design decisions into practice in the context of three research paradigms. Unlike the earlier editions of Designing Social Research, this edition was written in full awareness of its successor and, therefore, makes connections to it.
The three research paradigms elaborated and illustrated in Social Research: Paradigms in Action are identified by their characteristic ontological and epistemological assumptions, and the particular logic of inquiry that is used; the Neo-Positive paradigm incorporates Deductive logic, the Interpretive paradigm Abductive logic and the Critical Realist paradigm Retroductive logic (See Appendix I). Hence, we have what might appear to be an inconsistency between Designing Social Research and Social Research: Paradigms in Action, the former with four logics of inquiry and the latter with three research paradigms; there is one logic of inquiry left over – Inductive logic. The reason is that Inductive logic is not associated with any research paradigm. Inductive logic’s only role in social research is to produce generalized descriptions, i.e. to produce answers to ‘what’ research questions. This can be done in the context of a variety of ontological assumptions.
No attempt is made in this edition to incorporate these three research paradigms. We believe that just concentrating here on the four logics of inquiry, and recognizing differences in ontological and epistemological assumptions, is sufficient in the context of designing social research.