Doing Your Masters Dissertation

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Doing Your Masters Dissertation

Realizing your potential as a social scientist

Chris Hart
© Chris Hart, 2005
First published 2005
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Contents
List of figures and tables
Preface
Acknowledgements

Part One: Essential preparation for your dissertation

1: What is a masters?

2: Managing your transition to masters

3: Finding and formulating your topic

4: Imagining your dissertation

5: Choosing which type of dissertation to do

6: Searching and reviewing the literature

Part Two: Research design and methodology

 7: Methodological assumptions and beliefs

8: Methodological choices and consequences

9: Research ethics and standards

10: Research design

Part Three: Doing the Writing

11: Writing your research proposal

12: Writing your dissertation

Appendix 1: Skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities of the masters

Appendix 2: Levels of measurement and use

Appendix 3: References for Tables 10.2 and 10.7

References

Index
List of figures and tables

Figures
1.1 Timescale for a masters dissertation
1.2 The learning outcomes approach to masters course design

2.1 The importance of your masters in your life

2.2 Record of time use
2.3 Revised weekly schedule
2.4 Diverse elements for managing a masters dissertation
2.5 Example of a card index
2.6 The learning cycle

3.1 Finding a proper topic

3.2 Topic puzzles and influences
3.3 Topic analysis from the general to the particular
3.4 Sociology and suicide: same general topic, different ways of researching it
3.5 Research questions, concepts and data – the example of social science and advertising
3.6 Elements in defining your research topic
3.7 The place of research aims and statements in research design
3.8 Structure of statement of research aims
3.9 Deliberately vague phrases allow for further explanation at a later stage
3.10 The deductive structure of hypotheses

4.1 The narrative sequence of a dissertation and resolution of uncertainties

4.2 Inter-relatedness of chapters in a dissertation
4.3 First level of envisioning
4.4 Second level of envisioning
4.5 Taking an imaginary research journey
4.6 From topic idea to proposal

6.1 The literature and your research topic

6.2 Literature ‘about’ and literature ‘of’ work
6.3 Relationships between the literature and the project elements
 7.1 Positivists and their assumptions
7.2 The hypothetico-deductive model of explanation
7.3 Sacks’s position in relation to conventional social science
7.4 Sacks’s analysis of the ‘baby cried’ story

8.1 Kallikak family tree

8.2 Lévi-Strauss’s axes of initial and final states of affairs in ‘The Story of Asdiwal’
8.3 Leach’s matrix of oppositions in Greek mythology

9.1 Deontological and consequentialist approaches to ethics

9.2 Ethical issues in research
9.3 Paradigm of potential ethical conflicts
9.4 Ethics as situational professionalism

10.1 The methodological logic of research design

10.2 The place of research design in the research process
10.3 Different types of research and associated study design elements
10.4 Generalization, specificity, breadth and depth
10.5 Variables, attributes, values and relationships
10.6 The validity chain
10.7 Approximate areas under the normal distribution
10.8 The context of sampling
10.9 Sampling in practice
10.10 Probability and non-probability sampling

11.1 The inter-related elements of a research proposal

11.2 Public librarians’ possible bias against romantic fiction
11.3 Sample timetable for your research proposal

12.1 Typical structure of the hypothesis dissertation

12.2 Typical structure of the analytical dissertation
12.3 Typical structure of the mystery dissertation
12.4 Thinking and planning the writing
12.5 Sequence of parts in a dissertation

Tables
1.1 Bachelors, masters and doctorate research
1.2 Skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities of the masters
1.3 Criteria for a masters dissertation
1.4 50 to 60 per cent attainment
1.5 The examiner’s questions
1.6 Learning styles

2.1 Analysing distractions

2.2 Key principles of time management

3.1 Different kinds of puzzle

3.2 Sensitivities influencing research
3.3 Outcomes from an initial search and review of the literature
3.4 Vocabulary of types of research
3.5 Using research terms to design coherent research
3.6 Operationalizing the hypothesis

4.1 Parts of a typical dissertation

4.2 Chapters in a dissertation
4.3 Word counts for different chapters
4.4 The story structure of a dissertation
4.5 Addressing key data requirements for your topic

5.1 Different types of dissertation

5.2 Developmental approach to the dissertation in management studies
5.3 Different types of research and masters dissertations
5.4 Example of a questionnaire-based traditional dissertation
5.5 Example of a desk-based traditional dissertation
5.6 Example of a work-based dissertation
5.7 Example of a work-based comparative dissertation
5.8 Example of a literature review dissertation

6.1 The literature

6.2 Initial preparation for a generic literature search
6.3 Citation styles
6.4 Methods of analysis for producing an indicative review
6.5 Doing a structured themed review in five weeks
6.6 A scheme for the systematic assessment of a literature
6.7 Using tables to organize your information
6.8 Generic assessment criteria for the literature review
6.9 Argumentative assessment criteria for the literature review

7.1 Charitable summary of early positivist assumptions and arguments

8.1 Grouping of elements of the Oedipus myth

 9.1 Aspirational principles of ethical research codes
9.2 Consequences of research misconduct
9.3 Assessment of Cyril Burt
9.4 Questionable and criminal behaviour in research

10.1 Summary of interpretivist research designs

10.2 Examples of and sources on different research standpoints and cultures
10.3 Construct, internal and external validity: class size and educational achievement
10.4 Recommended sample sizes for a given population
10.5 Types of reliability
10.6 The place of data collection tools in research design
10.7 Methods for data collection and analysis

11.1 Indication of length for a research proposal

11.2 Two quantitative and qualitative research proposals
11.3 Introduction to a research proposal for a traditional dissertation
11.4 Introduction to a research proposal for a work-based dissertation
11.5 Stating the scope of your research
11.6 Identifying the relevance of your research
11.7 Literature review from a literature-based research proposal
11.8 An indicative review of the literature from a traditional research proposal
11.9 An indicative review from a work-based research proposal
11.10 Methods section of a research proposal
11.11 Statement of ethical issues and problems
11.12 Showing coherent thinking about your proposal
11.13 Overview of criteria for a research proposal
11.14 Assessing the justification for the topic

12.1 Differences between the objectivist and constructivist dissertation

12.2 Headings for arranging the introductory chapter
12.3 Structures for constructing a rationalization
12.4 Generic template for the methodology chapter
12.5 Titles and different kinds of publication
12.6 Examples of executive summaries
Preface
There are many books on research spanning every conceivable methodological approach and
tradition with many dedicated to particular disciplines. This is not yet another book on research
methods. This book accompanies Doing a Literature Search (Hart, 2001) and Doing a Literature
Review (Hart, 1998), forming three books essential for postgraduate research. It is a book on
doing a dissertation at masters level aimed at masters students, though in parts it has much which
will be of relevance to doctoral students. As such it tries not to be patronizing or simplistic. The
overall aim is to overcome the ‘bite size’, skim across the top or thin learning approach that is
now becoming more common (regrettably) in higher education. Materials and comments are
included to engender higher level cognitive qualities of scholarship based on reflection,
contemplation and critical thinking. It also aims to provide clarity, some of the essential ‘nuts
and bolts’ and benchmarks in terms of:

giving clear definitions on the nature and scope of the three main types of masters
dissertation — the traditional, the work-based and the literature review dissertation;

showing the criteria normally used to assess a masters dissertation, using them in
different chapters to show how different sections need to be written in order to meet
those criteria;

providing numerous examples and illustrations on how to do the technical as well as

intellectual aspects of constructing a dissertation;

demonstrating the techniques that can be used to identify a topic and to formulate a
clear research puzzle capable of resulting in a dissertation;

showing how to write clear aims and objectives and formulate hypotheses;

suggesting how to deal with ethical issues and sensitive situations, including working
with a supervisor;

providing robust and succinct guidance on how to write the many different sections
which make up a dissertation; and

providing robust referrals to other textbooks and Internet sources on data collection
techniques, data analysis and writing.

Origins of this book

This book, like the others in the series, has its origins in my own experiences of doing a masters
and doctorate and then going on to supervise others doing likewise. Learning how to do my own
postgraduate research by trial and error was a good learning experience, especially when
combined with the high standards set by my own supervisors. But it would have helped if there
had been some sound guidance, in the form of some books and examples, to call on. Over the
years I have applied the ideas of learning theory to reflect on my own experience and that of
others to develop from them the principles of doing postgraduate research. Working in an
institution where postgraduate research was just beginning meant that nothing could be taken for
granted, that there were no organizational traditions to be followed and hence few limitations to
experimentation. By looking at postgraduate research afresh, what others took for granted was
looked at closely and scrutinized. The result has been to produce this book, which focuses in on
the common concerns and needs of postgraduate students. Although I have tried to get as much
in this book as physically possible, is not a book that will please everyone. It has not been written
to do this. The chapters on methodology and examples chosen may cause some criticism, but the
point to remember is that not everything in the social sciences can be included in this kind of
book; that it is not a book on research methods, but on how to do a good masters dissertation,
and in so doing become an informed researcher. For advice and instruction on methods there are
many other excellent books and resources and at the end of each chapter suggestions are given
for further reading. The purpose of this is to encourage wider reading, especially of primary
sources, so that this book also acts as a reference point that the student can use to construct a
reliable map for their research journey.
Acknowledgements
All academic enterprises involve many people and this book is no exception. It is the outcome of
teaching and supervising many masters dissertations and doctorate theses on a wide range of
topics over the past decade and more. It therefore owes much to those students who undertook
their masters journey with me, some of whose work is represented in this book. Thanks go to
these and my current masters students. It also must go to my doctorate students (Dr Sandra
Foulds, Dr Jane Barford, David Kane, Judy Thompson, Mark Lum and Mo Bains) who have
been subject to various incarnations of this book often in much longer versions than is printed
here. Special thanks go to Denis Reardon for his comradeship over the years and his unstinting
perseverance to maintain academic standards in the face of pressures to dumb down. Thanks
must also go to the editorial team at Sage who saw the need for this and the other books in this
series, in particular Karen Phillips, who has shown extreme levels of patience, and Michael
Carmichael. Lynne Slocombe in particular gave constructive feedback on an incomplete and a
rough first draft. Finally, sincere gratitude must go to Beverley, who once again put up with the
demands of writing and the pressures on precious family time that such an enterprise demands,
and although a little naff I dedicate this book to her and BB – a three-year-old who more than
once pressed the delete key.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to use material from: Sharon A. Cox,
Approaches to Assist the Formulation of Project Ideas, School of Computing, University of
Central England in Birmingham, 2001.
Chris Hart
Kingswinford, 2004
 Part One

Essential Preparation for Your Dissertation

 1

What is a Masters?

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

•THE MASTERS AS A LICENCE TO DO RESEARCH • WHAT IS A MASTERS

DISSERTATION? • DISSERTATION OR THESIS? • THE DISSERTATION AS PART OF
A MASTERS COURSE • CRITERIA USED TO ASSESS A DISSERTATION • MARKING
RANGES AND FAILURE • CRITERIA AND THE EXAMINER • DIFFERENT TYPES OF
DISSERTATION • HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO DO A MASTERS DISSERTATION?
• ARE YOU CAPABLE OF DOING A MASTERS DISSERTATION? • A MASTERS IS
NO MOUNTAIN • WHERE TO DO YOUR MASTERS • WHAT TO LOOK FOR •
LEARNING AND TEACHING STYLES • COURSE SPECIFICATIONS • SUMMARY OF
THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

Increasingly more and more people are undertaking a masters level degree course (MA, MSc and
MBA). The majority of these courses entail a dissertation of between 10,000 and 15,000 words.
The dissertation is still seen as an essential element of the masters degree. In this chapter we look
at what we mean by a masters dissertation, at the range of skills, capabilities, attitudes and
qualities doing a masters will give you, at how a masters is normally assessed and at the different
kinds of dissertation you can do. Our basic premise is that doing a masters dissertation is much
more than a skills-based exercise. The purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to answer some basic
but essential questions:

1 What is a masters dissertation?

2 What kind of document is a masters dissertation?

3 How long should a dissertation be?

4 What kinds of skills and capabilities will you need to do your dissertation?
Doing a masters dissertation should, we argue, allow you to experience a series of higher-level
educational, intellectual and ethical issues which help you to grow as a person and a
professional. We begin, therefore, by placing the masters in the conventional context of the
Bachelors and Doctorate degrees.

The masters as a licence to do research

It was only in the late nineteenth century that the titles we know as the Bachelors, Masters and
Doctorate became formal academic qualifications generally recognized around the world.
Although they have their origins in the ancient universities when they were Church institutions,
the range of modern higher degrees owes little to these origins. Table 1.1 shows the traditional
roles of the main university degrees alongside a definition of current roles.

Although the scheme in Table 1.1 has its origins in the time when the Church controlled
universities, and degrees, diplomas or licences to teach were awarded by the Church, the only
remaining vestiges of this are the academic gowns used to signify different qualifications. In the
1400s the cleric masters wore black robes lined with lamb’s wool or rabbit’s fur (for warmth)
that were trimmed with exotic fur, usually miniver, which also trimmed their hoods. A feature of
their robes was colour. Medieval masters enjoyed a wide variety of colours for their robes to
such excess that Oxford and Cambridge Universities under Henry VIII began prescribing
academic dress as a matter for university control. The drab blackness of robes only became a
feature during the seventeenth century when Puritanism dominated the universities and the
Church. The range of colours we see today designating masters in different disciplines had its
beginnings in the United States. From 1895 American universities and colleges opted to follow a
definite system of colours and standards for academic gowns; for economics the colour is
copper, for education light blue and for social work it is citron. British and European universities
follow no such standards except that each university or awarding body has generally settled on
using one colour to signify their institution.

The only other link to the ancient past is the nature of the masters as a licence to practice. In the
modern sense this licence is an acknowledgement of research skills and abilities. In modern
masters courses the dissertation is research oriented. It is intended to help the student acquire the
necessary skills and capacities to undertake a substantial piece of coherent research. Taking this
as our starting point, we will focus on the masters dissertation as a piece of independent research
to be successfully completed as part of a masters course.
TABLE 1.1 BACHELORS, MASTERS AND DOCTORATE RESEARCH

Degree Traditional and current role Research features

Bachelors A measure of a general education in terms of Small-scale independent project usually related to a
developing the skills of critical evaluation but taught module and used as the ‘honours’ element of the
specializing in a topic, e.g. twentieth-century history. degree.

Masters Originally a licence to practice theology and now a An independent piece of research focusing on the
measure of advanced knowledge of a topic. selection and analysis of a topic, design of the
research, its execution and presentation as a
 dissertation.

Doctorate Originally a licence to practice as a teacher in a An independent piece of research focusing beyond the
university and now signifies authority on the current selection and analysis of a topic, design of the
knowledge of a subject with the ability to make a research, its execution, demonstration of a high and
contribution to that knowledge. consistent level of analysis, evaluation, and
contemplation to make an original contribution to
knowledge and presentation as a thesis.

What is a masters dissertation?

Within the context of the modern taught masters course, the dissertation is a significant and
substantial learning activity. Its purpose is to give you the opportunity to demonstrate your
‘mastery’ of the skills of analysis, synthesis, evaluation, argumentation and data collection and
handling by applying them to a specific topic. In addition there are other skills, such as writing,
qualities, such as determination, and attitudes, such as honesty, which are necessary and we will
come to these shortly. Taken together these abilities are expected to be acquired and applied to
produce a coherent and reasoned piece of research.

The language used to define the dissertation tends to differ between various universities and
awarding bodies. This language includes terms and phrases such as the following, but as you can
see they are generally unhelpful:

an extended treatment of a topic;

research done for a masters degree; or

a piece of empirical research and writing.

The following definition from Yale University states that the dissertation student attains:

technical mastery of the field of specialization, is capable of doing independent scholarly

work, and is able to formulate conclusions that will in some respect modify or enlarge what
has been previously known. (Yale, 1975: 182)

Masters level research is, therefore, a display of your ability to identify a topic, justify that topic,
write clear aims and objectives which are interrelated, search and review the relevant literature,
design data collection tools, apply those tools, manage the data collection and make sense of it.
This may also include making conclusions and recommendations. It is these abilities, listed in
Table 1.2, which make the masters dissertation technically a substantial piece of work and
significant both intellectually and personally (Appendix 1 provides an extended list of these).

DISSERTATION OR THESIS?
The statement from Yale (in the section above) is a definition of their doctorate (PhD) and not
masters degree. This highlights a difference between many British and American universities.
Most universities in North America call a PhD a dissertation and the masters a thesis, while most
British universities call the PhD the thesis and the masters the dissertation. In this book we will
use the word ‘dissertation’ for masters research and ‘thesis’ for doctorate research. This is
because, when used in a research proposal or monograph, the word ‘thesis’ means theory
maintained by an argument and as such refers to the dialectic nature of a piece of writing. While
a masters has some elements of argumentation and discussion the reason for these is not the
production of an original contribution to knowledge. The role of argument and theory in the
masters is limited to justifying the topic, rationalizing the methodology and data collection
techniques and discussing the findings in relation to the use of the methodology and literature. In
the doctorate theory and argument are used more extensively to discuss and evaluate ideas,
concepts and data in depth as well as breadth.
TABLE 1.2 SKILLS, CAPABILITIES, ATTITUDES AND QUALITIES OF THE MASTERS

Note: See Appendix 1 for an expanded version of this table

THE DISSERTATION AS PART OF A MASTERS COURSE

As part of a course the masters dissertation is often specified using aims and learning outcomes.
Some typical learning opportunities (or education aims) may be:

to provide a range of learning opportunities to allow students to acquire a sound

understanding of the origins, nature and consequences of various methodological
traditions;
 to enable students to appreciate the technical and intellectual aspects of research
design and application including the management of a project; and

to allow students to appreciate the diversity and opportunities of research in the

discipline (for example, psychology, economics, literature and so on).

The research you do for your dissertation is a learning activity, the purpose of which is that you
are expected to acquire masters ability to do capable and competent research. Hence, your
dissertation is the physical evidence that you have acquired and been able to apply at an
appropriate level and in an appropriate way your learning so as to be accredited as a competent
researcher.

Your learning is often expressed by masters courses as learning outcomes. The following is a
typical set of learning outcomes, based on those you can see in Table 1.2, for the dissertation
element of a masters course:

1 To make connections between methodological assumptions, research design and

soundness of findings.

2 To distinguish between the main types of research (for example, applied, strategic,
evaluative and so on) and be able to select and justify appropriate type(s) for a given
problem or topic.

3 To design and apply a range of tools for the collection of data, including the literature
search.

4 To apply a range of techniques of analysis for the evaluation of argument and

construction of argument to justify the research.

5 To use the literature as a corpus of knowledge to extract key theories, arguments,

concepts and findings in ways which are critical and evaluative and provide a synthesis.

6 To appreciate the ethical issues in the application of research methodologies, data

collection techniques and evaluation of the literature.

7 To analyse, arrange, tabulate and present findings in a way that is clear, coherent and
systematic, including the construction of references and the bibliography.

These general learning aims and outcomes form the basis for the assessment of the dissertation
and, in some cases, the research proposal and the dissertation as separate pieces of work. The
usual method, however, is to use the research proposal as a tool to identify your research interest
and give you a plan for your dissertation. To cover this practice we will look at criteria for
assessing research proposals in a later chapter and focus here on the details of the criteria used to
assess the dissertation.
Criteria used to assess a dissertation
The only evidence that you are of ‘masters quality’ is your dissertation. The educational aims
and learning outcomes are normally assessed by employing hierarchical marking schemes that
tend to go from the general to the particular. In general terms your dissertation should:

focus on a specific problem or issue;

relate the problem or issue to the relevant literature;

have a reasoned research design;

provide an analytical and critical approach to the literature and topic;

maintain scholarly standards throughout; and

use sound arguments with valid and reliable evidence.

TABLE 1.3 CRITERIA FOR A MASTERS DISSERTATION
It should also be coherent and not a series of separate and inadequately related elements. Before
we look at how this can be done, Table 1.3 shows the main criteria used to make an assessment
of a typical dissertation and although these have a small bias towards the traditional dissertation
they are mostly relevant for other types of dissertation. When looking at these criteria remember
that your institution will probably have a different way of formulating them and you should
obtain these and discuss them with your supervisor.

MARKING RANGES AND FAILURE

As a piece of course work that is assessed and has a credit rating, the dissertation is normally
marked out of 100. This marking may be in percentages from 0 to 100 per cent, or in alpha from
A to F. Oddly, such work rarely attracts a mark of 0 or 100 even though the range is from 0 to
100. Our position is that if the mark range is 0 to 100, then the full range should be used. This
means a dissertation that is deemed excellent by the markers should be awarded the full mark or
very near to it. A mark of 70 per cent may be deemed to be excellent, but is in fact a 30 per cent
failure. How can this be so when to gain the full mark of 100 per cent it requires a 30 per cent
improvement? I believe that if a mark range is set at these limits, then they should be used and
shown in the criteria used for specific masters degrees. Table 1.4 follows this through and shows
the conventional mark range below 50 per cent. We have not included this as part of Table 1.3
because a mark of 40 per cent is equivalent to a 60 per cent failure mark.

CRITERIA AND THE EXAMINER

In some of the chapters that follow we will look more closely at different elements of the criteria
in Table 1.3 and Table 1.4, to see what they mean in practice and how they can be adapted for
assessing different kinds of dissertation. As you can see, the criteria are sets of interrelated
expectations that your examiners are looking for from your dissertation. In Table 1.5 we have
reformulated these as a series of questions examiners may use to show the relationships between
the skills, capabilities, attitudes, qualities – the standards and technical requirements for a
dissertation.

TABLE 1.5 also shows the reiterative nature of the criteria in terms that when combined they are
used to assess both intellectual and technical abilities. Various criteria are emphasized in
different places in a dissertation but are, nevertheless, expected to be displayed throughout it. For
example, argumentation is expected to be clear and succinct in the justification but have more
depth in the review of the literature. However, this is not as complex as it may seem and we can
see this by looking at different types of dissertation.
TABLE 1.4 50 TO 60 PER CENT ATTAINMENT
TABLE 1.5 THE EXAMINER’S QUESTIONS

Criteria Expectation as a question

Prior understanding Has a demonstration been given of an understanding of a
masters dissertation?
Is this expressed through the soundness of the work,
especially arguments, data collection and handling?

Perseverance and diligence Have relevant databases for the literature search been
identified?
Have print as well as electronic sources been searched?
Has the search been expanded and narrowed accordingly?
Have clear and consistent records been made of the search?
Is there an evaluation of the search?

Literature review Have key concepts, ideas, theories, arguments and data been
identified in the literature?
Is the review comprehensive, covering both topic and
methodological literatures?
Have all necessary elements been categorized, compared and
synthesized from the literature in a scholarly way?
Are the citations clear, consistent and detailed?
Has the literature been critically evaluated?
Have all ideas and statements been fully attributed?

Coherence and thoroughness Are the aims and objectives clearly stated and logically
linked?
Is the research design justified and capable of actualizing the
aims and objectives?
Does the justification amplify the aims and show use of
argumentation and the literature?
Have the data collection instruments been tested and
evaluated? Are they a reliable and valid means to appropriate
data?
Is the data presented clearly and in full?
Are anomalies in the data fully explained?
Is the discussion of the data closely linked to the data? And
are conclusions linked and related to the literature?
Have clear links been made between the conclusions, data,
literature and objectives?

Justification and argumentation Is clear justification (rationale) given for the project?
Are definitions used properly?
Is the issue, topic or problem clearly stated and justified,
including the recognition of unstated assumptions?
Are sound arguments used in the justification, evaluation of
the literature and conclusions?
Are different kinds of argumentation analysis used
appropriately?
Is the difference shown between informative and relational
statements?
Are the differences between inductive and deductive
reasoning understood?

Scholarly standards Have sources been correctly and fully cited and all proper
attribution of ideas given?
Is the bibliography as expected, containing all necessary
seminal works?
Is there sound use of research design to show understanding
of internal and external validity, difference between
description and explanation and different kinds of statements?
Is this an ethical piece of research that conforms to the ethical
standards of the university or profession? Are any moral
statements justified and balanced with open discussion of
alternative positions?
 Methodological understanding Are the origins, nature and consequences of different
methodological traditions understood?
Is sound justification given for the use of specific
methodological assumptions?
Is understanding shown of the relationships between
methodology and data?
Is there an overall research design incorporating
methodological assumptions, data collection techniques and
understanding of validity, reliability and limits on
generalizability?

Discussion, conclusions and recommendations Is the discussion related to the review of the literature?
Are statements and arguments clearly justified by the data or
the analysis of arguments?
Do conclusions follow from the evidence and argument
presented?
How do the conclusions relate to the aims and objectives set
for the project?
Are the recommendations properly arranged −
recommendation, benefits, consequences and costs?
Are they realistic, appropriate and based on the data or
analysis?

Reflective practitioner Are observations made which show ability to reflect and
evaluate on what has been done?
Is the evaluation related to the aims, objectives and
management of the project?
Are problems and gaps identified?
Have areas for further research been suggested?
Has the significance the research might have for practice been
indicated (particularly relevant for vocational courses)?

Presentation Is the dissertation well written in terms of proper grammar,

including spelling and punctuation?
Is the style and format that required by the university?
Is the arrangement logical?
Has editing been done to make it clear and coherent and of
the right length?
Are appendices appropriate?
Is this dissertation as good as any other from a comparable
university?
Can this dissertation be released into the public domain for
other researchers to use?

Different types of dissertation

Depending on the subject discipline and qualifications offered by your university, you will
normally have the option of doing one of three types of dissertation: the traditional ‘academic’
dissertation; the ‘literature review’ dissertation; and the ‘work-based’ dissertation. This is a crude
distinction and is in no way meant to indicate that one is somehow better than the other in terms
of scholarship or practical value. All three types are equally valid if done properly as the same
high standards are expected of all. There are no prescriptive criteria to determine which of the
three you should do, but we do have some general advice that may be of help.
If you are studying for your masters on a part-time mode while working, then the work-based
dissertation may be more suitable than the academic dissertation. This is because you will have
some ready-made topics waiting for you in your place of work. If your employer is sponsoring
your masters, then they may also expect you to do research that will have some benefit for the
organization. In this case you are more likely to gain the necessary support from your
organization to use them as your research topic. There are some problems with this and the main
one is doing research on your employer and on a topic that is not too controversial. Work-based
dissertations may result in findings and interpretations which your employer or someone in a
senior position in your organization does not like or even see as criticism. Therefore the selection
of a topic needs to be carefully considered.

The traditional dissertation may be more suited to students on a full-time mode masters course.
This is because they will not only have a little more time than their part-time peers, but will have
constant access to the library and other resources. It is also likely that they will be attending
formal classes and therefore will not have opportunities to access an external organization. This
does not mean, if you are a full-time student, that you cannot use an external organization for the
basis of your research. There may be some advantages to using one, especially that you can take
trips into the field knowing you can return to the relative political safety of your university.

In Chapter 5 we look more closely at the different types of dissertation, including the literature
review dissertation. The following bullet points are, however, some of the features of the
traditional and the work-based dissertations to help you think about which may be more suitable
for you:

Traditional dissertation Work-based dissertation

• Focused on a topic arrived at from using the literature. • Focused on a specific work-based problem of significance
to the sponsoring organization.

• Aimed at explanation, exploration or description of a • Aimed at drawing out options, recommendations and
puzzle. action lines.

• Grounded in the literature and based on key arguments • Informed by the literature on ‘best practice’ in other
and theories. organizations, industries and sectors.

• Provides relevant background information to justify the • Provides relevant background information such as
puzzle using argumentative structure and evidence from statistics, reports and evidence.
the literature.

• Use of an appropriate methodological approach • Use of an action-oriented methodological approach,

dependent on the definition of the topic and data needs. usually action research.

• Use of relevant secondary sources including statistics for • Use of secondary and primary data for comparison and
comparison. validation of ‘before and after’ or for recommendations.

• Production of an academic dissertation normally in the • Production of a work-based dissertation normally in the
format of a research dissertation. format of a research report.

That there are different types of dissertation means it can be beneficial to look, before you chose
which university, at the experience of different academic departments to see what preferences
they have. Their preferences and experiences may be related to the kinds of learning and
teaching styles they use, which may also have an influence on how comfortable you will feel
doing your research (and masters) with them.

How long does it take to do a masters dissertation?

This may be a key question for you if you are doing a vocationally-oriented masters or, like most
students, have limited resources and will find it more economic to do your dissertation in the
shortest time possible. As a benchmark we can say from experience that the time required for
planning, reading, collecting data, analysis, doing critical evaluative and comparative thought,
drafting and writing, editing and polishing a 15,000-word dissertation is substantial. Figure 1.1
shows how we normally expect a student to use at least 600 hours to complete a dissertation. If
your university requires a 20,000-word dissertation, then add on about another 125 hours. As a
general rule of thumb, if we use word output as our measure, every 1,000 words needs about 25
hours. This is, of course, general because much depends on the nature of your topic, what kinds
of data are required and, importantly, how you work and what time you can give to your research
in a normal week.

The longer you take to complete your masters, including your dissertation, the more it will cost
you financially. However, if you wanted to, you could take up to five years to do your masters.
The general unforeseen events of life sometimes mean that you may have few choices and have
to take this longer route to your goal. If this becomes the case for you the key point is never give
up – if you have started it, finish it!

If you are a part-time student you will probably be used to working approximately 15 hours a
week on your course. On the basis of this calculation it would take you about nine months to
complete your dissertation if you continued at this level of output. You will, however, have
semester breaks and university vacations when course work requirements may be lower, and
these can be used to get on with your research. On this basis you will need to allow
approximately 75 equivalent days of full-time work (eight hours a day) for your research. This is
the ideal that in real life rarely happens. You are more likely to have concentrated periods of
work when you move your dissertation on considerably and then have lean periods when it
seems very little is being done. The main point is to keep thinking about your research and keep
talking to your supervisor throughout, regardless of how much or how little you have managed to
do.
FIGURE 1.1 TIMESCALE FOR A MASTERS DISSERTAION

The point about the supervisor is important and should not be missed. Whether you are full- or
part-time, maintaining regular contact (telephone, in person, e-mail) – and by this we mean at
least once every two weeks – is crucial. It does not matter if you have not been able to do much
since last talking to them, but by knowing you are expected to stay in contact will act as a
motivator to you when you need it most. Your supervisor will be able to help you maintain
commitment to your research and will often be able to suggest what you can do to keep
progressing your research when other things are not going according to plan.

You will have realized by now that doing a masters dissertation requires a substantial amount of
commitment and dedication from you. Do not underestimate the transition from everyday life or
from a taught course to an almost wholly self-motivated piece of work. You will face many
pressures as other people, including your family and friends, will not fully understand what you
are doing, the concentration required and the time you are taking from your relationships with
them. Doing research can be a lonely experience. This may seem a little depressing, but we want
you to be realistic about your progress whatever route you take. Your supervisors will appreciate
what you are experiencing and will not want you to take longer than necessary to achieve your
masters degree with a good dissertation. They will be as proud of you as your family and friends
when you walk across the stage to collect your certificate and graduate as a master. If, however,
the plan does not work out as expected, do not give yourself pressure or give up but take a
realistic option by re-enrolling, paying a fee and completing your dissertation at a less stressful
pace.

Are you capable of doing a masters dissertation?

When contemplating doing or just beginning a masters course with a dissertation a number of
worries are often expressed by students. A common one is, ‘I can’t write 15,000 words!’ It is
highly probable that you can write 15,000: from experience of supervising many masters
dissertations, it will most likely be the case that you will have the problem of getting your
writing down to only 15,000 words. You only have 15,000 words to report on all the work you
will do. Most students have this kind of fear when beginning their dissertation and although it is
natural it is often unfounded.

A MASTERS IS NO MOUNTAIN
Doing a masters dissertation is a large undertaking but it is not an academic mountain. It is like
walking ten kilometres when you have only ever walked one or two. In academic terms you may
have only written essays and reports of, say, up to 3,000 words. Think back to your
undergraduate days – how many assignments did you do and what was (approximately) the total
word count? It will have been substantially more than 15,000 words. Therefore you have written
a large amount of material; the only difference this time is that the dissertation will be one piece
of work. It will, however, be made up of many different elements. Before looking at this we need
to dispel some other common misconceptions.

Look at the following statements and think about which you agree with:

1 You need to be determined to do a masters dissertation.

2 You need to be exceptionally intelligent to do a masters dissertation.

3 You need to have commitment to doing research to do a masters dissertation.

 4 You need to have a first class honours degree to do a masters dissertation.

5 You need to have a willingness to learn to do a masters dissertation.

Statements 2 and 4 are false and statements 1, 3 and 5 are some of the attitudes you do need to do
a masters dissertation. For most people who successfully complete their dissertation a large
degree of that success is their attitude and approach. A useful way to success to is to think of a
dissertation as a series of tasks. If broken down into a logically sequenced set of tasks, such as
searching the library catalogue, searching the Internet, beginning to compile the bibliography and
so on, a dissertation looks less daunting and very manageable. Manmohan Bains, a student with
Indian/Punjabi heritage, expressed this as the ‘eating an elephant problem’. He asked, ‘How do
you eat an elephant?’ And answered, ‘One mouthful at a time.’ Although an unusual way to put
it, the point is clear. Do not be put off at the start, but if you break any large enterprise into
smaller tasks you are more likely to achieve your goal.

In the chapters that follow we will show you how to divide a dissertation into tasks which are
relatively straightforward to do. The result will be something that is greater than the sum of its
parts, a masters dissertation you can be proud of.

Where to do your masters

This chapter finishes with some thoughts which may be useful when choosing where to do your
masters research. If you are intending to use your masters to move into a different job, give you
capital for promotion or begin a career in research, then the university department you choose
may be a factor in your success. Different departments are often associated with different kinds
of research – some will be oriented towards pure research and others applied research – and
within these you will find specialisms which are often due to one or more members of staff. It
pays to do a little research on where you would like (or can) do your masters before you begin. A
note of caution would be, however, not to take too much notice of national league tables for
universities because they are not always valid measures of actual quality. A more reliable means
is to gather all the information published on your possible institutions and then contact them for
details on staff, resources, research strategy and the culture of the department.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

You will need to know what the research interests of the staff are, what they have published and
how many successful masters students they have supervised. On resources ask them about what
book-based and information communications technologies are in the department. How many
computers do they have and of what specification? What other facilities do they have, such as
printing, technician support and, importantly, student common rooms? Also inquire about the
research collections in the library, including access to electronic sources and resources,
especially the databases you will need.

If the department is serious about research, then expect it to have a detailed research strategy that
provides information on the kinds of research it aims to undertake and support. Finally, because
you will spend a substantial amount of your time working in the department, find out what its
culture is like. By this I mean: is the place friendly, are first names used, is there an atmosphere
of mutual support between staff and students, and are staff generally available for informal chats,
do they have an ‘open door’ policy and is the departmental secretary friendly? You can find most
of this out by visiting the department. Signs of a good department for research include such
things as the state and content of notice boards informing students of what is going on, of
research activities and seminars, visiting speakers and new books. Also look for a sense of
humour. Do current students look happy? Ask them what it is like to do a masters in this
department, focusing on the support they are receiving from their supervisors.

LEARNING AND TEACHING STYLES

Different academic departments (sometimes called ‘Schools’) tend to have different approaches
to teaching and learning. This makes for diversity among universities and other institutions and
allows for different kinds of research to be undertaken and, importantly, different views about
the nature of research to be expressed. However, the teaching and learning preference of one
department may not be the one suited to your own personal learning style. Honey and Mumford
(1992) provide a detailed questionnaire to help you identify your learning style preference. The
four main learning styles they describe are summarized in Table 1.6.

Even from this brief overview of the different styles you should be able to recognize features in
some that you can associate with. It is not necessary to choose one rather than another. It is OK
to associate with features from more than one of the styles. The purpose of introducing these is to
help you to identify different learning styles used by different academic departments and, as we
will see in Chapter 5, also help you to choose the type of dissertation most suited to your own
learning style. You can begin to do the first of these – assessing the learning opportunities of
different departments – when you visit the departments offering the masters courses you want to
do. The kinds of questions to be addressed are listed below, and in part answers to these will be
evident in the attitudes of staff, stated curriculum of the course and in the types of dissertations
which have been done in a department.

1 Questions for activists

What will I learn that I didn’t know before?

What specific and general research skills will I acquire?

Will there be a variety of different activities or is the course based on lectures?

Will it be OK to make mistakes and have some fun?

Will I have tough problems and challenges?

2 Questions for reflectors

Is enough time given over for reflection to assimilate ideas and think about issues?

Are there sufficient facilities and opportunities to gather all relevant information
 about a topic?

Will there be group discussions in which sharing of ideas and experiences happens?

Do staff encourage listening to the views of others and give time for people to
formulate considered responses?

Is the teaching and tutoring based on pressure to respond?

TABLE 1.6 LEARNING STYLES

Learning style Features

Activist ‘What’s new? I’m game for anything.’ Activists learn best in
situations where:
• there are new experiences and problems to be solved;
• they can engross themselves in the ‘here and now’; and
• there is a sense of competition and pressure.

Reflector ‘I’d like time to think about this.’ Reflectors learn best where:
• they are encouraged to watch and think about activities and
problems;
• they have time to assimilate the facts and arguments before
commenting; and
• they have the opportunity to review what has happened.

Theorist ‘How does this relate to that?’ Theorists learn best where:
• they have time to explore methodically ideas and theories;
• they are in structured situations with clear objectives that
nevertheless stretch their intellect; and
• they can question basic methodological assumptions and the
logic of arguments.

Pragmatist ‘How can I apply this in practice?’ Pragmatists learn best

where:
• they can see practical links between theory and a problem,
especially in the workplace;
• they have a chance to try out applications and evaluate their
effectiveness; and
• they can concentrate on practical issues facing real
organizations and people.

3 Questions for theorists

Will I encounter complex ideas and theories which will stretch my understanding and
abilities?

Do staff have a robust understanding of theoretical traditions in the social sciences?

Does the curriculum have a clear structure and purpose both technically and
intellectually?

Shall I be with people of a similar calibre to myself?

4 Questions for pragmatists

 Will we be addressing real problems and actual issues rather than hypothetical ones?

Will we be exposed to specialists and experts who have relevant and up-to-date
experience?

Is the curriculum clearly skills-based and practical?

Will there be lots of useful tips and techniques?

COURSE SPECIFICATIONS
Additional pieces of documentary information you can request include the ‘subject standards’,
course specification and module booklet. Most courses in higher education are required by the
governing bodies to use the subject standards (benchmark statements) to specify their course.
This includes providing statements on the aims and objectives of the course as a whole and on
individual modules that are a part of the course, showing how the learning outcomes of each
module contribute to the learning outcomes of the course as a whole. This course specification
will give a good idea of what kind of educational philosophy, teaching and learning styles a
department uses in the design and organization of its curriculum. It will show you to what degree
they focus on a range of skills as a set of expectations which you should achieve at the end of the
course. Your course tutor will probably explain to you the scheme of their masters course. Many
follow a generic template represented in Figure 1.2. This is based on what is known as the
learning outcomes approach to course design.
FIGURE 1.2 THE LEARNING OUTCOMES APPROACH TO MASTERS COURSE DESIGN

A well-thought-out and organized masters programme will have a clear coherence. This means
there will be a clear set of statements describing the level for a masters qualification. Different
universities have their own ways of stating award descriptors. These would normally include
higher level cognitive and practical abilities of the type shown in Table 1.3 and Appendix 1,
which are based on benchmark expectations for a knowledge manager. Each module on the
course should then explain how specific learning outcomes will be acquired through doing that
module and how they will be assessed, using what kind of criteria. Hence a module may state
that a student will be able to give evidence of the application of knowledge. This may be
expressed using verbs such as define, solve, manipulate, relate, use, assess and so on to state
what, in the methods of assessment, will be tested. As a scheme the programme should be
coherent, and by looking at the course documentation and at previous work done by students you
should be able to make a sound evaluation of how well organized a particular masters course is.

Implicitly or explicitly the programme specification will also indicate the kind of person they
expect to encourage both intellectually and professionally to succeed in their course. Table 1.3
indicates the kind of specification that I use when talking to new enrollers on masters courses. A
more detailed one can be found in Appendix 1 that was developed for a masters in Knowledge
Management for practitioners. Do not be put off by the length of the lists in each of the columns.
Its purpose is to show you the range of skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities that a good
masters course, with research, will make available for you to exploit for your own personal
development. Clearly, you will not have the time to acquire all of these and you will already be
able to demonstrate many of them.

This is an important stage in beginning your masters and if you have a choice between
universities then exercise it. You may find some interesting and significant differences between
departments. In particular, it is not always the case that the department with the highest formal
rating for research is necessarily the most supportive of research students or close enough to the
job market to encourage useful topics. Look, therefore, beyond ratings to other indicators which
suit your teaching and learning needs and choose a department that offers you the maximum
learning opportunities to develop both professionally and as a person.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

This initial chapter has attempted to provide you with an introduction to what a masters
dissertation is about and has made the following main points:

A masters dissertation is an exercise in research that demonstrates you are capable of

doing research at masters level.

A masters dissertation is a coherent piece of work and not a series of separate chapters.

There are three main types of dissertation, the traditional, the work-based and the
literature review dissertation, and the same high standards of scholarship are expected of
all.
 A good dissertation demonstrates more than the acquisition of skills. It is testimony to the
capability, attitude and qualities of the student to be accredited as a competent researcher.

A dissertation is a major undertaking but it is not a mountain that only a few can climb;
rather it is something many people are capable of achieving.

Further reading
Walliman, N. (2001) Your Research Project: A Guide for the First-time Researcher. London: Sage. Chapter 1 uses a range of
quotes to indicate just what research is and what it is about.

Honey, P. and Mumford, A. (1992) The Manual of Learning Styles. Maidenhead: Peter Honey. Exactly what it says it is and
includes exercises to assess your own preferences.

Learning gateway and learning styles. http://www.getting-on.co.uk/toolkit/learninggateway.html. One of many good Internet
resources on learning styles.
 2

Managing your transition to masters

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• TRANSITION TO STUDY • MANAGING THE TRANSITION AS A PROJECT • GET

TO KNOW THE STAFF • MANAGE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS • SUGGESTIONS
FOR ORGANIZING YOURSELF • MANAGING YOUR TIME • GET TO KNOW HOW
TO USE YOUR TIME • IMPLEMENT THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF TIME
MANAGEMENT • MANAGING YOUR SPACE • MANAGING THE LONELINESS AND
ISOLATION OF RESEARCH • NETWORKING • LIFE ISSUES • ESTABLISHING A
DOCUMENT CONTROL SYSTEM • CITING YOUR SOURCES AND CREATING
BIBLIOGRAPHIES • CITING REFERENCES AND ATTRIBUTION • CREATING
BIBLIOGRAPHIES • USING THE COMPUTER • KEEPING A RESEARCH DIARY AND
A LEARNING LOG • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

Starting a new course at a new university can be a daunting prospect with so much to arrange and
do and many unfamiliar people and places to get used to. Postgraduate study can be very
different from what you have done before in level, intensity and the expectations your tutors will
have of you. You will find that your status, as a masters student, will set you apart from the
undergraduates – who will either look up to you or wonder why you have voluntarily signed up
to do more study. Your status brings with it expectations that you will behave as a member of a
scholarly research community and as such exhibit a mature attitude, bring a set of personal and
professional qualities to your work and be part of a collegial group made up of your peers and
the departmental staff. The basis of this chapter comes from long experience in a number of
universities teaching many postgraduates. It tries to cover many of the most obvious points about
being organized, but for whatever reasons are often the cause of problems for students. Some of
the main questions for this chapter are:

1 How can you prepare for doing your masters research?

 2 With so much to do, what are some of the ways to manage time and resources?

3 What kind of project management system will you need?

The intent therefore, while it may seem a little patronizing in parts and makes assumptions that
students have families, is to look at how you might manage the transition to becoming a
postgraduate, at how to become an active member of the research community, at life issues, and
at how to set up a management system for the substantial amounts of information you will
generate when doing your dissertation.

Transition to study
Moving from undergraduate to postgraduate study or from the workplace into the academic
environment is like starting a new life. Many things, people, procedures and even finding your
way around may, at first, be difficult. Added to this is the tendency for most masters courses to
be intensive, even though they last for one to three years. For full-time students the norm is a 12-
month course and for the part-time student 24 to 36 months. It is normal for the dissertation
element of masters courses to begin, for full-time students, after the first semester, and for part-
time students in the second half of year two. This means you may have about six to nine months
to complete your dissertation on the full-time mode and between 24 to 36 on the part-time mode.
It is essential, therefore, that you adapt quickly to your new environment and position and this
means managing the transition to being a masters student in two to three weeks.

MANAGING THE TRANSITION AS A PROJECT

One way of approaching the transition is to see it as an opportunity to practise your project
management skills and to exercise some of your personal qualities. You need to define the
objectives for the transition period, and these will be:

to become familiar with the geography of the university, especially the department;

to become familiar with the procedures governing your course, especially the
dissertation;

to get to know who is who among the staff, how to contact them, what roles and
responsibilities they have, especially the course director, and do not forget to find out
who the departmental secretary is and where their office is; and

to identify and check on important dates, especially for submission of course work.

It is seldom that any student has the time before their course to get to know the department. It is
therefore important to gather as much information as you can on any initial visits, such as open
days and interview days. As you are the ‘customer’ you have the right to make reasonable
requests for all necessary information about the course you will be doing including staff lists,
timetables and maps. It is now usual for most good universities to provide pre-start packs that
contain most of the information you will need for your first couple of weeks. It is important to
read your ‘course handbook’, as it is sometimes called, before you start – do not file it away, as it
contains important information that tutors will expect you to know before you start your course.

GET TO KNOW THE STAFF

One of the key activities for you in the first week is to get to know the staff who are significant
contributors to or administrators of your course. Normally there will be a time in the first week
when you and your peers are introduced to the department, usually over some social function.
Use this to go around and introduce yourself personally to each member of staff, talking to them
about their speciality and about research they may be doing. This will be one of your first rounds
of ‘networking’ in your new community.

Getting to know staff will help you in a number of ways, including:

being able to ask questions without feeling awkward because they do not know you;

going to see them about research ideas you have for your dissertation;

borrowing materials for your research and reading; and

seeking pastoral support for your learning and course work, especially when things
are not going to plan and you feel you need to talk to someone.

Departments with an ‘open culture’ normally support what is called the open-door policy. This is
when you do not need to make an appointment to see a member of staff if it’s a quick question.
However, if you think you will need more than five minutes, make an appointment to guarantee
the time with them. Access to staff is therefore important. So ensure you have the information on
how to contact individual staff via telephone, e-mail, post and fax and also the departmental
secretary. Use these methods to keep staff informed of your activities, especially if you are
unable to attend a scheduled tutorial or class or you want to seek advice on a research idea. It
helps staff if they have some idea of your research idea before you turn up to discuss it. E-
mailing it to them in advance will allow them to think about it and to give you better feedback
when you see them.
FIGURE 2.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR MASTERS IN YOUR LIFE

MANAGE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Most people have a range of commitments outside university – family, friends and leisure
activities, and, of course, paid work. Trying to keep up with all your usual activities
simultaneously with doing your masters may not be possible and you may need to give up some
things while you are studying. Try also to keep a balance between your study and other
commitments, family, friends and social life generally.

Figure 2.1 shows the main spheres of most people’s lives when they embark on doing a masters
course. As you can see, the masters element is not only larger than the others but overlaps them.
This is intended to show how doing a masters takes time away from the others to become the
most dominant and demanding part of your life while you are on your course. There are two
approaches you can take to this situation. One is to ignore all your family and friends and have
no social life to focus exclusively on your masters work. Some people do this believing their
masters research is their life. If this ‘works’ for you then this is fine, but do not be pressured by
others into this form of existence. What we mean by this is that peer students will often
exaggerate how much time they devote to their research, making it seem that you are spending
too much time on other things. To suddenly drop all you have done before, the people you know
and your leisure activities (hobbies and interests) to focus on your research can be unhealthy
both mentally and physically and can therefore impact on the very thing – your masters research
– that you sacrificed so much for. Any activity, including research, which largely excludes all
others is excessive and can become compulsive behaviour, and when this happens you may need
your family and friends to help you recover.

The second approach you may take, and the one we strongly recommend, is to see your research
as a part of your life for now, as something that will be over in a relatively short period of time.
This means, if you can, involving your family and friends in your ambitions, even if it is simply
telling them about what you are doing, but not in too much detail as this will probably make you
seem like a bore. By letting the significant people in your life know about your ambition they are
more likely to believe they are a part of it and give the necessary support when you need it. This
often ranges from taking the children to the park for a couple of hours while you work on some
data analysis or taking you to the pub for some needed relief, to the ultimate help, which is
proofreading something you have written. Never turn this kind of help away when it is offered
because to do so may mean it is not offered again. As an aside, it can often be said that without
the support of family and friends many students would not complete their masters – especially
those doing it part-time. Husbands, wives and partners will often know your dissertation as well
as you do and as such they deserve some form of qualification because it is they who have made
sacrifices and taken on extra responsibilities so that you can do your masters. Having said this,
do be prepared for the ‘Educating Rita’ situation. This is when people close to you, for whatever
reason, resent what you are trying to achieve for yourself.

Suggestions for organizing yourself

It is important therefore to maintain your domestic life by finding ways to manage your time and
the expectations others can reasonably have of your energies while you are doing your masters
research. Whatever way you do this, it is usually tied to your particular personal circumstances,
but I, from my own experience, suggest the following points – based on planning your activities
and the expectations others may have of you – as suggestions you may wish to use.

Plan the year When possible plan ahead. This means long- and short-term planning.
Long term when you start your masters, draw up a timetable so you and your family
know what commitments you will have and when. Things to include are deadlines for
course work, times for attending university and, importantly, blocks of time you will
need for work in the library or at home for study. Remember to build in to your
schedule holiday time because you and your family and friends will need an occasional
break from your masters research. If you go away from home for your holiday, say
abroad; one thing we strongly advise against is taking work with you. Sitting on the
beach reading a text book or, even worse, doing work on a lap-top computer, is very
sad.

Plan weekly and for the next day On a weekly and daily basis make lists of what needs
to be done. This means listing many of your normal routines and domestic tasks so as
not to forget them, as this can easily be done when you are doing research. Do the
same for your course-related tasks, listing what you need to do this week especially for
major tasks coming up in a few weeks or a couple of months’ time. This may include
ordering books from the library to doing initial prepatory reading on a topic. As you
achieve each task cross it off your list. There is a significant motivational boost to
achieving even the simplest objectives so try to achieve some each day, especially the
necessary ones.

Get organized Do not leave until tomorrow what you can do today. Get yourself into
a routine based on preparing what you can before you need it. This includes preparing
the night before the obvious things, such as clothes for college and food to take with
you, to packing your case with the necessary books, pens and paper. Disorganization is
no virtue to someone trying to manage an intensive course of study and a life.

Take for-me-days Occasionally, when you need some respite take what we call ‘for-
me-days’. These are days that are just for you and no one or anything else. The idea is
if a day becomes available when other jobs can wait, take it for yourself and do
whatever you want. Such days help you bring a sense of control and normality back to
what may often seem like a hectic schedule.

Sleeping and eating Getting enough sleep and eating good foods are essential for
body and mind. You cannot function at your optimum levels if you are tired or are
lacking basic sustenance. For part-time masters students the one day and evening per
week attendance can be extremely tiring. There is so much to cram into the day in
between formal classes and tutorials that pacing yourself becomes an important part
of your attitude for managing yourself. This may mean finding suitable places where
you can take a 20–30 minute nap in the middle of the day. Short sleeps in the day and
before an evening session can be very beneficial. They will rejuvenate your mental
 ability and ensure that you maximize your time in classes. This may also mean
ensuring you get enough sleep the day before college, taking care with alcohol the
night before as this will severely impair your concentration because it will make you
tired the next day. Remember not to work too late into the evening as this may also
make you over-tired the next day. From our experience it is often good to set a time
when you do not work beyond, such as 9.30 p.m. Also before you finish for a session
make brief notes on what you need to do next, so that when you pick up a piece of
work the next day you do not spend time thinking about where you were and what you
were doing, but have a clear set of tasks to get on with.

Although some of these suggestions may seem a little patronizing the intention is to help you
maximize what you can get out of your time, as an investment you are making in yourself, doing
a masters. They are the general philosophy I follow that works for me. You need to find out what
works for you. Planning and organizing your time and yourself will help you to avoid drifting
and wasting, what is to you, valuable time and limited energies.

MANAGING YOUR TIME

You probably know a substantial amount about managing your time and, like most of us, know
of the frustrations of making the most of our time and thinking that we can find more if only we
tried harder. Many of the anxieties we face in modern life are time-related, caused by us not
having enough time to do everything we would like and sometimes need to do. You cannot find
any more time than you already have. Time is a finite resource that cannot be saved, increased or
bought. You can, however, make more effective and efficient use of the time you already have. If
we take this as our starting point we can begin to look at how we may reorganize our activities
and this means changing some of our behaviours and the claim others have on our time.

The starting point for using your time more effectively and efficiently is finding the motivation
and self-discipline to alter some of your behaviours and radically change some habits. Breaking
any habit is not easily done, but it is often our habits which contribute to some of our anxieties
about time. Making some very basic alterations to habits and behaviours will give you a pay-off
in terms of ‘time-space’ to do the things you need to do and will give you a sense that it is you
who controls your time and not others. From my own experience I offer the following
suggestions on how you may better manage the time that belongs to you.

FIGURE 2.2 RECORD OF TIME USE

Get to know how you use your time

You need to look carefully at how you use your time. This means making a record, over a week
or two, of your time use so you can analyse your behaviours. A simple log in the form of a chart
will give you the data you need. Figure 2.2 shows a typical time log that will show you how you
are currently using your time, while Table 2.1 will help you to identify behaviours and factors
you allow to eat into your time.

Looking at this weekly schedule we can see that this person has about 10 hours for study. But in
reality this may not be the case, as they allow a range of distractions and other people to take
some of this valuable time. Therefore this person needs to:

see what they can take out of their weekly schedule;

minimize some of the distractions; and

minimize the claims others have on their time.

To implement some of these may not be popular with family and friends. But as we said earlier,
if they support you then making small sacrifices in the claims they have on your time and even
taking on some of your tasks and responsibilities are ways in which they can show their support.
Figure 2.3 shows a revised weekly schedule and a list of actions the person intends to take to
minimize distractions and the claims others have on their time.
TABLE 2.1 ANALYSING DISTRACTIONS
Implement the main principles of time management
It is from these simple data and analysis that anyone can begin to re-claim the time that rightfully
belongs to them. This may seem a little harsh but your time is like your money – why give it
away or waste it so freely except, of course, on those goals, activities and persons in your life
which are important? Managing your time therefore has a number of implications which will
affect people close to you, but also how you are seen and how you see yourself. Getting the
balance between the different and competing elements of making life acceptable is what time
management is about. Allocating and managing the time for these kinds of activities may, at
times, be about managing the conflict between them and overcoming your want to do something
other than what needs to be done. The following principles, shown in Table 2.2, may help you to
manage such conflicts and at the same time change your time-using behaviours.
FIGURE 2.3 REVISED WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Implementing some of these suggestions and ones you think of may be a little painful at first.
This is because we all miss things which we have become used to doing, but often when we
reflect on these things we realize there was no real reason for doing them in the first place. You
will have this time to do other, more important, things which will give you a better quality of life
because you will be doing more real activities that are investments in your life and those around
you.

MANAGING YOUR SPACE

A part of being organized is having a space of your own at home. Your research will generate a
substantial amount of material which you need to have at hand to consult and the space to use.
Articles, books, questionnaires, coding sheets, notes, card indexes, research diaries, literature
search profiles, along with various stationery, take up space. We suggest that you make a space
for a desk somewhere in your home. The key point is, get space for yourself to work in that is
recognized as yours and which is not to be disturbed. When setting up your space the following
are suggestions which might help you to stay organized:
TABLE 2.2 KEY PRINCIPLES OF TIME MANAGEMENT

Key principles What they mean Putting them into practice

• Do what is important. Do not spend time on low-priority tasks • Prioritize your tasks.
and unnecessary activities. • Use daily and weekly task lists.
• Say ‘no’, do not take on extra work or
responsibilities.
• Do not aim for perfection.
• Stop doing some things like watching soaps
on television.

• Direct your effort and 20% of most effort results in 80% of • Get organized so as not to waste time looking
energies. activities. for things.
• Plan your time use in advanced, but do not
think planning is doing.
 • Do important intellectual tasks when you are
at your best in the day.
• Do not procrastinate by doing pleasing jobs
which have no value to your research.
• Know what you are meant to be doing and do
it.
• Finish things and do not leave them.
• Set deadlines and monitor them – even use a
timer with an alarm.
• Have a strict routine for domestic tasks and
stick to it.

• Reduce time wastage. Using too much time for some tasks takes • Set time limits for meetings with supervisors.
time that could be used for your research. • Remove distractions from your study space.
• Minimize interruptions.
• When you finish one job set up the next for
your next study session.
• Prepare in advance, e.g. food, clothes.

Source: Adapted from Cameron, 1997: ch. 5.

Keep your materials organized in ring-binders, magazine boxes and folders. You will
be amazed at how much stuff in the form of notes, handouts, photocopies, assessed
course work, floppy disks and the like you will generate. It will become increasingly
important that you can find stuff when you need it. There are few things more
annoying than not being able to find an article you know you have and wasting an
hour or more looking for it.

Get equipped with all the necessary pens and paper and keep these on or near your
desk. Note taking, jotting ideas, drafting and doing diagrams use up lots of paper, so
make sure you have enough and do not have to waste time going out to get more. Do
not overdo the stationery by spending money on expensive pens and desk aids. Cheap
pens, paper, paper clips, Post-it notes and ring-binders are all you really need and
anything else will waste money you could be spending on books.

If possible have your space clear of distractions. Keep photographs and the phone and
any other unnecessary stuff away from your work-space. This also goes for the biscuit
tin and kettle as it is easy to reach for snacks when things are not going as you want.

It may be that you have a personal computer. This is good but even with major
advances in technology they still take up a substantial amount of desk space. Try to
keep enough space for writing and spreading out your articles, books and notes.

MANAGING THE LONELINESS AND ISOLATION OF RESEARCH

Doing masters research can be a lonely experience. This is because apart from your supervisor
you will, most probably, be the only one really interested in your topic. Friends and family will,
as a matter of course, show an interest but will in the main not want to know the details of how
your research is progressing. When things do seem as if they could be going better, family and
friends may help with encouragement but will not be able to do much more than this. Only you
will know what needs to be done and how to do it and, of course, it is supposed to be your
research done by you.

There is no way to avoid the loneliness of research, but you can share the feeling with others.
Your peers will know what it feels like to be doing research and having only one other person to
talk to who knows what it is you are doing. The following are, therefore, some simple
suggestions about how to manage the loneliness and to feel as though you are not the only one to
experience this when doing your research.

Establish peer support networks at the start of your masters course. These are small
groups of people in your cohort who know the value of talking to one another in order
to get the most out of the course you are all doing.

Use the peer group network to identify the common issues and problems, and to
discuss ideas and tactics to address these. Use Internet discussion facilities to set up a
virtual group so that people unable to attend meetings can make contributions.

Arrange regular meetings. Use these to focus on particular issues and problems that
most of you seem to be experiencing. Think about inviting some of the doctorate
researchers along to share their experiences and tactics for coping with doing
research.

Use the Internet discussion groups of previous cohorts to see what issues they
identified and how they addressed them and use these as the basis for discussions
among your peers.

Finding someone else to talk to about your research who understands what it is like to do
research can be a help in overcoming the occasional bout of intellectual loneliness. Some degree
of isolation is, however, an essential part of the research experience. The times you have on your
own to read and think are the times when you will be expanding your intellectual capacity to
understand, assimilate and engage, at increasingly higher levels of sophistication, with theory
and argument.

NETWORKING
A good graduate school will provide you with opportunities to network with staff and researchers
from within and external to your university. You may already be a good ‘networker’, but if not
do not be put off by your lack of experience. Use any opportunities which present themselves to
practise your networking skills. As with the other skills and abilities associated with becoming a
member of the research community, mixing with your peers is something you can learn to do.

When an opportunity presents itself, such as at a research seminar or conference, talk to someone
known for their research. Do not worry if you see yourself as a little shy. Remember that they do
not know you and will be only too pleased to talk to you about research. It is also the case that
persons you see as being extroverts are not always necessarily good researchers. From my
experience some of the most detailed and conscientious research has been done by individuals
who would, by their own self-labelling, call themselves shy. Whether you see yourself as a
‘theorist’, ‘pragmatist’, ‘activist’ or ‘reflector’, face-to-face communication is an essential part of
your remit as a masters student.

Life issues
The comments in this section may be construed as controversial. The issues discussed here are
complex, not easy to present and will likely annoy some tutors and managers of educational
institutions. In all walks of life people will encounter harassment or some form of discriminatory,
sexist and exploitative behaviour (from staff as well as other students), and some students and
staff may encounter racial or ethnic harassment. The comments that follow are from my
postgraduates and illustrate some of the issues they have experienced. We make no claims for the
generalizability of these, nor for any standing in research terms.

‘ I often feel very isolated from the everyday goings on in the Department, as an out-sider,
because their (male students and staff) conversations aren’t usually about research…’

‘ I know I shouldn’t but I always aim for perfection … I believe my work has to be better
than anyone else’s for it to be taken seriously … ’

‘Dr X is very critical and often dismissive of my work even though I know I work much
harder and know far more than most of the men on our course.’

‘Some of the staff seem to have one way of talking to the men on our course and another to
the women. The men always seem to get praised for the slightest things and the women
ignored … I often feel quite low after certain tutorials, especially when I have done a
lot of preparation that wasn’t acknowledged.’

‘You have to be careful with some of the male students. If you say something in a seminar
group that they haven’t thought of, they will often repackage it and pass it off as their
own. One of them is very fond of saying, “Yes, I thought the same.” ’

‘Dr Y seems to target individual women. He hangs around the notice boards, and often
stops you in the corridor or gets in the lift with you … and in the coffee bar he is often
with a female undergraduate. Basically his conversations are too personal … He has
even asked A and B if they would like a lift home.’

‘A couple of them just don’t realize that we have to be away by 3.30 to pick up our children
… and see us leaving and interpret this as a lack of commitment.’

I believe these comments have some relevance, in that even from the standpoint of a male
supervisor, I have witnessed some behaviours by colleagues (male and female) and from students
that I have personally believed to be discriminatory, sexist and exploitative. If you have a
grievance ensure that you have copies of the relevant policies for your university that cover equal
opportunities, grievance procedures and codes of conduct. If you believe you are being subjected
to any form of unfair treatment I suggest you do the following:

make contemporaneous notes on all the details;

if possible get your peers to make statements detailing what they have witnessed
regarding your case;

consult the policies of the university to see what formal procedures you can use to
pursue your grievance; and

if you do not want to make a formal complaint, then you can inform the course
director, head of the department or the dean of faculty to make them aware and
request they take all the necessary actions to stop the situation. Remember to make
notes on any meetings you have with staff, letting them know you are doing so in the
meeting itself.

Of course, the majority of supervisors are highly experienced and will do all in their power to
make your time productive and enjoyable. The above comments are merely precautionary.

Establishing a document control system

A masters dissertation will generate a lot of material which needs to be kept organized if you
want to keep control of it and use it efficiently. You will need a system that works, and this does
not mean a vague system based on filing everything on the floor. This is not to say that some
floor space, if you can claim some, is not a good thing to have. Figure 2.4 gives an overview of
the kinds and amount of materials you will need to manage when doing your dissertation.

Figure 2.4 does not really represent the substantial amount of stuff you will accumulate, but you
will soon experience the reality of this as you get further into doing your dissertation. Therefore,
before you get swamped with paper and computer files you cannot find because you forgot to
make notes on them, think seriously about your project management system – how you organize
your records and materials so that they can be managed. The suggestions which follow are from
Doing a Literature Search (Hart, 2001) which, in essence, is all about information collection and
management, and from Orna and Stevens (1995) about the general principles of managing
information during a research project.

Further information on the management of the literature search can be found in Chapter 6, ‘Searching and reviewing the
literature’.

The following are the kinds of routine tasks you need to start doing as a part of your document
control system:

Set up a physical filing system. Use a physical store to keep and index articles and
copies of materials that you have made. You will collect many of these during your
search. It is important to index and write an abstract for each of them and file them so
that they can be retrieved when you need them.

Set up files on your computer. Create and give consecutive file names to your
bibliographies and working notes, and place these into directories on your computer.
Put each chapter and parts of a chapter on separate memory devices to avoid over-
writing and the loss of your data. Do not use an obscure software application but stick
to common applications. Make a record in your search log of the names and content of
your files and remember to delete files you do not need to avoid having multiple
versions of a file on your computer and disks. Use easily recognizable file names, for
example, ‘ch1 introduction v1’.
FIGURE 2.4 DIVERSE ELEMENTS FOR MANAGING A MASTERS DISSERTATION

Make back-up files of your computer files at least once each week. Keep these in a safe
place. As well as making copies of your files onto other memory devices you can send
them via e-mail to a friend who has consented to store your copies on their machine.
You can do this by incorporating the file-back-up task into your timetable of tasks to
be done. All too often disks are lost or damaged and with a back-up you will avoid
retracing work you have already done.
 Do printouts of your computer files as well as making copies of all your files after each
time you work on one. Although this can be time-consuming, if by some chance a
disaster does strike and you lose all your files, including the back-ups, at least you will
have a hard copy to work from. Regular printouts will also give you material you can
carry around with you to examine and analyse when you get the time.

CITING YOUR SOURCES AND CREATING BIBLIOGRAPHIES

As you identify relevant materials, such as articles, you need to record these in your
bibliographies. It is important to take the citation details of every item you come across that you
deem relevant to your research.

Citing references and attribution

You must keep full bibliographic details of items you find during your search. As you will
probably have several sub-topics within your general topic, this means using your card index to
construct several bibliographies in which some of the cards will be duplicates. Record the full
bibliographic details of items that you have identified as relevant. The alternative is to try and
remember the details, which is impossible, especially when you are likely to have 50 to 70
references for an undergraduate project and many more for a postgraduate dissertation or thesis.
In Doing a Literature Search, Appendix 4, ‘How to cite sources’, you will find suggestions on
how to cite references for a range of material including the Internet, but for further advice and
updates see websites such as the following, which give links to the major sources on how to cite
materials:

Librarian’s Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/).

The World Wide Web Virtual Library (www.spaceless.com).

The full citation of other people’s work is essential: this is known as ‘attribution’ – the scholarly
standard of acknowledging where ideas in your own work have their origins. Not only is it
unethical to use someone else’s work without referencing it, but it can be an infringement of
copyright to do so. Therefore make a record of the bibliographic details of work you consider
relevant to your topic to ensure that you acknowledge the work of others that you use in your
own research.

Creating bibliographies
There are various methods you can use to construct and maintain a bibliography. The manual
method amounts to establishing a card index with each item being indexed on to one or more
cards. The cards are then arranged in some logical order, say, alphabetically. However, given the
massive amount of literature available, many researchers use electronic means to store, organize
and retrieve citations. There are a number of ways a personal computer can be used to create a
personal bibliography. In practice it is easier to record bibliographic items first on cards and then
to transfer these to a personal computer. A simple card index for book materials might look like
the example shown in Figure 2.5.
 Tip: you can print out the bibliographic details of articles and books from your searches of CD ROMS and stick them on to
cards to save writing them out by hand.

A range of software for constructing bibliographies is widely available. Some people adapt
word-processing packages, while others invest in dedicated software. Even the most simple of
word-processing packages can provide a means to produce lists of items that can be regularly
updated. The more sophisticated packages enable the researcher to print selections of records in a
variety of formats for different document types. One of the most popular commercial
bibliographical packages is ProCite, from CiteWise.com (a division of Cherwell Scientific).

The key advantages of electronic databases are:

FIGURE 2.5 EXAMPLE OF A CARD INDEX

you can extract bibliographical records in a variety of predetermined formats to suit

different needs, for example, the different requirements of different journals;

you can search the bibliography using key words;

you can automatically arrange the items according to different criteria, for example,
date of publication, by author or by key word;

you can check the spelling of author names and titles in your text;

you can add notes to annotate the record;

you can download data from CD ROM and online databases into the bibliography;

you can make automatic changes to the typography to meet the needs of different
journal styles;

you can edit records easily and transfer them to other parts of the database; and

you can copy all or part of the database to create a card index that you can carry with
you when you need to check something, say in the library.
USING THE COMPUTER
It will be expected, by your university, that you have a computer that is capable of being used to
produce a dissertation. This normally means that it will have the necessary capacity and software
to enable you to produce text, figures, tables and graphs and that it is connected to the Internet.
There will be computers you can use at your university; some will be for specialist searching of
databases not available to the general public and some to enable you to do statistical analysis of
data.

A computer is an essential tool that will help you to produce your dissertation. While we cannot
give any guides to specification because these change so fast, I do recommend that prior to
starting your masters course you obtain information on what computers and kinds (and versions)
of common software they use. It will make such things as word-processing much easier if you
use the same software package as used on the university’s computers. This will ensure that you
have compatibility and can get on with work when you are at university or at home.

KEEPING A RESEARCH DIARY AND A LEARNING LOG

It is very important to maintain a diary of your activities when doing your research. We are using
the word diary in the sense of research as well as in the conventional sense of a calendar of dates.
The main reasons for keeping a diary are:

you can plan key dates in advance and agree deadlines;

you will then be able to plan your work so as to meet your deadlines; and

contacts, web addresses, details of books and so on can be noted in your diary and
transferred to your other files at a later date.

Your diary is in effect a log of your research. It will become a record of what you did, when you
did it, with what and what the outcomes were. It will become a reminder of what needs to be
done and what things, such as inter-library loans, need to be followed up. Your diary is then a
working document and a source of information for your dissertation. As a record of your
activities your diary will provide you with the necessary details to help you evaluate your
research, and this is usually included in the concluding chapter of your dissertation.

One method of keeping a research diary is to use it in two main ways. The first is as a plan of
your activities, as you would use a conventional diary. The second is to use it as a learning tool.
This means that every time you think you have acquired new knowledge, a different viewpoint or
skill, you make a note of what it is and how it was acquired. Figure 2.6 shows this as the learning
cycle. This figure is derived from the work of Kolb, Rubin and MacIntyre (1984), who suggest
that learning can be viewed as a circular process where experience is followed by attempts to
make sense of that experience through reflection and contemplation. A part of this is
conceptualizing the nature of the experience in more abstract terms in order to think about how
its principles may be adapted and applied to other situations, often experimenting with them to
see what happens. The whole process then begins again, going around as if circular. This
approach can be used when things go right and when they go wrong. For example, when you
have a block in thinking you can reflect on how it was overcome to think about its nature and
possible causes. The irony here should not be missed. In practising this approach you may soon
come to realize that perfection is not what is required and that it is a sign of your growing
confidence the more you come to see and do only that which is required.

FIGURE 2.6 THE LEARNING CYCLE

Source: Adapted from Kolb et al., 1984.

This approach to learning has links to the learning styles we introduced in Chapter 1. As an
activist you will learn how to conceptualize, as a reflector you will learn to experiment, as a
pragmatist you will learn to reflect and as a theorist you will learn look for experiences. The
more you do the more resilient in attitude and behaviour you will become and this will show in
the increasing levels of attainment you will be achieving. This will also show in your increasing
resourcefulness in that you will learn and be able to apply an increasing number of techniques to
learning. Finally, the more you learn and are able to achieve will be in part due to your
increasing capacity to reflect on and about your experiences to such a degree that your analytical
abilities will reach depths you never thought possible for yourself. This is the promise of masters
research, but for now once you have begun the habit of learning how to learn you will soon
experience, to greater degrees, the different learning styles. This will mean you will not only
develop as a person, but you will be able to do many more things than you previously thought
possible. In this way you will acquire, in addition to skills, a range of attitudes and qualities
which are essential for the capable and confident masters graduate.
 SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER
This chapter has attempted to provide guidance on how to manage the transition from work or
undergraduate studies to doing a masters and has emphasized the following:

It is important to establish a balance between your research and your ‘real’ life.

You need to organize yourself and your materials for effective and efficient working.

Time management is an absolute for most successful dissertations.

Use your experiences as an opportunity to learn new ways of learning and working and
by doing so you will become more resilient, resourceful and be able to reflect on how you
learnt and so be able know how to learn more.

Further reading
Hart, C. (2001) Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences. London: Sage. Chapter 3 ‘Search
management’ provides examples of search logs.

Silverman, D. (2000) Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage. Chapter 2 ‘The research experience’
contains examples of research diaries kept by doctoral students.
 3

Finding and formulating your topic

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT TOPICS • WHAT IS A TOPIC? • TOPICS AS PUZZLES •

PUZZLES AS RIDDLES TO BE UNRIDDLED • BASIC ADVICE ON RESEARCH
TOPICS • THE EARLIER THE BETTER • GO FROM THE GENERAL TO THE
PARTICULAR • AVOID POLITICIZED TOPICS • BE CAREFUL WITH PERSONAL
ISSUES • FIND THE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE BETWEEN A AND B • AIRING
YOUR TOPIC • SOURCES FOR GENERATING IDEAS • ANALYSING THE
POSSIBILITIES OF A TOPIC • THE INITIAL SEARCH AND REVIEW OF THE
LITERATURE • TOPIC QUESTIONS • METHODOLOGY AND DATA QUESTIONS •
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY QUESTIONS • WHERE YOU SHOULD NOW BE • USE
REFERENCE AIDS • RISKING A POOR CHOICE OF TOPIC • FEATURES OF GOOD
TOPICS • USING YOUR SUPERVISOR • FOCUSING IN ON A POTENTIAL
RESEARCH TOPIC • DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS • DEFINING
CONCEPTS • STATING THE AIMS AND PURPOSE OF YOUR RESEARCH • WRITING
OBJECTIVES FOR YOUR RESEARCH • USING A HYPOTHESIS IN YOUR RESEARCH
• RESEARCH PROPOSITIONS • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER
READING

Your first rite of passage into the world of research is finding a topic for your dissertation. You
can make the process difficult by ignoring the advice of your supervisors and this book or you
can work through the tactics we suggest here and enjoy the challenge. The main problems some
of our students seem to have in identifying potential topics are that they have misconceptions
about what a masters research topic is. In this chapter we will look at some criteria to use when
thinking about a topic, at sources for generating ideas for a topic and at ways to formulate your
ideas into a topic capable of resulting in a masters dissertation. The stages and processes of this
are shown in Figure 3.1. The main purpose of this chapter is to address the following kinds of
questions:

FIGURE 3.1 FINDING A PROPER TOPIC

1 What kinds of topic are suitable for masters level research?

 2 What are research aims and objectives? How should they be written?

3 What is a hypothesis and proposition? Does all research need them?

4 How can a topic be justified?

We end the chapter by looking at defining your research topic in terms of how to formulate good
research questions and hypotheses and aims and objectives, but for now we begin with some
misconceptions about masters research itself.

Misconceptions about topics

There is the misconception that masters research should be something that makes a difference to
the world, something that has an impact on our views or understanding and therefore, in some
way, makes a contribution to the stock of scientifically acquired knowledge. There is nothing
wrong with wanting to do research that has an impact for the good of human kind, that advances,
in whatever way and to whatever degree, the stock of knowledge and ways of understanding the
world around us. But at masters level these goals should not be paramount or be the criteria for
topic selection.

The generally held belief that masters level research is about discovery, change and knowledge
generation needs to be placed to one side. This belief about the nature of masters research is,
however, quite understandable. It follows the general view that research is about discovery and
bettering the conditions of human kind. This view often has the associations of the ‘scientist’ in
the lab surrounded by expensive-looking equipment, working long hours on a ‘problem’, facing
setbacks, fighting bureaucracy but eventually being triumphant against the odds. Historically
there have been such people and their endeavours have been the subject of cinema and television.
It may be that such representations are in part responsible for this view of research. The only
aspect of reality from this that you may encounter is the problem with bureaucracy. The rest is
largely myth.

For now it is important to understand that masters level research is not primarily about discovery
or making an original contribution to knowledge, though it may do this. If it does, this should
normally be a secondary consideration to the primary function of your dissertation. This function
is to demonstrate your skills and abilities to do research at masters level. Your topic is, in the
main, a vehicle for you to display your skills and abilities as a researcher and to demonstrate that
you have the qualities and attitudes required to be a potential member of the broader research
community and to be considered capable of being a research assistant or going on to do doctoral
research. It is the same for the work-based dissertation, but in addition you also have to
demonstrate the ability to be a practitioner and researcher and be able to manage the issues this
involves. The topic you choose should therefore have the features necessary for you to exhibit
the skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities which are subject to assessment.
What is a topic?
Topics suitable for masters level research come in a variety of shapes and formats. Finding a
topic is, however, essentially about formulating a set of questions or hypotheses that require
research of some kind in order that answers can be provided or statements put to the test. The
range and types of question that can be asked and the kinds of hypotheses which can be stated
mean that there are an infinite number of topics. Added to this is the point that not all research
topics require the collection of primary data. Some can be based on the existing literature and in
such cases the literature becomes the data. What counts as data or evidence also varies, but is
often closely related to the way the topic has been formulated and the preferences made for how
it is to be researched. The common denominator for all research topics is that they are puzzles in
need of investigation.

TOPICS AS PUZZLES
A puzzle is something requiring, if possible, a solution. I say ‘if possible’ because not all puzzles
can be solved, and many of those which appear to have been solved can be subject to
modification or different solutions by other research. By puzzle I mean something generally or
specifically not known and therefore requiring sensible questions to be asked that are capable of
solving the puzzle or a part of it. There are different kinds of puzzles and the main ones can be
seen by using words in the research questions such as ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘what’.
For example, the following are some simple puzzles capable of being refined to provide a
focused set of questions:

How are crime statistics related to crime?

Why and how did Durkheim define suicide in the way he did?

When and why did the romance novel become popular?

What are the variables in television news selection?

What are the key variables reproducing the cycle of deprivation?

We will shortly look at how to focus these general kinds of questions, but we will first look at the
kinds of puzzles each exhibit. In Table 3.1, following Jennifer Mason’s (1996) categorization of
puzzles, we have identified five main types of intellectual puzzle which form the basis of
research.
TABLE 3.1 DIFFERENT KINDS OF PUZZLE
Source: Adapted from Mason, 1996.
FIGURE 3.2 TOPIC PUZZLES AND INFLUENCES

We will look more closely at some real examples that illustrate the structure of these puzzles
throughout this book. For now it is relevant to see how different kinds of puzzle give rise to
many sub-puzzles due to the influence of history, context, comparison, concepts and political
stance. In Figure 3.2 we can see the place of the different puzzles within the general scheme of a
topic and I have attempted to indicate the different directions research may take as a result of
these influences.

Figure 3.2 has been constructed from what Silverman (2000) suggests are the kinds of influences
that can be used to sensitize you to various research issues. We have changed these a little and
added ‘conceptual language’ and ‘comparative studies’ to his list, which are summarized in
Table 3.2.

PUZZLES AS RIDDLES TO BE UNRIDDLED

One way of understanding puzzles is, according to Pertti Alasuutari (1995), to see them as
riddles to be formulated and then to be unriddled – solved in some way. If we take this idea and
synthesize it with Silverman’s ‘influences’, then we have the basis for identifying a range of
perspectives we may use when framing our topic. Hence, while I agree with Silverman, I would
also recommend that these influences might be used to help you generate an understanding of a
topic and then begin the processes of focusing in on a puzzle that has real researchability. Your
focus may be on any one or a combination of the following:
TABLE 3.2 SENSITIVITIES INFLUENCING RESEARCH

Sensitivity Amplification

Historical movements The main elements of this are:

(a) research is often closely related to intellectual movements and counter-movements of the time
in which it was done, such as structural functionalism (1940s/50s), conflict structuralism
(1960s/70s), symbolic interactionism (1960s), post-structuralism (1980s); and
(b) the historical origins of research puzzles and developments in knowledge can usually be traced
and their methodological assumptions identified as being, for example, foundationalist,
positivist, anti-positivist.
 Contextual milieu The contextual elements which sometimes influence research are the social, economic, political,
technological and legal variables deemed important at the time of the research. Within these are the
policy movements which are receiving the most attention. These are often expressed in general
phrases that imply a contrast or/and development from a previous state such as ‘post-industrial
society’, ‘information society’ and ‘knowledge economy’.

Comparative studies ‘Poverty’, ‘mental illness’, immigration’ and ‘sexuality’ are categorizations used in many research
studies, but have different uses based on different definitions, criteria and methodological
approaches. From meta-theoretical studies to in-depth case studies, these kinds of categories result
in different kinds of research depending on the purpose and preferences of the researcher. Hence,
‘mental illness’ is not a phenomenon able to be uniformly defined, but is dependent on context and
historically-rooted definitions.

Conceptual language Different perspectives in the social sciences, such as symbolic interactionism and post-modernism,
have languages made up of concepts intended to describe and sensitize us to different kinds of social
dynamics. Examples from the interactionist Erving Goffman include, ‘stigmatization’, ‘presentation
of the self’, ‘managing the self’ and ‘degradation ceremony’. This language is the discourse of the
perspective and provides, like the discourse of other perspectives, a framework for understanding
phenomena.

Political stance A substantial amount of research is politically motivated and is aimed at revealing patterns of
relationships such as ‘inequality’, ‘discrimination’, ‘exploitation’, and these are often seen as being
a part of broader conceptual theories which attempt to explain ‘inequality’ as part of different forms
of social organization, such as capitalism or patriarchy.

Source: Adapted from Silverman, 2000.

the historical development and origins of a puzzle, revisiting the basic assumptions
which were used and scrutinizing the data collected and interpretations made at the
time, to identify alternative starting points and mis-interpretations of seminal works;

the contextual milieu when the research on the puzzle was done, including cultural
assumptions of the time, place and social group and on the use of various
categorizations such ‘political system’ and contrasts categories used such as
‘preindustrial and industrial’ and ‘primitive and advanced’, to identify the influences
of cultural assumptions on classifications, research design and interpretations;

comparative studies and findings from the same and different disciplines done at
different times using different approaches, to compare and contrast in order to
identify gaps and possibilities for the further development of a particular study;

the concepts used to describe and categorize phenomena such as ‘alienation’, ‘power’
and ‘control’, analysing how these have been defined and operationalized in different
studies, and how they have framed and restricted paradigmatic understanding of a
topic, to identify other definitions and situations where they can be employed to
understand social situations and dynamics; and

the political and ethical biases in research to identify preconceived assumptions and
their consequences, of the ways in which topics have been selected due to their
usefulness in demonstrating the validity of assumptions, to critically evaluate such
demonstrations and suggest alternative approaches which are less value-laden and
biased.
Sensitivities can be useful to place into context a problem you are considering. They can help
you to start the process of scrutinizing the literature by asking questions such as: How are these
concepts related?; What definitions have been proposed for this phenomenon?; and What
standpoint has this research been done from?

Basic advice on research topics

There are a number of points we can make at this stage to help you select an appropriate topic for
your masters dissertation. The prerequisite to this advice is that whatever topic is finally chosen,
it should be capable of resulting in a complete dissertation in the time you have available. This
may seem obvious, but many good ideas for a topic cannot be done in the normal period of time
expected for a masters dissertation. Most topics will take a lot longer to research than most
people initially estimate. A good rule of thumb is to estimate how long the research will take
you, triple that estimate and then consult with your tutor who, you will find, will add more time
on to it. Research is very time-consuming. So how do you find a topic capable of being done in
six to nine months for a full-time student and 12 to 16 months for the part-time student? The six
kinds of advice we offer you are:

1 The earlier you start the better.

2 Go from the general to the particular.

3 Avoid politicized topics.

4 Be careful with personal issues.

5 Find the line of least resistance between A and B.

6 Airing your topic.

THE EARLIER YOU START THE BETTER

When is the best time to start thinking about and looking for a suitable topic? The answer is the
earlier the better. The sooner you start to think about and investigate possible topics for research,
the sooner you will decide on one and can begin to develop your research proposal. The earlier
you select a topic, the more time you will have to do the research. This means you may be able to
undertake research on a topic that requires slightly longer than another, or one you can
investigate in a little more depth or use data collection techniques that are more sophisticated. As
soon as you start your masters course, begin to think about and discuss with your tutors ideas for
topics.

GO FROM THE GENERAL TO THE PARTICULAR

Think of the task of identifying a topic as a process of refinement. This will mean going from the
general area in which you would like to do research to the particular aspect that you can do
research in. The general area can be something like, ‘moral panics’, ‘construction of statistics’,
‘analysis of advertisements’, ‘history of science’, ‘experience of immigration’ or whatever.
These phrases are broad categories that can often be used to tell others, when they ask, what your
research is about. They are the higher-level abstract designators that can be used to look for
specific research questions which may have the potential for a masters dissertation.

If there is an area you have an interest in, then consult with your tutor and ask if they have any
suggestions for specific research in that area. At the same time do some visualization of what a
topic might look like in terms of what else can be done in the area and can form the basis for
your research. This may mean reading some secondary sources on the area to get an overview of
what has been done, what kinds of assumptions have been made and where the general interest in
the area came from. Figure 3.3 shows what we mean by this using the example of ‘moral panic’.

In this example we can see how the phrase ‘moral panic’ can be used to investigate its origins,
previous uses and how it may be used to generate an idea for a topic. In particular it shows how
we can begin to think about the necessary issue of the availability of sufficient data.

AVOID POLITICIZED TOPICS

What is your motivation for doing the research? Your primary motivation should be to acquire
and develop your research skills and capabilities alongside the necessary attitude of reflection
that will help you to demonstrate your research qualities. You should avoid topics that you want
to use to demonstrate a political argument or forward a moral cause. As with personal issues,
politicized causes as research topics are inherently problematic. They take with them motivations
that have little to do with the research and more to do with providing evidence for the cause.

If you intend to do such research, be clear on your reasons and how you will ensure the validity
and reliability of your research. For example, we recently had a student who wanted to
investigate what are called ‘holocaust denialists’ arguments’ on the Internet. These are
individuals and groups who deny that the extermination of 6 million Jews (and others including
gypsies, Catholics, homosexuals and trade unionists) in Nazi concentration camps ever took
place. This is a topic fraught with emotion, politics and prejudices and because of this is a
difficult one to research clearly in an objective manner.
FIGURE 3.3 TOPIC ANALYSIS FROM THE GENERAL TO THE PARTICULAR

These problems were compounded by the student having a Jewish heritage and therefore the
research committee of the university preferred her not to research the topic. However, because of
the importance of the topic she was allowed to go ahead but under strict guidance from her
supervisor, who insisted she took the denialist arguments seriously and took as her research
puzzle the construction of their argument and compared these with the counter-arguments against
the denialists to find out how something that had been historically documented and taken for
granted could be challenged. Her dissertation became an investigation into argumentation and
evidence, carefully analysing and describing the argumentative structures and use of evidence
from opposing sides. She therefore looked carefully at the validity and reliability of historical
evidence as a research puzzle and did not use any emotive language in her conclusions or allow
her own (understandable) feelings to be expressed. This is the kind of topic that may be
important to investigate but is very difficult to do in practice. You may wish to reflect on how
you would have done such a project and what reasons you could give for going ahead despite the
problems.

BE CAREFUL WITH PERSONAL ISSUES

If there is an issue you feel strongly about and have an ‘axe to grind’, do not choose this as your
research topic. For example, euthanasia or abortion are topics which are embedded with
substantial moral debates and from a research perspective will involve serious consideration of
ethical issues. With such topics it would be difficult to start your research without a set of
preconceived beliefs and attitudes toward the main issues.

This does not mean you should avoid research that involves moral issues. Topics such as
poverty, abuse, adoption and the like are issued based. But this has not prevented many good
research studies being done to clarify the issues, definitions or processes or to identify possible
causes and consequences. Standpoint research – as it is called – is often the basis for social
policy research and therefore has an important place in the social sciences.

FIND THE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE BETWEEN A AND B

If we take it that the objective of masters research is to produce a dissertation of sufficient quality
to be deemed ‘masters level’ and that the means to this is doing research, then the less complex
the research to be done the more likely it is that the dissertation will be done on time and to the
required standard. This means selecting a topic that can not only answer ‘yes’ to the following
questions, but provides the simplest of routes to ‘yes’:

Is the data available?

Can you get access to the data?

Have you the skills to analyse the data?

Data for providing answers to your puzzle must be available. This means the data – whatever this
is – must be ‘out there’ and be of the necessary kind. The sources of your data must be
identifiable at the outset. You should be able to say what data is needed for your puzzle and why
it is needed. Second, you need to be able to get access to the data. If you need responses from
senior managers in the health services, what would make you believe they would be willing to
fill in a questionnaire for you or even spend time allowing you to interview them? Third, do you
know how you will manage and then analyse your data? Knowing that the kinds of data you need
can be obtained is not enough; you also need to know how you will use this data to answer your
research questions and/or test your hypothesis. If your statistical knowledge and skills are basic,
quantitative data requiring analytical statistical techniques may not be a practical consideration.
If your time restricts opportunities to go into the field, you may consider doing a topic that suits
your situation. This means looking for a puzzle in a topic area that can be done using desk-based
research. This could be the analysis of a debate in the social sciences, the testing of criteria used
to evaluate an Internet-based information source, the study of extracts of conversation or a media
production. You will still need to search and review the literature, design instruments for the
collection of your data and identify suitable techniques to analyse it. This is not a simpler
strategy for doing your research, but one among the many alternatives open to you.

AIRING YOUR TOPIC

Each discipline in the social sciences seems to have its own preferences on what constitutes an
appropriate way to do research and this often influences the kinds of topic expected from masters
students. Be prepared for some degree of disciplinary and departmental opposition from some of
your tutors. If you are studying in a department known for its quantitative research, then expect
your tutors to express this when evaluating your research suggestions. But do not be afraid to put
forward a topic and methodology that differs from the norm. Many interesting pieces of research,
at all levels, were initially seen as deviations from the expected. If you follow this track, of
pushing at the boundaries, then be prepared confidently to justify your topic using sound
argument and evidence.

Sources for generating ideas

There are many sources you can use to begin generating ideas for your research. This process
may even begin before you go to university to do your masters degree, and in Chapter 1 we made
some observations about this that are also relevant here. Do not expect a sudden creative vision
that leads to your research topic. Bright ideas for a topic are usually the outcome of research and
reflection. Typical sources for initial ideas include the following:

Taught modules you are doing on your course. Have you covered a topic that
interested you, which you would like to look at in more detail?

Has a tutor mentioned a research study that you found interesting, even puzzling, that
you feel needs questioning?

If you are doing your masters as part of a professional qualification, look in the
profession’s journal to see what the current issues and concerns are and if these have a
research possibility.

At work, if your research is to be work-based, what are the main issues, development
needs and management problems that require some research?

Have you listened to a visiting speaker to your department who talked about a project
that may have other possibilities?

Are you interested in particular phenomena that you cannot find much about in the
 library?

Have you observed a pattern of behaviour you found interesting or perplexing and
would like to find out more about?

What projects are staff working on; do these interest you?

Analysing the possibilities of a topic

Once you have an idea for a topic and have discussed this with your tutor(s), you need to go to
the library and investigate its possibilities. This means identifying sources of information,
obtaining some literature and subjecting it to an initial scrutiny. The main stage in this part of the
process is the initial search and review of the literature to identify research possibilities.

THE INITIAL SEARCH AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Use the library and not the Internet to plan an indicative search of the available literature. This is
the literature that is in your library or available in electronic format – literature that can be
obtained within a couple of days. In Chapter 6 we show you how to do a comprehensive search
and review of the literature. If, however, you already have an advanced understanding of the
topic area, then use the following books to ensure that you have the necessary skills for bringing
your knowledge of the literature up to date:

Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences (Hart, 2001).

Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Imagination (Hart, 1998).

At this stage of your research you should be doing a reconnaissance of the library. Do not aim to
define your main concepts or formulate clear research questions, but enjoy the freedom you have
to explore the possibilities for your topic. This means looking to provide overviews that help you
to have a basic understanding of two sets of questions. The first set is about the topic area itself
and the second about the methods that have been used to do research into the topic area.

Topic questions
Once you begin to obtain some of the literature – books, articles and reports – subject it to a brief
speed read. You are not looking to make copious notes on the details from individual books or
articles, but to get an overview of the context of your topic. Look in your search for literature
that provides initial answers to the following kinds of questions:

What are the key texts and authors on the general topic area?

What concepts and theories have been used on the topic?

What is the history of the topic?

 What kinds of arguments are there about the topic?

Even a rudimentary understanding of the origins and context of the topic will enable you to start
thinking about the possibilities for your own research. It will provide you with research themes
and issues which have been developed and debated by researchers in the topic area. With this
knowledge as your frame of reference you can begin the work of looking for a topic that has a
research focus. This may mean developing a piece of research that has already been done or
analysing contributions to a debate about the topic.

Methodology and data questions

By looking at the research elements of studies you obtain, you are aiming to understand how the
studies were done and, if possible, what kinds of methodological approaches (that is, quantitative
or qualitative) and assumptions were used. The kinds of questions you need to be asking are:

Has anyone else done research on this topic?

If so, how?

What research questions did they ask?

Did they use an hypothesis?

What methodology and data collection tools did they use?

What did they find?

Do not worry if you find that someone else has done research on a topic you have in mind to do.
It is often possible to deconstruct existing research, to critique it and find ways of developing it
in ways different from the original. The social sciences have many examples of this process. For
example, sociological research into the phenomenon of suicide has its origins in the seminal
study by Emile Durkheim, but many others have been done since, each exhibiting a different
approach. Some of these can be seen in Figure 3.4, which indicates the range of different
approaches that have been used from Durkheim’s original positivistic approach to interpretivist,
ethnomethodological and conversation analysis.

Validity and reliability questions

Although most research in the social sciences is valid and honest, some of it has dubious
foundations. As with all forms of research, including that done in the physical sciences, there is a
degree of unsubstantiated generalization, political and ethical bias and, on rare occasions, fraud.
The two classic cases of the latter are the work of Cyril Burt on intelligence (Beloff, 1980) and
the work of Bruno Bettelheim (1976) on the psychology of fairytales. Both exemplify how a
person can reach the top of their profession, receive numerous accolades yet, as in the case of
Burt, base his work on nonexistent research, while Bettelheim gained fame by plagiarizing the
work of another.

Do not assume that because a piece of research has been published or has attracted attention that
it is valid and provides a solid foundation for your research. This does not mean you use extreme
scepticism, but exercise moderate scepticism when you come across something that is taken for
granted as knowledge or fact. Remember to ask your tutors about the research you find in the
literature, especially about what they know of its origins and how it fits into the broader context.

WHERE YOU SHOULD NOW BE

Your reconnaissance of the literature in the library should have given you sufficient information,
such as the names of authors, words and phrases used to describe the topic, and an understanding
of the structure of knowledge on the topic. In Table 3.3 the essential information and knowledge
that you will obtain from your initial search and review of the literature is summarized.

While Table 3.3 shows you the range and kind of information you will gather during an initial
search of the literature, Figure 3.5 shows a simplified map of the main questions, concepts,
methodological assumptions and methodological approaches for the social science treatment of
advertising. Figure 3.5 is intended to demonstrate how you can use diagrammatic representations
of a topic to summarize key concerns, the research questions that have been asked and also to
begin the task of identifying the methodological assumptions used for research into a topic.
FIGURE 3.4 SOCIOLOGY AND SUICIDE: SAME GENERAL TOPIC, DIFFERENT WAYS OF RESEARCHING IT

TABLE 3.3 OUTCOMES FROM AN INITIAL SEARCH AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Outcomes Questions

An initial bibliography of texts on the topic. What are the key texts and authors on the
A list of the key authors on the topic. general topic area?
 What concepts and theories have been used on
A list of the main concepts used in works on the topic. the topic?
A list of the main theories used by individual and groups of authors to
account for the topic.

The origins and seminal works that gave rise to and initially defined the What is the history of the topic?
topic.

The historical development of the topic in terms of arguments and debates What kinds of arguments are there about the
over theories, concepts and data. This includes the different perspectives, topic?
standpoints and approaches which have been taken to frame and
understand the topic.

An understanding of how others have designed their research to Has anyone else done research on this topic? If
investigate an aspect of the topic. so, how?

A list of research questions which have been asked and an understanding What research questions did they ask?
of what has been considered important within the topic for research.

Identification of hypotheses which have been constructed and tested and Did they use an hypothesis? If so, what type?
how they were tested using what kinds of evidence.

An initial understanding of the methodological assumptions which were What methodology and data collection tools did
used and preferences for particular methodological approaches they use?
(quantitative or qualitative). An understanding of the main data collection
tools commonly used.

Lists of key findings from the main research studies. These can be used to What did they find?
make comparisons and identify gaps and need for further developments of
particular studies.
FIGURE 3.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS, CONCEPTS AND DATA – THE EXAMPLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND
ADVERTISING

USE REFERENCE AIDS

It can be useful to have at hand a selection of reference tools. These may be social science
dictionaries and encyclopaedias which will help you to find quickly short summaries and
definitions of key concepts and theories. Useful reference sources which you will normally find
in most academic libraries include the following and are often quicker to use than electronic
sources you find on the Internet:

The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought (Outherwaite and

Bottomore, 1993).

The Social Science Encyclopaedia (Kuper and Kuper, 1999).

Your lists of words, phrases and definitions will be of use when you need to search and review
the literature in more depth. This will be when you have decided on your specific research
problem and have written your research proposal.

Risking a poor choice of topic

We outlined some of the misconceptions about masters topics at the beginning of this chapter;
here we want to draw your attention to some of the ways in which students in the past have made
some basic mistakes when selecting their research topic. The following are some of the ways in
which you can engender a high level of risk into your research with the probability that it will
fail.

Risky behaviours Implications

• Choose a topic in a hurry • With no or little analysis of the practicalities of

researching a topic you may face far too many
unanticipated problems to deal with in the time you have
available. Topic analysis will identify most of the issues
and problems you are likely to face in your research –
this is why you need thoroughly to analyse your topic
before you start.

• Select the method before the topic • Methods of data collection and analysis should be
appropriate to the topic and not the other way round.
You may be good at statistics or talking to people, but
these should not be the first criteria for selecting a
suitable research puzzle. The puzzle should be clearly
formulated before you select data collection methods,
otherwise you will be introducing a bias into your
research equivalent to selecting a topic because it fits in
with your political view of the world.

• Procrastinate for months over different topic ideas • Doing little by dallying over possible topics wastes the
valuable time you would otherwise be using to get on
with your research. If you cannot make a decision, then
take direction from your supervisor and stick to the
decision they recommend.

• Generalize about your topic • Vague and generalized ideas will lead to vague and
problematic research. The broader the research idea, the
 more work it will involve to manage. The narrower your
topic puzzle, the more likely it is that you will be able to
identify precisely what you will need to do to finish your
research in the time available.

• Ignore the basic criteria • If you do not know what kinds of data are needed, then
you will not know if you can get access to them or how to
analyse them. Ensuring that you know the answers to
these questions is equivalent to knowing where you are
going before you set out on your research journey.
• Do not talk to your supervisors • Silence from you may mean you have done nothing and
are embarrassed to tell your supervisor or that you need
no guidance. In the first case your supervisor will not be
embarrassed because they are there to guide you and
help you through your research blocks. In the second
case, how do you know you are doing your research in
the ways expected if you are not seeking and receiving
regular feedback?

Features of good topics

So far we have identified a number of features which, when combined, can result in a good topic
for research and it may helpful to summarize these:

Criterion Implications

• Data availability • The data you need to provide answers or solutions to

your research problem must be available to you in
sufficient quantity and quality. This means there must
not be too much or too little data and it must be
available using reliable collection techniques. Good
topics have actual (secondary) or potential (primary)
data available.

• Access to the data • The data you need may be available, but not to you or in
the way you need it. It may be commercially or
personally sensitive data or even expensive if it has to be
purchased. Good topics have data available which you
can access with few problems.

• Time available • No amount of enthusiasm can create the time you need
for a research project. A good topic is one that has been
clearly delimited and can be done in the limited time you
have available.

• Availability of resources • Computing and software may be needed along with

published materials, such as reports. If these are not
readily available, then unnecessary risks will be
encountered. Good topics tend to require few resources
and those which are needed should be readily available.

• Capabilities and skills • You may be impressed with a statistical technique or

computer program, but if you do not have the necessary
skills and understanding at the start of your project,
then the time and energies needed to learn these may
 take too much away from the research itself for it to be
successfully completed. Good topics are those that build
and develop on capabilities, skills and knowledge that
you already have.
• Symmetry of potential outcomes • It can be uplifting to establish a link between variables
and have a positive result from your research that shows
a link and why one exists. It is equally valid to show that
a link does not exist. Good topics have the capability of
resulting in positive and negative results.

Using your supervisor

A key to the success of many dissertations is the supervisor. Use your supervisor as much as
possible throughout your dissertation research. They have the experience of supervising many
previous students and therefore have a knowledge you do not have. They will be able to help you
formulate your ideas on a topic, direct you to reading and may even suggest a topic they know
can be done. By exploring a topic with your tutor you will be more likely to develop a positive
and constructive relationship. Remember that along with another internal and an external
examiner your supervisor will assess your dissertation, so it is important to develop a good
working relationship as early as possible.

As a basis for your initial discussions take with you an outline, on a sheet of A4, of your idea for
your research. This does not have to be typed or neat. A handwritten and roughly sketched-out
idea will normally be better than something you have spent time and effort making look good. At
this stage neatness is a luxury that is not needed and is a waste of time. It is your ideas that count,
so focus your efforts on these and be prepared to share them with as many of your tutors as
possible. What you can expect from your tutors is feedback to steer your idea in a direction that
leads to a researchable topic. Do not worry too much if you receive guidance that seems to be
conflicting. Different tutors will naturally have their own ideas as to what kind of research your
topic idea suggests; often this is based on their own research interests and methodological biases.
If possible, ask for a list of the research interests of your tutors and a list of dissertations they
have previously supervised. These will give you an idea of their research orientations and biases
and the kinds of topics they tend to supervise.

Try not to be hesitant in sharing your idea for a topic with a tutor – remember that they are on
your side and are there to guide you. Once you have broken the ice with a topic, set up a
schedule of tutorials to explore your idea, giving yourself enough time between each to follow up
on the guidance you have been given. Even if you find that you did not have enough time to do
everything, or even anything between tutorials, still keep to the schedule using the tutorial for a
general discussion about your topic. Whatever you do, do not fail to turn up for a tutorial because
you have not done much as this may annoy your tutor who, quite understandably, having
invested effort on your behalf doesn’t want their time wasted. Failure to attend a session can also
be embarrassing when you next see your tutor and can lead to avoidance tactics by both and in
extreme cases breakdown of the supervisory/student relationship.
Focusing in on a potential research topic
If choosing possible topics is the first step in your research, then developing one into a set of
research questions, propositions, possibly a hypothesis, with a clear statement of purpose and
objectives are the next steps. By developing these you will be defining what your research will
be about, why it is needed and what kind of research it will be. In this section we will look at the
process and relationships between research questions and different types and purposes of
research. Details of methodological approaches and traditions we leave until Chapter 7, but even
at this stage your research questions will give strong indications of these and help you in
designing an overall strategy for your investigation. But before this some corrections to pre-
existing assumptions may be useful. Across the different disciplines of the social sciences there
are some differences of opinion on what constitutes a properly formulated ‘research’ problem. In
a guide to doing a dissertation the following statement is made:

A second criterion is that the question should suggest a relationship to be examined. This is
a particularly important characteristic, because the purpose of doing research is to advance
science. Because science is the study of relationships between variables, no relationship, no
science. No science, no thesis or dissertation. It is that simple. (Cone and Foster, 1999: 35)

This is a rather stark view of what constitutes a research problem and a dissertation. You may
remember some of the comments made in Chapter 1 about the need for clarity of understanding
in the social sciences. This statement clearly has no appreciation of this attitude. My position,
after years of experience supervising dissertations, is that this is only one view among many of
how to express a research problem and what can count as valid, meaningful and useful research
and research for a dissertation. I therefore take issue with these kinds of views of research
because they exclude the possibility of alternatives and by doing so are dogmatic. While this is
not the place to engage in discussion of what may or may not constitute ‘science’, my view is
that a more inclusive approach should be taken and for the sake of progress in understanding our
world – human and physical – I will use the word ‘research’ when looking at the formulation of
research problems for a dissertation.

DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What you may have done so far is to identify some broad topic area and undertaken an analysis
of it through a preliminary search and review of the literature. You should have eliminated from
your list of possible topics those which were too risky or failed to meet adequately the criteria of
access to data and time to do the research. With the topic or topics you are still considering it is
time to choose one and run with it by developing an aspect of it into a puzzle for your research.
One of the first steps in this is looking to see what questions can be stated which are puzzles
needing research in order to be addressed. Note I say ‘addressed’ and not ‘answered’. This is
because your research may find that there is no answer, in any definitive sense, to a question, but
it can give an advancement in understanding and clarification, which in themselves are
worthwhile outcomes.

Research questions are questions you intend to employ systematic research to investigate; they
are what is to be investigated. They should embody the purpose and type of research necessary to
unravel the puzzle they set for investigation. Remembering the different types of puzzle – the
developmental, mechanical correlational, causal and essence puzzle – your questions should
have a focus on one of these. Typically a puzzle will have a series of questions such as: How
well does this program work? How can we measure ‘well’? What can we compare it to? How do
users and providers assess ‘well’? The focus here is on evaluating the performance of a
programme, say in education, health care or in the community. This means that some form of
evaluative research design will be required involving descriptive statistical data, possibly from a
survey/questionnaire, along with qualitative data, possibly from interviews. General questions
are OK as the starting point, but will usually need refining to make them more precise, clear and
focused. Clough and Nutbrown (2002) suggest using what they call the ‘Goldilocks test’ and
‘Russian doll principle’. The Goldilocks test looks to assess research questions in terms of how
big they are. Big questions are usually too big to be answered. This is because they either lack
precision, needing to be broken down into smaller, more manageable questions, or are too vague,
needing precision to make the concepts measurable. For example, ‘What is consciousness?’ is, as
a piece of primary research, a big question for a masters dissertation. But rephrased as ‘How has
consciousness been defined and those definitions operationalized in research?’ may be possible,
once clarified by undertaking a critical review of the literature. Questions need to be the right
size in terms of allowing a research design to investigate the problems they pose. Hence the
Russian doll principle; larger questions need smaller ones and these need to fit together into a
logical set.

Your questions will now need to be developed by looking to see what specific objectives will be
needed to actualize each question and how each concept is to be defined to identify its major
variables. Figure 3.6 shows the main elements you will need to work on to construct a clear and
coherent definition of your research topic. Once you have your research questions, which of
these you work on next is in practice not important. You will find that alterations to one mean
you revisit another in an iterative process of going around tweaking one then another.

DEFINING CONCEPTS
Concepts are words such as ‘effectiveness’, ‘efficiency’, ‘performance’, ‘poverty’, ‘truth’,
‘impact’ and ‘community’. Due to the nature of language and the ways in which meanings are a
product of a word’s use, concepts cannot be assumed to have a universal definition. When used
in a research question, the way in which they are to be used needs to be defined. The literature on
the topic is usually a good source of candidate definitions for this. Poverty, for example, can be
defined in absolute (a person is in poverty because they have nothing) or relative terms (a person
is in poverty because they lack what others take for granted) and even within these two general
categories there are more specific definitions and arguments over whether such definitions are
useful in measuring the concept. You can use the literature to examine and interrogate definitions
used previously, categorizing these into what kind of definition they are. For example, you can
look at definitions by example, by genus and differentia, by stipulation and operational analysis.
FIGURE 3.6 ELEMENTS IN DEFINING YOUR RESEARCH TOPIC

Whatever approach you use, remember that by defining your concepts you are entering into a
research design that assumes it is possible to have a correspondence between words and things
through the mediation of definition. We look at correspondence theory in much more detail in
Chapter 7. But briefly, what this means is that you can measure the concept by defining variables
assumed to correspond to the phenomenon. Poverty, for example, may be defined in terms of a
range of indicators which state what a person does not possess (material things, social attributes,
cultural capital and so on). The variables could then be defined in terms of such things as income
level and value of assets, which would then be used to set a poverty line for the definition of
poverty.

STATING THE AIMS AND PURPOSE OF YOUR RESEARCH

Another way of seeing the links between the different elements in defining your research project
is shown in Figure 3.7. It provides an overview of where the problem statement (aims) fits into
the process of research design (we look in more detail at research design in Chapter 10).

The process is, as we have indicated, not as clear-cut as shown in diagrams such as Figure 3.7.
The process is largely iterative in that you will find yourself moving back and forth between
writing aims and objectives, then recasting your problem statement and reading further into the
literature on the methodological tradition and approach you have elected to base your research
upon.
FIGURE 3.7 THE PLACE OF RESEARCH AIMS AND STATEMENTS IN RESEARCH DESIGN

Many researchers often experience some level of anxiety and frustration when writing the aims
and objectives for a research proposal. This may be because there is no consensus as to what
aims are, what objectives are and how they relate to each other. There is also the problem that
different institutions have different ideas about what an aim is and what an objective is,
sometimes using different words for the same thing, such as goal in place of aim. In this section
we offer a guide to help you understand the nature of research aims and objectives that will help
you to formulate good aims and clear objectives. We can begin by looking at the purpose of
aims.

A research aim is one or more statements used to express the general intent (purpose) and
indication of the orientation (methodological nature) you have decided on for your research
project. Your aim should also include a gloss of the topic, for example, ‘motivation’, and a broad
typification of your units of analysis, for example, ‘masters students’. By ‘intent’ we mean the
purpose (function) you are proposing for your research, for example, to evaluate, find a solution,
identify something or bring about a change to a situation by your research. One way of thinking
about this is to say, ‘This research intends to [examine], [explore], [inquire into], [investigate] or
[study] … in order to [identify], [diagnose], [answer], [find out], or [understand] …’ some topic.
By ‘orientation’ we mean the position you have elected to take regarding the nature of your
research, for example, to base your research on a quantitative or qualitative description, analysis
or experiment. It may be that you state the orientation of your research before your intent. For
example, your aims may begin like the sample shown in Figure 3.8.

Although the aim shown in Figure 3.8 has the outcome to change the curriculum, this is not its
primary intention. As a masters dissertation, the main intention is to demonstrate the ability to do
research rather than effect change to a situation. Developing the curriculum to improve
motivation is therefore a secondary consideration to recognizing that this is a proposal for a piece
of formative evaluation that is focused on the questions, ‘What do the students talk about as
motivating them?’ and ‘How can we use this information to develop a curriculum that
motivates?’ Often such kinds of questions take the place of or complement a hypothesis.

If we look at the words and phrases which make up aims we can see that the intent and
orientation of an aim are not mutually exclusive. In the example already introduced and shown
again in Figure 3.9 we can see that there are a number of phrases which are intentionally vague
because they can be explained in other parts of the proposal.

FIGURE 3.8 STRUCTURE OF STATEMENT OF RESEARCH AIMS

FIGURE 3.9 DELIBERATELY VAGUE PHRASES ALLOW FOR FURTHER EXPLANATION AT A LATER
STAGE
While the implicit references in an aim can be developed in other sections of the proposal, we
can see in Table 3.4 the implications of using a specific word to indicate the orientation of the
research. In the example the word ‘examine’ has been used and this implies that the research will
be looking at coffee-bar conversations in detail to analyse them and identify from them talk
about the elements of the course which motivate and de-motivate.
TABLE 3.4 VOCABULARY OF TYPES OF RESEARCH

Term Amplification

Investigate ‘to inquire into thoroughly’

‘examine systematically’
‘a process of finding out’
‘search for evidence’

Enquire ‘seek information by questioning’

‘seeking answers’
‘make an investigation’

Examine ‘look at or actively observe’

‘inspect carefully for detail’
‘scrutinize’

Explore ‘seek the unknown’

‘diagnose a problem’

Explain ‘discover cause and effect’

‘identify independent and dependent variables’

Study ‘carefully consider’

‘critically think about’
‘seek to understand’
‘contemplate or reflect about’

Your research aims can sometimes be used to state the purpose of your research; to provide the
purpose statement. Here is an example:

The purpose of this study is to identify which demographic factors (age, sex, ethnicity)
correlate with which social lifestyle factors (social networks, number of sexual partners,
employment, education, residence) to determine risk factors in young adult injection drug
users (IDUs) currently or recently in rehabilitation.

This is the kind of statement that can also be your aim and form the main part of your problem
statement. Fully to be a problem statement you would need to state the known prevalence of the
problem, why it is a problem, and for whom. This would be a very brief synopsis of research and
data from the literature.
TABLE 3.5 USING RESEARCH TERMS TO DESIGN COHERENT RESEARCH
The words in Table 3.5 can be used in a number of ways depending on what you intend to do.
You can use them singly or combine them. For example, you could state that your aim was to do
an ‘exploratory study’, or ‘critical study’, or ‘investigative inquiry’. You can also preface the
orientation with a methodological one, such as ‘quantitative examination’. There are many more
words and phrases that can be used to formulate aims which embody the methodology of your
research, including ‘evaluate’, ‘identify’, ‘experiment’, ‘analyse’, ‘describe’ and so on. As you
can see from the matrix shown in Table 3.5, the vocabulary of research has different levels and
dimensions. The point to remember is to ensure that whatever terms you use they should be
logically related and used to formulate a coherent aim and set of objectives. We will now look at
what we mean by aims being coherent.

We can see in Table 3.5 an example of how the different elements can be combined in different
ways to achieve a desired outcome. There are two main points to note here. The first is that not
all research has to result in a solution; understanding and the clarification of issues are as valid as
any other outcomes for a research project. The second is that starting with a study of, say an
academic debate, then contemplating the nature and origins of that debate, then scrutinizing any
data and arguments used in the debate, then subjecting data and argument to critical evaluation
and reflection may result in a new (possibly) clearer understanding of the debate. The research
will, however, have been coherent in that its elements were deliberately chosen from amongst
alternatives and logically combined in such a way as to be fit for the purpose of the research. It is
this vocabulary that can be used to formulate the aims of a research project. In your aims you are
stating the choices you have made and which you are proposing will form the basis of your
approach to researching your topic. The aims you write in the early stages of your research will,
of course, be subject to change as you refine the purpose of your research and the
methodological tradition and approach you want to use. Finally, there are other pieces of
information you can also include in your research aims, such as scope, dates (for example,
between 1815–1883), the title of a publication (for example, Great Expectations), name of a
person (for example, Charles Dickens), reference to a theory or position (for example, atavism),
and an analytical framework, such as case study or comparative study, a hypothesis and your
main research question.

WRITING OBJECTIVES FOR YOUR RESEARCH

The objectives of a research project (a proposal for your research) are the tasks required to
actualize adequately the main elements of the research questions. There is sometimes, as we have
said, some variation over what some people call aims and objectives. Objectives tend to be
defined as the tasks you will need to do, in the rough order, to complete your research. Most
research projects will need a search and review of the literature, construction and testing of data
collection instruments, analysis of the data and a research report. Taking these as the major parts
usually required, one way of casting your objectives is to look at your research questions and
identify what tasks need to be done in terms of the dissertation structure in order to answer them.
This way may result in the following set of objectives:

1 To review the literature of public library use by students of basic adult education
courses in order to identify which variables have been previously identified in terms of
low-use patterns.

2 To interview a sample of students about their use and knowledge of what their local
public library can provide related to their course and their patterns and reasons of use
of the library service.

3 To survey a sample of adult education providers to find out what they know about what
public libraries can provide for their students and what they know about their students’
use of the library service.

4 To identify gaps in knowledge of what the public library can provide for students on
basic adult education courses.

5 To make realistic recommendations on how libraries can make their resources known
to providers and students of basic education courses and how they can mitigate some of
the barriers to the use of those services for this group of people.

These objectives are from a study of public library use by students on basic adult education
courses. They are numbered consecutively and give only the briefest of information on what will
be done and what information will be the result. The main focus of the research question they are
based on is why don’t students on basic adult education courses make more use of the resources
in public libraries to help themselves. Although the number of objectives do not always have to
correspond to the same number of research questions, for both between five and seven are
usually regarded as sufficient to express what you want to know and how you will go about
finding out. The second main approach to objectives is to express them as outcomes; as products
of different parts of your research. The following are from a study of information flow in the
construction industry; an industry subject to many different statutory regulations and standards
which are constantly changing. The example shows the main aims, problem statement and
objectives.
 The aims of this study are to identify the ways in which quantity surveyors in the UK
construction industry obtain and use information and to evaluate the role of special libraries
in supplying relevant information. The major problems facing quantity surveyors are the
amount of information necessary in the form of regulations, standards and specifications,
changes to the information and application to different kinds of construction. To investigate
information flow it will be necessary to:

1 Detail the flow of information in terms of its supply and availability to its use by a sample
of quantity surveyors.

2 Examine previous research on information flow in the construction industry, identifying its
function and cases of failure.

3 Describe and evaluate the role of special construction libraries in the information chain.

4 Survey quantity surveyors on their knowledge and use of special libraries.

5 Compare the knowledge quantity surveyors have and their use of special libraries with other
sources of information.

6 Suggest ways in which special construction libraries can be more effective in supplying
information to quantity surveyors.

(Shoolberd, 2003: unpublished teaching notes)

After each objective it is legitimate practice to provide some explanation of what you are
intending to achieve. This will help you to understand what will be involved in each objective
and how they relate to each other and to your aims.

USING A HYPOTHESIS IN YOUR RESEARCH

Sometimes your research questions or the expectations of your supervisor may mean that you
need to develop a hypothesis for your research. A hypothesis is an informed guess or hunch that
a relationship may exist between two variables with one being the cause of the other. A
hypothesis (H1) is therefore a statement that asserts that a relationship exists between two or
more variables, that x is caused by y, or that particular consequences (C) will follow if the
hypothesis is valid, that if H1 then C1, C2, C3 and so on. For example, I know a little about
motorcars and how they work and hence, sometimes, why they do not work. If I turn the key to
start mine and nothing happens I can, on the basis of my existing knowledge, hypothesize a
number of possible causes, but that the most likely is a flat battery. Stated as a hypothesis to be
tested, this could be: cars with a flat battery will not start. As a consequence, if it is a flat battery
then I also know that there will be a number of direct consequences, such as the radio will not
work (and will have lost its memory of my favourite pre-set stations), the clock, being electric,
will have stopped and the windows will not work. I could, if asked, provide more detail on why a
flat battery causes the situation by taking the explanation to another level, say motorcar electrics.
But I could not go much beyond this because I do not know enough about physics to talk about
how a battery works at the level of atoms and electrons. There are, then, different levels of detail
at which hypotheses can be used to give different possible explanations which have different
levels of explanation. These differences are what Alan Garfinkel (1981) calls ‘explanatory
relativity’. This point is that a hypothesis should be appropriate to the level of detail required and
that we remember it is not, as in our example talking about electrons, explaining the
phenomenon but something about the consequences of the phenomenon. We are asking why will
the motorcar not start, not how does a car battery work. The use of a hypothesis in research is
more complex than in this example, but it illustrates the main principles of hypotheses such as:

they are tentative propositions based on existing knowledge (even a theory) and its use
to explain a situation;

they are limited to the situation at hand, but the knowledge they are based on is
general;

the validity of the hypothesis in this situation is not known, but contains the details of
what variables are to be investigated to test the validity of the hypothesis; and

if found to be the cause from which the consequences have logically followed, this is
the evidence for confirming the hypothesis.

Hypotheses therefore give direction to the investigation in terms of where to look, what to look
at, what to test and as such have a deductive structure. This means that they can be expressed in
terms of ‘if’, ‘then’. Figure 3.10 shows the deductive structure along with the role of inductive
inference.

Analytical statistics, especially the Pearson-Product-moment correlation, plays a large part in the calculation of the data for
hypothesis testing. For help with statistics, see Further Reading to this chapter.

In our motorcar example the hypothesis we used is called a research hypothesis because the
problem it addresses is capable of being empirically investigated. Given the consequences, that
electrical devices in the motorcar do not work, then our hypothesis is, on the basis of prior
experiences, the most statistically probable. Hypotheses work well with physical events (or lack
of) because they can be based on existing knowledge of the basic laws of physics. Sometimes,
however, in physics, but more often with human actions, events are the outcome of chance. The
chance of 50 per cent of millionaires owning a Rolls Royce is 50 per cent may or may not be
statistically correct. It is measurable and if found to be the case only tells us there is a 50/50
chance of millionaire y owing a Rolls Royce motorcar x. Similarly, if we say that there will be no
difference between the reading habits of an equal sample of left-handed boys and left-hand girls
aged 13 years, we are saying there is no relationship between reading habits and left-handedness.
This type of statement is called the null hypothesis because it states there will be no difference
statistically between the variables. We could measure the reading habits of the boys and girls and
calculate the variance between the two sample groups, which would indicate (rather than strictly
prove) whether the null hypothesis is acceptable or is to be rejected for an alternative research
hypothesis. Note that we are using samples with the intent to generalize to a larger population
and therefore need to know much more about sample selection techniques and the nature of
generalization to use hypotheses. These are all parts of the research design which we will look at
later in this book.
FIGURE 3.10 THE DEDUCTIVE STRUCTURE OF HYPOTHESES

You should, as a mater of course, be thinking about samples and also about the elements of your
hypothesis and research questions at this stage. This mainly involves looking to see how you can
define your major concept (sometimes called constructs) and what indicators, variables and
values you will use to operationalize it. For example, if you were looking at poverty and ill-
health you may hypothesize that poverty is a major cause of poor health and mortality among
low income families. Poverty, poor health and low income would all need careful consideration
and recourse to the literature for definition, but for the sake of our example an initial design
might look like the one shown in Table 3.6.

Outlines such as the one shown in Table 3.6 can be useful starting points for all types of
research, not just those using a hypothesis. They help to clarify what kind of data will be needed
in terms of their relevance, amount and detail and how they may be collected so as to be reliable
and able to be compared.
TABLE 3.6 OPERATIONALIZING THE HYPOTHESIS
RESEARCH PROPOSITIONS
While hypotheses are usually associated with correlational and explanatory research, it is quite
possible to use a form of hypothesis in other types of research and research approaches. For the
sake of clarity and demarcation we will term these ‘propositions’ rather than hypotheses. A
proposition is a phenomenon presented for consideration that wants to confirm or deny
assumptions, methodology or methods used to define or apply the phenomenon. For example, we
may propose that newly constructed university library buildings (say five) meet all the current
building regulations but fail to meet the needs of students. We are proposing that there is a
logical gap in the function of the building and could go on to propose why we believe this to be
the case. Propositions are statements based on an argument which can be investigated through a
similar research design to that shown in Table 3.6. Our example here may include definitions of
a library, usage statistics of before (old library) and after (new library) to indicate usefulness as a
concept, and questionnaire survey and interviews with users. This proposition could include the
collection of a range of organizational statistics, quantitative responses and qualitative opinions.
It would not result in any kind of strict correlation between the variables, but would fulfil the
main purpose of raising a topic for critical discussion. My own research on the influences on
library architecture uses such propositions combined with research questions (Hart, 1996). For
example: What are the main conceptual influences on contemporary library design? How do
these relate to the historic place and value of knowledge? How is the purpose of the library
represented in its design? What role do librarians and users of libraries have in the design of
libraries? Questions like these can form the basis of a propositional argument that has several
related propositions, such as: contemporary library architecture represents information access
rather than knowledge collection; they are designed using the concept of visibility, access and
speed; the book is no longer valued because it is seen to represent elitism; hence the glass library
building has replaced the stone one and computers have replaced books. This was investigated
using images of recently built libraries.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

This chapter has attempted to provide you with an overview of the initial stage of doing your
masters dissertation. The focus has been on the general issues and techniques for finding a
suitable topic for your research and how to define a topic in terms of questions which are
research questions. These ways of defining a topic have only been touched on and you are
advised to consult the literature, especially in the further readings to this chapter, and your
tutors for detailed advice. But now that you know about defining a topic, some time needs to
be given to considering methodological traditions and approaches before the research project
is finally formulated into a definite design. These are issues that will be dealt with in Chapters
10 and 11. The key points made in this chapter include the following:

The topic needs to be do-able in the time you have available. A do-able topic is one that
has available data you can access and have the time to analyse.

There are many different ways of framing a topic and most of these are as puzzles to be
solved and the initial or indicative search and review of the literature is an important part
of topic analysis.
 The earlier you start looking for a topic, the more time you will have to develop a clear
puzzle and research design.

Once you have some candidate topics, define them using research questions, hypotheses
and propositions.

Further reading
Alasuutari, P. (1995) Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Chapter 11 introduces the
idea of research being about unriddling.

Blaxter, L., Hughes, C. and Tight, M. (1996) How to Research. Buckingham: Open University Press. A good starting point with
some simple to do exercises on topics.

Booth, W.C., Colomb, G.G. and Williamson, J.M. (1995) The Craft of Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Has a
section in Chapter 3 on moving from topics to research questions.

Clarke, G.M. (1992) A Basic Course in Statistics. 3rd edn. London: Edward Arnold. A solid introduction to statistical techniques
relevant to hypothesis testing.

Dalen, Van, D.B. (1979) Understanding Educational Research: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill. A thorough
introduction to hypotheses and related statistical techniques.

Dees, R. (1997) Starting Research: An Introduction to Academic Research and Dissertation Writing. New York: Pinter. See
Chapter 3 on planning a focus for your research.

Kumar, R. (1999) Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. London: Sage. Chapter 4 gives advice on
formulating a research topic including using hypotheses and Chapter 5 on variables.

Lester, J.D. (1993) Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide. New York: HarperCollins. Has advice in Chapter 1 on finding a
topic.

Silverman, D. (2000) Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage. See Chapter 5 ‘Selecting a topic’ for
advice on strategies to overcome some of the most common errors when looking for a topic and at qualitative hypotheses.

Trochim, B. (2002) Research Methods Knowledge Base. Address: http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/ An Internet resource that
includes a lot of advice on hypotheses, samples and statistics.

Walliman, N. (2001) Your Research Project: A Step-by-Step Guide for the First-time Researcher. London: Sage. Chapter 5
discusses hypotheses, research questions and propositions.
 4

Imagining your dissertation

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• STRUCTURE OF A TYPICAL DISSERTATION • GENERIC DISSERTATION

SKELETON • UNITY IN A DISSERTATION • THE PLOT OF A DISSERTATION •
ENVISIONING YOUR TOPIC AS A DISSERTATION • ENVISIONING TECHNIQUES •
DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION • YELLOW-STICKER PLOTTING • USING
ENVISIONING TO ANSWER KEY QUESTIONS • WHEN TO START WRITING •
SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the technique of envisioning that you can use to create
an imaginary picture of your dissertation. This technique will help you to understand the
structure of a typical dissertation and to identify the different parts of the intellectual and
technical scaffolding you need to construct for a research proposal. The main questions we look
at in this chapter are:

1 What are the chapters in a typical dissertation?

2 How can you imagine what chapters will be needed to tell the story of your research?

3 Why does a dissertation need to be more than the sum of its chapters? What is meant
by saying a dissertation needs to be coherent?

The basic premise of this chapter is that if you can mentally envision what your dissertation may
look like, then you can begin to think more systematically on what will need to be done to
develop your research proposal and identify solutions to problems you foresee. We begin with an
overview of the typical dissertation before looking at how to use envisioning techniques.

Structure of a typical dissertation

In Chapter 1 we learned that a dissertation is, in part, a piece of technical work. This means it
involves doing a range of tasks such as designing a literature search, constructing bibliographies,
designing data collection tools and writing. I recommended that the most efficient way of
thinking about and doing your dissertation is to break the whole down into its constitutive
elements. But what does the whole look like? In this section we are going to look at some
indicative and typical structures of masters dissertations.

See Chapter 5 for the structures of different types of dissertation – the work-based and literature review dissertations.

GENERIC DISSERTATION SKELETON

You are expected to present your dissertation in a logical format that has unity and is systematic.
In its simplest terms, a masters dissertation has the following seven sections:

1 Title

2 Abstract

3 Acknowledgements

4 TABLE of contents

5 Main text

6 Bibliography

7 Appendices.

Each of the main sections has a number of parts and these parts have their own role in the
dissertation. If we expand the sections a little we can see what the broad content of each may be.
TABLE 4.1 PARTS OF A TYPICAL DISSERTATION

Parts Contents

1 Title A concise title to convey the topic and purpose of the

research.

2 Abstract A descriptive summary of the research.

3 Acknowledgements Individuals and organizations who have helped you and copy
right authorizations.

4 TABLE of contents Full listing of the contents, figures and tables.

5 Main text The chapters of the dissertation.

6 Bibliography Works cited in the text arranged systematically using

accepted standards for citations.

7 Appendices Relevant supporting evidence, such as letters and exhibits.

Although it may not be evident in Table 4.1, the most important part of your dissertation is the
main text. There are some typical chapters which are expected in the main text, but it is left to
you to decide on how best to arrange them. Whatever arrangement of chapters and sections you
use, it is essential to check with your supervisor that anything differing from the norm be
approved first before you produce your dissertation. Table 4.2 gives an indication of the content
of chapters to use as your starting point when envisioning the structure of your dissertation.

These chapters and arrangement are indicative and may differ depending on the approach to the
topic. It is up to you, as the owner of your research, to decide on the most appropriate
arrangement for the chapters in your dissertation. It is also up to you to decide the weighting in
space and words to give to each chapter. Table 4.3 gives an indication of typical lengths for
chapters based on the seven-chapter arrangement we have used.

In some kinds of dissertation, such as one based on an analysis of the literature, the dissertation
will be a series of literature review chapters. Therefore this is not a fixed format, but one to be
used to orient your understanding to the necessity for structure in a dissertation and for that
structure to maintain a focus on the main themes of the research.
TABLE 4.2 CHAPTERS IN A DISSERTATION

Chapter Title Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction The general introduction to the research and the topic. This
chapter is a re-working of the research proposal and should
include the aims and objectives, hypothesis and/or research
questions, the scope of the research, justification and
definition of technical terms.
Also included is whatever background information is
necessary for the reader to understand the context of the
topic. Depending on the complexity of the arguments the
background may be presented as a separate chapter. All
works referred to in the text should be cited systematically
and in detail at the end of the chapter using the numeric
method.

Chapter 2 Literature review A state-of-the-art search and review of the literature on the
topic. This should use an appropriate structure and should
focus on the ideas, issues, arguments and findings in the
literature and not on single items or authors unless there is
good reason for doing so. All works referred to in the text
should be cited systematically and in detail at the end of the
chapter using the numeric method.

Chapter 3 Methodology This chapter is for a description and justification of the

methodological assumptions, data collection tools, sampling
and techniques of analysis used in the research. All works
referred to in the text should be cited systematically and in
detail at the end of the chapter using the numeric method.

Chapter 4 Findings/Results This chapter is for the findings or results of the research and
is intended to be descriptive. If the findings are based on a
quantitative questionnaire, then they will consist of tables
showing the responses. This chapter should not include any
in-depth discussion or manipulation of the data, it is for the
presentation of your data. All works referred to in the text
should be cited systematically and in detail at the end of the
 chapter using the numeric method.

Chapter 5 Analysis The findings are subject to whatever techniques of analysis

are appropriate for the data. This may be statistical analysis
showing degrees of correlation between variables or other
techniques such as semiological or conversation analysis.
All works referred to in the text should be cited
systematically and in detail at the end of the chapter using
the numeric method.

Chapter 6 Discussion Focusing on the questions and/or hypothesis set, this chapter
contains a discussion of the degree to which the research has
answered the questions or tested the hypothesis. The
implications for the use of the concepts or theory can be
discussed in terms of the literature. The implications for
practitioners, either in a profession or research, can be
highlighted. The discussion should also relate the findings
to the literature in terms of showing what the research has
contributed to the literature on the topic and what the
literature can do in helping to show the meaning of the
research.
All works referred to in the text should be cited
systematically and in detail at the end of the chapter using
the numeric method.

Chapter 7 Conclusions/Recommendations This chapter brings together the work done and what has
been found. It is more than a summary of the contents of the
dissertation. It should show the contribution, including the
methodological assumption and data collection tools used,
that the research has made to the literature and include an
evaluation of the research in terms of the degree to which
the aims and objectives were achieved – this is part of doing
’reflective practice’. Ideas for further research should also
be included. If the work has implications for practice, then
also include suggestions stating the recommended action, its
benefits and costs. All works referred to in the text should
be cited systematically and in detail at the end of the chapter
using the numeric method.

TABLE 4.3 WORD COUNTS FOR DIFFERENT CHAPTERS

Unity in a dissertation
Earlier I introduced the suggestion that a dissertation should have unity. One way of thinking
about what this means is to look at the structure of dissertations to see how the contents are
interrelated. In Table 4.4 (story structures) and Figure 4.1 (narrative logic) we have attempted to
show how the different parts of a typical dissertation are connected. In Chapter 5 we will look
more closely at the structure of dissertations, but in the two illustrations here you can see how the
first chapter is usually a summary of the main issues and arguments present in the literature,
provides a rationale for the project and sets down the aims and objectives to be fulfilled. In a
similar way the concluding chapter brings together what has been done by providing an
evaluation of the degree to which the aims have been fulfilled and how the findings have filled a
gap in our knowledge and made a contribution to the literature. The dissertation therefore has a
beginning, middle and end and each section and all the parts should be focused on providing
information and discussion relevant only to the topic.

THE PLOT OF A DISSERTATION

Without intending to be patronizing, from what I have presented you can now see that a
dissertation has typical sections and parts. In its simplest form it is a story of why and what (a
telling and showing) you did, what you found and what the meaning is of what you did and
found. Table 4.4 shows the narrative structure of a dissertation.

The narrative structure shown in Table 4.4 is a simplified version of the narrative structure we
often see presented in a dissertation. The story in a dissertation is usually a little more intricate
than we have indicated here. As with any good story, you will have different connections and
relationships at different levels and varying degrees of detail in different parts of the dissertation.
A useful analogy, but by no means the only one, for seeing the dissertation as a plot is to think of
it in terms of the detective novel.
TABLE 4.4 THE STORY STRUCTURE OF A DISSERTATION

As a simple analogy the narrative logic of typical detective novels (‘who done it’) can give us an
insight into the structure, and to some degree the methodological approach, of many
dissertations. With the exception of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis most
structuralist approaches, especially those based on semiology, can usefully be understood as
having an approach similar to the detective novel. The puzzle to be solved may seem simple, but
is not because what appears to be the solution is not the case. Surface appearances, the manifest
clues or empirical observations are many and do not have any definite structure and therefore
seem to lack relationships between them. The complexity in the twists and moves in the detective
novel are the result of the imagination of the author, which is similar in academic analysis. The
structuralist analysis looks for the complexity of relationships among the simplicity of the
manifest appearances, aiming to discover multiple relationships rather than simple one-to-one
relationships. As the analysis progresses so the puzzle deepens, becoming more complex than
initially thought but, as in the end of a detective novel, the story unfolds as all the disparate parts
are shown to have a pattern and the conclusion becomes the solution to the puzzle.

Seeing the dissertation as a story has a number of useful advantages. In particular it can help you
to think about your topic as a story, what you intend to do, how you will do it and that you will
need to have an ending, the conclusion (see Figure 4.1). In Chapter 5 (Tables 5.4 to 5.8) you can
see some contents pages from dissertations. There are two main things to note from these. The
first is that the contents pages differ in the degree of detail and have minor differences in the
structure. The second is that all have used a narrative arrangement to tell the story of their
research from how it began, the introduction, to what needed to be done, the rationale, to how it
was done, the methodology, what was found, the findings, to what it means and how it relates to
the original aim, the conclusions. It is this interrelated sequencing that gives a dissertation its
unity as a themed story.
FIGURE 4.1 THE NARRATIVE SEQUENCE OF A DISSERTATION AND RESOLUTION OF UNCERTAINTIES
FIGURE 4.2 INTERRELATEDNESS OF CHAPTERS IN A DISSERTATION

The key to unity is to keep focused on the main topic and the issues which you identified in the
literature. Your dissertation should not be a collection of free-standing or loosely related
chapters. Each chapter should be purposeful and form a unified whole. Figure 4.2 shows some of
the main connections between the main parts of a dissertation in terms of a dissertation being
more than the sum of its parts.

From the very beginning of your research, during the stage when you are playing with ideas for a
topic, push your thinking to see the whole and then conceptualize the main parts of that whole.
By doing this you will habituate yourself into a mode of thinking that is much more conceptual
and strategic. It will enable you to designate the necessary parts for building the intellectual and
technical scaffolding and to give some rough content for the substance of your research proposal.

Envisioning your topic as a dissertation

You may, at this stage of your thinking, have an idea for a topic. It does not matter if this idea
lacks specifics and that you are unclear on what kinds of research questions or hypothesis you
will use. Being at the ideas stage affords an ideal opportunity to engage in some creative and
analytic thinking using the techniques of envisioning. This consists of using your visual
imagination to ’see’ the strategic possibilities of your topic ideas. Envisioning means to think
about, imagine and idealize about your topic as if it were a dissertation. The basic premise of
envisioning is the question: If this idea were a dissertation, what would this dissertation look
like? You are trying to imagine your idea as an object and that object is your completed
dissertation.
ENVISIONING TECHNIQUES
The two main activities that are often useful in envisioning a possible dissertation are:

diagrammatic representation; and

yellow sticker (Post-it notes) plotting.

Diagrammatic representation
Using a series of simple diagrams you can begin to build up a picture of your topic using
knowledge and information already gleaned from your indicative review of the literature. Try to
draw:

the main theory and related concepts of research which have already been done on
your topic. Figures 4.3 and 4.4 show the kind of diagram we have in mind. These
diagrams have been done using a wordprocessor in order to assist with the printing
process of this book. Normally I would use only a pen and paper.

more diagrams to show the relationships between the theories and concepts and the
research questions which have been asked and the kinds of data used in previous
studies. Figure 4.5 shows how you can extend the initial diagram to show the kinds of
relations between concepts, variables and data.

With these descriptions of the current situation you are now in a position to begin to visualize
(and diagnose) possible ways in which you could do research within the topic. This is not as
difficult as it may seem. It is like the gardener or the house buyer. The gardener looks at an
unkempt piece of land, overgrown with weeds and ‘sees’ in their imagination what it could look
like. Similarly the house buyer looks at the derelict building and ‘sees’ a smart modern home.
Both know what their possible garden or house could look like because they have seen other
gardens and houses. You have seen, in outline, what a masters dissertation looks like and
therefore have this same capability to use what you have seen to visualize what could be. The
second diagram, shown in Figure 4.4, needs to incorporate your critical thinking about what
research has already been done on the topic and to ask questions which may have a strong
possibility for research. In this case we have shown how the model of moral panics can be used
to generate questions about ‘science’ panics – panics that have scientific research available from
the biochemistry fields. How, we may ask, can science be a matter for interpretation and how can
‘facts’ be used to construct definitions and understandings of a problem? There are a whole
basket full of questions here about the nature of science, but placing these to one side our
possible research topic may be one that looks at the presentation of data across different
newspapers to ask; Is there a difference in reporting, if so, what and how? We may even suggest
an initial hypothesis based on the statement that social panics share the same essential reporting
features as science panics.
FIGURE 4.3 FIRST LEVEL OF ENVISIONING
FIGURE 4.4 SECOND LEVEL OF ENVISIONING
FIGURE 4.5 TAKING AN IMAGINARY RESEARCH JOURNEY

What you will achieve by expressing your understanding on paper in these ways is a mental as
well as a physical representation of the current boundaries of research on your topic. By plotting
boundaries you will also have begun the process of mapping out the structure of existing
research and knowledge on your topic which will provide you with:
 the necessary starting point for constructing a case (justification);

materials and structure for your literature review of the topic; and

materials for your exposition of methods used to research the topic.

Yellow-sticker plotting
Using a pen and Post-it notes (yellow stickers, Post-it notes or similar stickers) you can begin to
construct, using your imagination, the essential sections and parts of a typical dissertation. In
doing this you are taking an imaginary journey into your possible future to a time when you have
completed your research and written your dissertation. On this imaginary journey you can
describe what you see and tell yourself a story about it. Figure 4.5 is an imaginary map of an
imaginary journey of an imaginary dissertation on moral panics. In our map we have visualized a
rough sequence of events using the sections and parts of a typical dissertation. It shows us what
an imaginary dissertation on moral panics may look like if it were real. The purpose of this is to
encourage you to see the whole and work out what parts and tasks will be needed to make the
dissertation. In this way you will be more likely to relate the parts to the whole by seeing the
purpose of each part.

By plotting out our possible journey we have again used what we already know about doing
research and about dissertations. We can see how Figure 4.5 shows where we might start from
and where we are aiming to go. These kinds of diagram can help to give us our sense of purpose
and direction and help us to anticipate problems which we might meet on the way. You may also
have realized that these activities are not esoteric but can be of measurable help in a number of
ways including:

enabling you to begin the process of envisioning your research proposal;

beginning the task of narrowing down the scope of your idea;

habituating you to imagine possibilities and problems before you begin; and

showing you a possible focus for your research.

This activity will also provide you with some tangible evidence of your thinking and analysis of
your ideas that you can use in tutorials with your supervisor.

USING ENVISIONING TO ANSWER KEY QUESTIONS

Envisioning your dissertation can help you to think about the important questions – what kind of
data will you need, is it available to you and how can you analyse it. In our example in Figure
4.5 the data will be newspaper items – articles, illustrations, cartoons and editorials – and these
are available on CD ROM and from the British Library as well as many central public libraries.
So the data is available and you can get access to it. But remember to keep in mind how many
newspapers are published daily, including the weekend specials, and how much data this may
result in. You will therefore need to think about your sample, to look carefully at how to select a
sample of newspapers over a given period of time to use as your case studies. Fortunately
newspaper indexes on CD ROM make calculating frequencies much quicker than if you had to
look and measure each newspaper in turn. You will, however, need to look at a large number to
calculate such measures as space given as a percentage of the total space given for all items
(excluding classified advertisements). As this will be very time-consuming you will also need to
look at the logistics of what is possible and this will take you back to the definition of your scope
and sample.

In Table 4.5 we have outlined some examples of possible research topics presented in a way that
shows how, once you have generated some ideas for a topic, you can identify (in broad terms):

what kinds of puzzle you may formulate;

how you can amplify the ideas;

how you can begin thinking about the necessary data which will be needed; and

what problems you may have with the data.

TABLE 4.5 ADDRESSING KEY DATA REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR TOPIC
You should now be able to appreciate that there are many technical issues you can extract from
the yellow-sticker exercise which will help you to plan ahead to make your research journey less
problematic and more likely to succeed. It will also indicate to you what kind of attitude and
qualities will be needed in the process of doing your research, such as being proactive, having a
research orientation, being adaptable, having self-discipline and finishing things you start.

When to start writing

You do not start writing until you have collected all the data, starting with chapter one and
finishing with the concluding chapter. You start writing your dissertation when you first put
down on paper your initial ideas for a topic. From the very beginning accept that what you first
write will be edited and re-worked many times before it is of sufficient quality to be included as
part of your draft dissertation. This may seem a little laborious at the beginning, but the process
of drafting, writing, editing, proofing and rewriting will soon become routine and even a
pleasure. This is because writing is a technical art form based on developing your abilities and as
such you are creating something that has never been created before. Figure 4.6 shows the early
stages in the research process when you will start to write. Jottings of ideas for your topic to the
formulation of your research proposal are all parts of the writing process and some of this
material will eventually end up in your dissertation. In the process of creating, you express a
little of yourself and develop your skills and attitudes until writing becomes an habitual activity,
so much so that you may have some difficulties in editing your dissertation down to 15,000
words!

The main thing at this stage is to start writing. Do not, as we have said, try to get things perfect.
Try not to be tempted by the possibilities of word processing and doing diagrams on a computer.
Whatever you write at this stage is a draft, therefore see it as an expression of ideas and work in
progress. As such your drafts will be incomplete and will have gaps where the contents will be
indicated with a note to yourself. Also treat your drafts as problem-solving tools, as work in
progress that needs problems of structure and expression to be solved. In a later chapter there
will be more on the writing process, but at this stage in your academic career take time to enjoy
the freedom of being able to express your work in a draft and take risks by trying out ideas on
your tutors. At the end of the process it is not the drafts which will appear in your dissertation,
but many of the notions on how to express and structure your ideas.

Remember to establish a system for record keeping, storing your work and naming computer files. See Chapter 2 for advice
on managing your project.
FIGURE 4.6 FROM TOPIC IDEA TO PROPOSAL

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

 This chapter has attempted to introduce an essential part of the masters research process —
envisioning — and has emphasized the following.

It is expected that a dissertation follows a conventional structure and this structure can be
understood as a plot.

A dissertation is not a series of separate parts, but should be a coherent and interrelated
set of parts focused on a main topic.

Envisioning techniques will help you to ‘see’ a possible dissertation as a whole and allow
you to think about contingencies and how to deal with them.

Envisioning will help you to construct diagrams that can be an essential aid to
understanding and expressing your ideas.

Further reading
Alasuutari, P. (1995) Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Chapter 7 discusses
narrativity and the structure of the story as a whole.

Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P. (1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies. London: Sage.
Chapter 3 is a sound and interesting introduction to narrative and story structures in qualitative writing.

Moore, N. (2000) How to do Research: The Complete Guide to Designing and Managing Research Projects. 3rd edn. London:
Library Association. A good example of the journey analogy to describe the research process.

Golden-Biddle, K. and Locke, K.D. (1997) Composing Qualitative Research. London: Sage. Focuses on the story as a structure
for writing research.
 5

Choosing which type of dissertation to do

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• DIFFERENT TYPES OF DISSERTATION • THE TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION •

DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRADITIONAL DISSERTATIONS • THE STAGES OF A
WORK-BASED DISSERTATION • KEY CHALLENGES OF THE TRADITIONAL
DISSERTATION • THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION • ACTION LEARNING AND
THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION • THE STAGES OF A WORK-BASED
DISSERTATION • KEY CHALLENGES OF THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION • THE
WORK-BASED DISSERTATION AS A RESEARCH REPORT • SELF-EVALUATION IN
THE RESEARCH REPORT • THE LITERATURE REVIEW DISSERTATION • THE
STAGES OF LITERATURE REVIEW DISSERTATIONS • LITERATURE REVIEW AND
DECISION-MAKING (EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS) • EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS
• CHALLENGES OF EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS • LITERATURE REVIEW AS
ANALYTICAL THERAPY • THEORETICAL ANALYSIS DEFINITIONAL CLARITY •
CHALLENGES OF THERAPEUTIC-BASED REVIEWS • LITERATURE REVIEW AS
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

There are different types of research and therefore different types of dissertation. Depending on
your topic and how you have framed your research questions and who is sponsoring your studies,
there are at least three main types of masters dissertation you can choose from. It may not be the
case that the university department you have chosen can support all three but has expertise in one
or two. Which type you do is a matter for you to think about, but before you decide look at the
features of all of them. In this chapter we look at the features of the different types of dissertation
building on the characterizations given in Chapter 1. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the
different types of dissertation you can do by answering the following questions:
TABLE 5.1 DIFFERENT TYPES OF DISSERTATION
 Type of dissertation Brief description

Traditional dissertation Usually based on primary data collection to test a hypothesis,

proposition or fulfil a research aim. Can include evaluation
studies and analysis of secondary data sources.

Work-based dissertation Usually based on the identification of an issue that has

demonstrable significance to an organization and which is
investigated with the aim of making recommendations to
implement change.

Literature review dissertation Use of a topic and/or methodological literature to explore an

issue or argument or origins of an idea, or provide evidence
for decision-making.

1 What are the different types of dissertation?

2 What kinds of topic and research are suited to which type of dissertation?

3 What do the different types of dissertation ‘look like’?

4 How do you choose which type of dissertation to do?

As far as possible the descriptions of the different types follow a similar format. The advantage
of this is that you will be able to make comparisons between the types and also see the ways in
which different elements from each may be combined to form a hybrid dissertation.

Different types of dissertation

There are three general types of dissertation at masters level which you can chose to do and these
are shown in Table 5.1.

This three-type division is arbitrary in that in practice you can combine elements from all three
or of two. For example, the work-based and the traditional dissertation both include a literature
review, while some literature-based dissertations can be highly focused on a workplace issue.
We are going to look at these three main types of dissertation, but remember these are only
suggestions to get you thinking about what type of dissertation you may like to do. They are not
prescriptive or the only types you can do, but indicate the range available from which you can
select ideas.
TABLE 5.2 DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TO THE DISSERTATION IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES

General level Requirements

Certificate project Review of the related literature to identify the issues which
may need to be addressed when considering a problem,
development or opportunity in an organization.

Diploma project A detailed review of the topic and methodological literatures

to identify good and bad practices when applications of key
 concepts, techniques and methods have been used in other
work-based situations.

Masters dissertation The application of the main concepts, techniques and

methods to a clearly defined issue that is of significance to an
organization. It provides an evaluation of the research design
and its application as a reflective practice and makes
recommendations for lines of actions to address the issue and
may implement those recommendations and provide an
evaluation of effectiveness.

You may also have noted from your own enquiries that some subject disciplines have a
preference for a particular type of research and this is reflected in the dissertations their students
produce. For example, management studies tend to prefer action research and the work-based
dissertation, sociology the theoretical approach and the literature-based dissertation and
psychology prefers hypothesis testing and the traditional dissertation. Do not feel obliged to
follow these kinds of preferences, but do the type of research and dissertation suited to your
research problem. In some cases you may also find that a department makes a distinction
between what kinds of research activity counts as masters level. Check therefore with your
supervisor on these matters before you start work on your research. Table 5.2 shows the kind of
hierarchical distinctions sometimes found in management courses and generally reflects a
developmental approach to producing a dissertation.

The logic of the management approach shown in Table 5.2 is that as a student you undertake
work that prepares you for the next stage in your research. Even so, it is now being increasingly
recognized that the literature review is much more than a prerequisite for the other two levels.
The literature is now regarded as an important repository of knowledge and practice. Its use
requires advanced abilities for analysis and synthesis and can therefore be the basis of a masters
level dissertation in its own right.
TABLE 5.3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESEARCH AND MASTERS DISSERTATIONS

Kind of research Description

Descriptive survey Dissertations based on the collection of primary data using

tools such as questionnaires and interviewing. Often as the
basis for testing hypothesis, propositions, measuring attitudes
or describing patterns of behaviours and quantities.

Evaluation research Dissertations based on developing criteria by which a product

or service can be evaluated for such qualities as effectiveness,
comprehensiveness, accuracy and validity.

Critical research Dissertations based on identifying a collection of materials

and subjecting it to analysis such as semiological analysis or
content analysis, textual, discourse or citation analysis.

Comparative research Dissertations based on making comparisons between

products, services, critical incidents, before and after and
occasionally between different countries and cultures.

Correlational research Dissertations based on measuring the degree to which a

relationship exists between two sets of variables using
standard analytical statistics.
The traditional dissertation
Use of the term ‘traditional’ as a category is a little misleading, for all the types described in this
chapter have become conventional formats for masters dissertations over the past two decades.
Traditional as a type does, however, allow us to make some distinctions and draw attention to
masters research based on the application of generic data analysis techniques such as semiology,
content analysis, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, correlational analysis and the like.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRADITIONAL DISSERTATIONS

There is a wide range of approaches that can be included in the category of the traditional
dissertation, especially the various approaches to research shown in Table 5.3. A point to note
about these is that they tend to be small-scale research projects and therefore do not usually have
large samples, evaluate major social programmes, undertake major international comparisons or
employ large sets of variables for analysis.

The different kinds of research shown in Table 5.3 encompass the kinds of puzzles which were
discussed in Chapter 1. Descriptive research can be the basis of correlational, causal, mechanical
and developmental puzzles by providing both qualitative and qualitative data. In a similar way
each type of dissertation can be influenced by the particular historical, contextual, conceptual and
political stance taken. Hence when we talk about data we can mean a range of things including
responses to a questionnaire or from interviewing, short extracts of conversation, Internet web
pages, and all manner of archives such as cartoons and illustrations, football fanzines, popular
women’s magazines and posters. You can see some of these points in the two examples of
traditional dissertations we have included: Table 5.4 illustrates the use of a questionnaire to
measure the attitudes of public librarians to popular romantic fiction, while Table 5.5 shows the
use of content analysis to research popular women’s magazines.

THE STAGES OF A TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION

The traditional dissertation, like all other dissertations, has a number of stages which are typical
and include:

Stage 1 Indicative search and review of the literature is undertaken to formulate a

research problem, provide evidence of the problem, clarify any major concepts and
provide definitions. The aims, research questions and specific objectives for the
research are written and its purpose formulated with limitations set. The necessary
data is then evaluated for access and manageability.

Stage 2 Comprehensive review of the literature is undertaken to show the origins of

the topic and the problem, to help you become familiar with the main arguments and
studies, to map the knowledge on the topic and show the relevance of your problem
within the context of the literature.

Stage 3 Construction of the design for the research and rationalizing the choice of
techniques is done and discussion of general methodological and ethical issues
constructed. Next the methods are applied to collect the data and present it in
 appropriate formats.

Stage 4 Analysis and interpretation of the data with reference to the problem and the
literature is undertaken to show how the findings address the research problem and
relate to the existing body of knowledge. From this conclusions are made about the
study in terms of what the findings may mean for understanding the topic.
TABLE 5.4 EXAMPLE OF A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION

Contents list of the disertation Comments

Introduction Introduction sets the context by providing statistics on the

Setting the scene millions of romance books sold in the UK each year and
Aims and objectives showing that they are the most popular items borrowed from
public libraries. From this the proposition is that professional
Scope librarians have a bias against romance books and that this is a
Propositions form of cultural censorship. This proposition is based on an
Benefits and justification indicative review of the literature and therefore requires
Background testing.

Literature review The literature review develops the themes and proposition
Introduction made in the introductory chapter. Definitions of the genre are
Definitions of popular romantic fiction looked at to see in what ways different authors have framed
the subject. The appeal of the genre is looked at from an
Origins of popular romantic fiction historical perspective to show how widespread it is and
The appeal of popular romantic fiction includes such authors as Jane Austen and Shakespeare.
Popular romantic fiction and the public library Secondary statistical data is presented to show the industry of
Romance borrowing in the UK the romance. Finally, the literature about librarians’ attitudes
Librarians’ attitudes and opposition to stocking romances − is reviewed and it is found to show a general bias against
professional ethics contemporary romantic fiction and its readers.

Methodology The methodology begins with a series of statements based on

Introduction − Value neutrality − Literature review − the traditional literature, about the nature of the place and the
Attitudinal measurement techniques − Survey method − role of values in research. This is because it is the value
Sampling and sample − Self-completed questionnaire − judgement of the librarians being questioned, therefore the
Piloting and distribution of the questionnaire − Final values of the researcher are also deemed important, which are
version of the self-completed questionnaire − Rationale of about serving the needs of readers rather than making
the questions − Interview − Rejected methods − Data assumptions about them. Questionnaires and interviews are
analysis selected and explained in relation to other possible methods.
Interviews with publishers of romance

Findings The responses from the questionnaire survey are presented in

Introduction tabulated form based on the responses for each question.
Personal reading habits and preferences of librarians Thus, question one responses are labelled ‘Table 1’, with the
question being restated as findings. No attempt is made to
Personal opinions of librarians towards popular romantic provide an interpretation. The focus is on the presentation of
fiction − Overall opinions − Romantic fiction as a product the results in ways which are clear and systematic.
How fiction is chosen for the library − Concepts of
professionalism − Romantic fiction and the public library
− Selection procedures and user satisfaction −
Professional opinions of romantic fiction

Analysis and discussion of findings The responses are analysed using a combination of
Analysis of the responses techniques to measure attitudes, such as the Lickert scale and
Personal opinions of romantic fiction − Mills & Boon aggregation of responses. The qualitative aspects of the
questionnaire where respondents have provided explanations
The appeal of romantic fiction − Acquisition policies − are used to identify common practices and attitudes, and
Romantic fiction and financial constraints − The selection differences in attitudes and practices. The analysis and
process − Guidance used when selecting romantic fiction discussion stays close to the format of the questionnaire to
− Reluctance to stock romantic fiction − Ambivalence
 towards romantic fiction − Romantic fiction and the avoid straying from the data and making unsubstantiated
library − Romance and the reading habit − Justification claims about the practices of the librarians. The findings from
for stocking romantic fiction the survey are related to the findings of the literature review.
Conclusions There is a high degree of similarity in that a widespread bias
against popular romantic fiction amongst professional
librarians is found.

Conclusions and recommendations The conclusions are related to the practice of stock selection
Attitudes of librarians in terms of the professional attitude to provide quality
Understanding the appeal of romantic fiction literature for the learning benefit of library users. Recourse to
the professional role of the librarian is, however, found to be
Acquisition procedures and collection development a secondary rationalization used to justify bias, but due to the
Recommendations − Librarian attitudes − Treatment of high demand for popular romantic fiction does not prevent
romantic fiction − Practitioner ethics the librarians stocking increasing amounts of newly published
Further research and discussion romances. Recommendations are made based on developing
an appreciation of reader needs and the nature of the genre.

Appendices The appendices provide full versions of the data collection

Pilot questionnaire tools.
Final version of the questionnaire
Interview schedule
Follow-up interview schedule

Source: Adapted from Smullen, 1999 (‘Survey of librarians’ attitudes to popular romance books’).

TABLE 5.5 EXAMPLE OF A DESK-BASED TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION

Contents list of the dissertation Comments

Introduction The introduction sets the context for the research in that
Setting the scene information in the form of verifiable research is not normally
Propositions associated with popular women’s magazines. The proposition
is that women’s magazines disseminate a substantial and
Aims and objectives measurable amount of health information and that, contrary to
Benefits and justification popular belief, this is an effective and non-ideological method
to do so.

Background information The topic is first set in the context of the women’s magazine
A brief history of the magazine industry in the UK market. This is done to demonstrate the size of the market for
The current magazine marketplace − Characteristics of the publishers and the extent of the readership of the magazines.
market for women’s magazines − The future of the Women’s magazines are shown to have a long history and a
marketplace for women’s magazines − Summary of the range of diverse titles. The market for the magazines is shown
current marketplace to be highly segmented, with different groups of titles being
aimed at women in different socio-economic groups and life-
Influences on the development of women’s magazines style categories. The common approach to women’s
Ideology and women’s magazines magazines as ideological publications is introduced and is
looked at in more detail in the next chapter. This chapter
therefore shows the women’s magazine market to be
substantial and not something that can be explained only in
relation to ideological frames of reference.

Review of the literature The argument of the preceding chapter is continued to allow a
Dominant ideology theory movement from conventional social science approaches to
Feminist stylistics women’s magazines to a focus on the information content
and, in particular, the health information in the magazines.
Portrayal of women in women’s magazines: changes over The conventional approaches are represented by an
time examination of the usefulness of the ‘dominant ideology
Magazine advertising thesis’, as an approach, and ‘feminist stylistics’ as a technique
Health information in women’s magazines of analysis, to the identification and measurement of health
information. Both are found to be unhelpful for this particular
task, but useful for understanding the changing portrayal of
 women.

Methodology The focus on information, it is argued, requires a technique of

Primary data sources analysis based on measurement of quantity and categorization
Content analysis of types. The kinds of data − a sample of women’s magazines
from about 1900 to the present day − are identified. Content
Obtaining the sources: problems and issues analysis is identified as the most appropriate technique to
Selection of data categories measure the quantities, frequencies and changes to the health
topics covered by the magazines. Problems in obtaining
sufficient magazines are discussed, as it was assumed
publishers would have back copies when in fact they didn’t.
A range of different collections were located, however, which
were able to provide access to a sufficient number of titles
over a sufficient time period.

Results The measurements of quantity are presented in tables, while

Volumes of health information − Total magazine length − the frequency of topics is presented in the form of frequency
Volume of health information − Number of items of health lists. The main aim is to present the findings in ways which
information − Length of health information items − Topics of are simple and clear. This is made difficult, however, by
health information − Health topic categories − Analysis of combining the analysis and discussion of the findings within
specific diseases and conditions − Comparison with mortality this chapter. What we get is a two-part chapter, with the first
and morbidity statistics − Main subjects of items of health part made up of numeric tables and lists and the second part
information − Practical health − Presentation of health made up of a discussion of the amounts of health reporting
information − Format of health information − Style of health and what is reported. Within this there is recourse to the
information literature on information in popular magazines and to
secondary statistics on health, including mortality and
morbidity data. No definite relationship is found to exist
between mortality, morbidity and health reporting in
women’s magazines. The range of health topics is found to be
wide and modes of presentation to be simple yet informative,
being largely based on medical research.

Conclusions The main proposition is revisited and briefly discussed in

Volume of health information − Health topics − Main subject terms of the amount, frequency and range of health topics in
of health items − Practical health − Format of health items popular women’s magazines. The contrast between this and
− Style of health items − Evaluation of the proposition other studies of women’s magazines is emphasized and a
Further research claim is made for the information role of women’s
magazines. Further research on information analysis is
suggested on the basis of its scarcity in the literature in
relation to popular commercial publications such as
magazines.

Appendices Appendices provide information and data on women’s

Births and deaths of magazines magazines, showing the high number of titles that have
Top women’s weekly magazines existed, and giving circulation and readership figures. This
data is referred to in the main body of text as evidence of the
Readership profiles of women’s magazines substantial market coverage their popular women’s
Data collection form magazines have and therefore potential as providers of
information rather than ideology. The form used to collect the
data is also included.

Source: Adapted from Oliver, 1998 (‘Health information in women’s magazines’).

KEY CHALLENGES OF THE TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION

The main features of the traditional dissertation are also present, to a large degree, in the work-
based dissertation. The identification and definition of a research problem, search and review of
the literature and design of research are common features of both types. Both include a search
and review of the literature on the topic and the methodology which gives them an overlap with
the literature review dissertation. The main challenges of the traditional dissertation are as
follows, but depending on the topic its scope may be extended to include some from the other
two types:

A topic needs to be identified in a very limited timeframe which is capable of being

researched, therefore finding a focus and making the process as simple as possible
demands concentration.

There are many different elements including literature searching and reviewing,
research design, data collection and analysis, which may include advanced statistics.
Thus there is a wide range of skills to be acquired.

Within the design and approach to a topic there are often many issues to be faced such
as honesty, integrity and trust, which do not have a section in the dissertation. These
qualities need to be thought about and made manifest in the doing of the research
itself.

The limitation of 15—20,000 words places severe constraints on how much of the work
can be included in your dissertation. Therefore you need to learn to write in a way that
is concise, clear and systematic and to be self-critical of your writing so as to be able to
edit it for clarity and conciseness.

The technical aspects of the research, such as data summation and statistical analysis,
can take up a large amount of time and effort, leaving little time for interpretation of
the data and reaching conclusions on what it means. Extra effort is therefore often
needed near the end of the research period to ensure that interpretations have the
necessary breadth and depth required and that the conclusions are based soundly on
the data.

The work-based dissertation

A work-based dissertation is about contextualizing learning by extending it into the workplace.
The rationale behind this is to optimize the return, for the student and their organization, on the
investment in the masters course. It is usual to find that courses which prefer work-based
dissertations are based on what is called ‘action learning theory’.

ACTION LEARNING AND THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION

The main aim of the work-based dissertation is that its findings and subsequent
recommendations must be ‘actionable’. This means whatever recommendations are made they
must, at least, be capable of being implemented. It is sometimes required that the
recommendations have been implemented and evaluated and this reported in the dissertation as a
part of the research. The dissertation then contains a section discussing the implementation of the
actions along with implications and outcomes of those actions. Initiating change through the
problem definition and the research itself is seen, therefore, as a major deliverable of work-based
action research.
THE STAGES OF A WORK-BASED DISSERTATION
The process of the work-based dissertation has three typical stages:

Stage 1 An exploration and analysis of the literature to establish a framework for the
study which includes critical evaluation of any prior findings on a similar situation,
definitions of similar problems, and meta-evaluation of methods and findings from
previous studies. This is used to recommend a research design in which the data and
evidence can be collected in ways that are valid and meaningful.

Stage 2 Within the context established by the analysis of the literature and what has
been identified as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice, the data collected is analysed and
interpreted in relation to the specific organizational problem. The key aim is to draw
out the options, make clear and justifiable selections from these and construct sensible
recommendations for lines of actions to be implemented.

Stage 3 The actions recommended are, if possible, implemented and evaluated. The
researcher-as-practitioner (organizational player) is expected to demonstrate a range
of attitudes and qualities which have assisted them in collecting data and to implement
lines of actions. Within this stage it is common for the researcher to reflect on their
learning experiences and produce a brief evaluation of what has been learnt.

TABLE 5.6 and Table 5.7 show examples of work-based dissertations. In the first example you
should be able to see the different elements common to this type of dissertation. It also shows the
combination of an action approach to learning with standard methods such as the questionnaire
and interview. The different stages can be seen in the content of the different chapters. What
cannot be seen are the attitudes and qualities you would need for this kind of research which are
necessary for managing the sensitivities of colleagues who may see you as interfering in their
work or even questioning their competency.
TABLE 5.6 EXAMPLE OF A WORK-BASED DISSERTATION

Contents list of the dissertation Comments

Introduction Introduction to the organizational issues of information

Organizational background issue definition sharing and information access in an information-intensive
Aims and objectives occupation. The aims are to assist the practitioners to self-
analyse their information-seeking practices and to find more
Scope of the research ways of using the available tools such as Lotus Notes.
Benefits and justification

Background information The changing nature of regulations and policies and on-going
The probation service in the West Midlands operational informational needs are identified. The argument
Workloads and organization is made that with increasing workloads a more effective and
efficient information system would increase productivity and
Service management the value of practitioners’ knowledge.
Communication structures

Review of the literature The literature is reviewed to identify previous strategies and
Introduction tactics in the modernization of the probation service.
What works and modernization of the probation service Elements of good and bad practice are identified and related
to the current information needs of practitioners. Secondary
Information needs studies sources based on prior research of probation workers’ training
Information technology − NPSISS − Probation officers and needs and skills at using information technology are
 information technology − Lotus Notes employed to show levels and scope of current usage.
Conclusions

Methodology Methodology is not strictly an action approach, but is based

Literature on the action learning approach − Focus groups − on the responses of probation workers to questionnaires and
Implementation issue − Literature review on surveys, follow-up interviews. The aim is to obtain primary data
questionnaires and interviewing − Usage statistics of Lotus linked to individuals and small groups on their usage patterns
Notes use − Questionnaire survey − Interviews − Research and awareness of Lotus Notes in relation to their common
ethics information needs. The general and specific ethics of
information sharing among the probation workers are
discussed, which shows awareness of the information
sensitivity and regulations that govern such services.

Results The findings are linked to individuals and small groups.

Introduction Probation workers encouraged to reflect on their common
Results from the questionnaires − Sources of information − information needs and to identify common sources available
Other useful information − Lotus Notes − Ease of use − through Lotus Notes, which they were under-utilizing.
Technical issues − Training − Lotus Notes development − Therefore the methodology is about awareness raising. The
Usage statistics − Information requirements − Summary of results of interviews using the questionnaire survey results as
main findings − Results from the interviews stimulus materials are presented using the major issues,
which emerged from the secondary sources, interviews and
questionnaires. The focus is on information needs, sources of
information and use of the sources.

Analysis of findings The patterns of use and awareness identified are analysed in
Sources of information − other useful information − Lotus relation to levels of skill and awareness in using Lotus Notes.
Notes − Ease of use − Technical issues − Training − Skills and knowledge gaps are identified and related to the
Lotus Notes development − Usage statistics information needs of the probation workers, along with the
need to improve various technical and access issues. Some of
Conclusions the findings from the questionnaire and secondary usage −
age, usage, computer literacy − statistics are subject to
statistical significance tests.

Discussion and evaluation The discussion summarized the main findings, to provide an
The information needs of probation practitioners in the West evaluation of the current and potential future use of Lotus
Midlands Notes and a common information resource for probation
Sources of information most commonly consulted − workers. Common usage patterns are identified and ranked
Information needs currently provided by Lotus Notes − and related to variables such as age, gender and information-
Lotus notes databases − Staff use and access to Lotus seeking knowledge. Various barriers to use are identified and
Notes databases − Barriers to use − Patterns of use translated into potential lines of action which are proposed as
solutions to overcoming them.
Conclusions

Conclusions and recommendation The findings are briefly related to the issues identified in the
Improving information provision Enhancing staff use of Introduction and shown to be in common within the West
Lotus Notes Reflection on the research Midlands Probation Service. Lines of action are
recommended which would make information seeking by the
workers more efficient and effective (timely and relevant).
Finally, what has been learnt whilst doing the research is
outlined in a section on self-reflection.

Appendices Appendices provide information on the organization,

Organizational management chart information databases relevant to the probation workers,
Examples of databases used along with the data collection tools and the calculations for
the significance tests.
Questionnaire
Interview schedule
Questionnaire significance tests

Source: Adapted from Sawbridge, 2001 (‘Information needs of probation staff using Lotus Notes’).

KEY CHALLENGES OF THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION

There are a number of problems which those opting for a work-based dissertation often face,
including identifying a real organizational problem or issue, getting agreement from the
organization to study the problem, and managing relations with colleagues, subordinates and
senior management, especially when implementing lines of action. Hence the need for good
‘people skills’, which include attributes such as honesty, openness, self-confidence,
trustworthiness and objectivity.

In terms of selecting and rationalizing an organizational issue you will find that organizational
issues tend to have four possibilities:

1 Doing research on an issue you know well in a familiar situation — the familiar task
and familiar situation.

2 Doing research on an issue you know little about in an organization you know well —
the unfamiliar task in a familiar organization.

3 Doing research on an issue you know in a situation you do not know very well — the
familiar task in an unfamiliar organization.

4 Doing research on an issue you know little about in a situation new to you — the
unfamiliar task in an unfamiliar situation.

Each of these possibilities share, to a lesser or greater degree, the following features which
present a series of challenges:

The work-based dissertation is a limited piece of research aimed at making a

difference to a specific issue in an organization when viewed from ‘before’ and ‘after’.
It therefore needs to have clearly defined parameters.

The nature of the issue facing the organization needs to be clearly defined and justified
with robust evidence and sometimes obtaining sufficient quantitative evidence can be
difficult, especially with ‘human’-related issues.

Data and evidence are broad-ranging, encompassing information from secondary

sources (company documents, industrial statistics) and primary sources (interviews,
questionnaires, observations). A good working knowledge of many data capture
methods is therefore needed, with some requiring good technical abilities such as
statistics, communication and people skills.

Based in the ‘now’ and near future the research can be seen as having a value in
organizational terms, though this may not be long term, and therefore care needs to be
taken not to select an issue that will correct itself before the research is completed.

The research may give the researcher a higher level of visibility in their organization
than previously and this may lead to conflicts with colleagues. There will be the need
for conflict resolution strategies to be ready when and if needed.

As the researcher you are responsible for your research, especially for the careful and
 thoughtful implementation of any recommendations. The impact on the organization
beyond the local setting may have to be taken into account and these may outweigh the
benefits.

The dissertation tends to have the structure of a report but must contain the following
three main kinds of evidence. Ensuring these are at an appropriate level can be
difficult within the format of a formal report:

(a) evidence of appropriate arrangement — a statement of the topic as an

organizational issue, review of relevant literature including industry statistics
and organizational documents to contextualize the issue, a review of
methodological approaches applied in similar situations, justification for the
methodology employed and clear presentation of findings including related
evidence from secondary sources, succinct discussion of findings and emerging
implications, identification of options for action, selection and justification of
recommendations and proposed implementation plan, implementation (if
appropriate) and its evaluation, conclusions, including identification of key
deliverables, self-reflection on learning and identification of further research
which could be undertaken;

(b) evidence of personal and project learning outcomes — clear statements to show
continuous development of the ways in which skills, capabilities, attitudes and
qualities have been applied through the process of doing the research; and

(c) evidence of critical thinking — in the review and use of the literature and
analysis of the findings, critical evaluation and interpretation must be
demonstrated in a number of sections, including justification of the topic,
identification of a research gap, comparison of findings with those in the
literature and evaluation of alternative lines of possible action.

These challenges and kinds of evidence are the main features of the work-based dissertation.
Although they make the work-based dissertation distinct from the other types, it is nevertheless
expected that all three types exhibit the same high standards of scholarship. In the second
example of a work-based dissertation, shown in Table 5.7, some of what we mean by evidence
can be seen. It shows an international comparison aimed at taking the best practice of one
country and making recommendations of how and where it can be applied in another country.
International or cross-cultural comparisons are very difficult to do. One of the main problems is
that as a researcher you will need to be competent in the languages of both countries and very
familiar with the two kinds of organizations being compared.
TABLE 5.7 EXAMPLE OF A WORK-BASED COMPARATIVE DISSERTATION

Contents list of the dissertation Comments

Introduction Introduction identifies some of the major strategic and

Setting the scene organizational problems in Romanian academic libraries with
Aims and objectives brief comparisons to academic libraries in the UK. The aims
are to identify possible ways forward for Romanian academic
Benefits and justification libraries in terms of a national strategy.
Background information The organizational issue is a management problem related to
Structure of academic libraries in Romania the need for strategic thinking. This is developed using
Current state of development of academic libraries in specific examples based on secondary sources including
Romania statistics. A series of initial claims are made which are
substantiated with data and further backing. Note the
Problems in academic libraries in Romania assumption that UK academic libraries can be used as a
benchmark for the evaluation of Romanian academic
libraries.

Review of the literature The comparative basis of the study is explained and the
Literature on Western/UK academic libraries − Information relevant literatures on British and Romanian academic
and communications technologies − Academic library libraries identified. The comparative literatures are looked at
marketing − Academic library management in turn using categories identified in an initial or indicative
Literature on Eastern/Romanian academic libraries − review of the literature done for the research proposal. In the
Information and communications technologies − case of both literatures some incursions are made into the
Academic library marketing − Academic library broader literatures, especially secondary sources, to bring in
management examples of practice and approach in the main areas selected
for attention. Out of the reviews major approaches and
Conclusions concepts are identified which researchers and practitioners
have found to be useful. The findings of the literature review
are summarized and their usefulness in terms of
understanding the issues related back to the initial statement
of the problem.

Methodology The techniques for collecting and analysing data on the issues
Methodological overview − Identifying and reviewing the are focused on the Delphi Technique. The justification for
available literature − Establishing the current state of this is developed by looking at the nature of the problems to
developments in Romanian academic libraries − Carrying show that the Delphi Technique is the most suitable in these
out a Delphi exercise circumstances. The methodological literature on the origins
The literature − Delphi Technique − The panel − and development of the technique are reviewed in terms of its
Questionnaires vs. interviews − Questionnaire design methodological standing for producing reliable and valid data
and what data collection tools are best suited when it is
Conclusions applied. Discussion of questionnaires and interviews are used
to demonstrate a sound understanding of these methods and
this is further shown in the discussion on the design of a
questionnaire.

Implementation The results of the application of the Delphi Technique are

Response rates presented along with data on the response rates. No attempt is
Round 1 made to interpret the responses. The proper use of the
technique is demonstrated in the way in which the results are
Round 2 presented − as a series of applications within two rounds.

Results The responses from senior stakeholders in UK and Romanian

Priority areas of change in your library: targets academic libraries have provided three general categories of
Major ways forward: how to achieve targets concern. Each of these is described with detailed references to
the responses to show what the major views of the
General strategy respondents are and how these overlap.

Discussion and analysis The understandings and concerns of the respondents, having
The current state of developments in Romanian academic inductively provided three major categories, are used to
libraries − General library environment − Information and discuss the areas of concern found in the literature. We now
communications technology − Personnel − Library have six categories for discussion, which are all focused on
marketing and management the major aim of identifying ways forward for Romanian
academic libraries.

Priority area of change in your library: Targets − general Note how the initial findings from the literature have been
library environment − Information and communications further refined because of the incorporation of the findings
technology − Personnel − Library marketing and from the respondents − further sub-categories have been
management included, such as ‘personnel’. The discussion is systematic,
Major ways forward: How to achieve targets − General looking at each area in turn. This helps to maintain the focus
library environment − Information and communications on the initial aim and to demonstrate good practice when
technology − Personnel − Library marketing and interpreting the significance and meaning of the data. It also
 management shows how the findings from the literature review can be
General strategy − General library environment − fully incorporated into the discussion to obtain a much
Information and communications technology − personnel broader and deeper understanding of the issues than would be
− Library marketing and management had if only one source had been used.
Conclusions

Conclusions and recommendations for change The major categories which were an outcome of the data
Priority areas of change in your library: Targets collected are employed to frame a series of detailed
Major ways forward: How to achieve targets recommendations which are proposed as actionable.
General strategy
Recommendations

Source: Adapted from Deaconescu, 2000 (‘Change in Romanian academic libraries’).

THE WORK-BASED DISSERTATION AS A RESEARCH REPORT

It is normal for the work-based dissertation to be presented in the format of a formal report. A
formal report has been defined as:

A formal statement of the results of an investigation, or of any matter on which definite

information is required, made by some person or body instructed or required to do so.
(Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)

You can see, in the examples accompanying this section, the arrangement some researchers have
used to present their research. But in a work-based dissertation it is more than the results which
are included. The term ‘results’ when applied to the work-based dissertation means the results of
the work you did to produce the dissertation. This includes the results of your considerations
when constructing your research design, the results of your search and review of the literature,
the results of defining and justifying your research problem and the results of your data
collection. Results in this context has a much broader meaning than is normally assumed for a
formal research report. You may, however, place your major findings and recommendations at
the beginning of your report in an ‘executive summary’ to allow the reader to see what you
found before moving on to read about how you made these findings. In the work- based
dissertation the main sections of the report consist largely of description and explanation of how
and why you did what you did. It is this which will enable you to provide sound evidence for
your arguments and it is the only way in which you will be able to make the case for the
reasonableness (that is, validity) of your findings and recommendations. More is said about the
difference between research reports and others ways of presenting your research in Chapter 12,
‘Writing your dissertation’.

SELF-EVALUATION IN THE RESEARCH REPORT

The work-based dissertation is not a research report in the strict or conventional use of the
format. This is because it must include a discussion of issues not normally contained in a
conventional research report. One of these is the self-evaluation of the research, which is not
done in a single section but in various locations throughout the dissertation. The main point to
note about ‘reflective practice’, as self-evaluation is sometimes called, is it is about addressing a
range of issues, which we can state as a series of questions, such as the following:
 The research questions: How and why were the research questions stated in the way
they were, and how, if one was used, do they relate to the hypothesis? Were the
questions capable of being researched, if so, to what degree? How would you change
them with hindsight? What assumptions did you make at the start of your research
and how have these changed now you have finished the research — for example, were
they justified, and did they influence your interpretations?

The search and review of the literature: How effective was your search for relevant
literature? What terminology did you use and why? What problems did you encounter
with the literature and how did you solve them? How did you limit your search and
what impact did this have on your understanding of the issue?

The procedures employed: Were the procedures you selected for the research
appropriate when used in the field? What problems did you encounter and how did
you deal with them? What skills, attitudes and qualities did you need to apply the
research design and collect reliable and valid data? Were there any technical and
personal problems with the research, if so, what, and what was the impact of these on
the findings?

The conclusions and recommendations: Are all the recommendations fully supported
by the data collected in the research? What influence did your own cultural or
organizational position have on how you framed your conclusions and
recommendations? What kinds of implications can you draw from the conclusions in
terms of the literature, the issues you investigated and your own learning
development?

You may also include those persons who were a part of it − your colleagues and managers − by
asking them to make an evaluation of your research. In this way you will get relevant feedback
on such matters as how far you have strayed from the main issue, how you have retained a sense
of reality and achievability in your recommendations and, importantly, how you have managed
their understandings of your intentions.

The literature review dissertation

In the early 1990s tremendous advances were made in providing indexes and abstracts in
electronic formats, such as CD ROM and on-line. All of the major databases that indexed the
publications in the social sciences have become available in electronic formats and many have
now retrospectively indexed the article literature going back into the 1960s. Added to this is the
ease by which we can now search these databases, making a search of the literature a far less
time-consuming task than previously. Some of the outcomes have been the formulation of
different kinds of search and literature review. In this section we will look at the three main kinds
of literature review that can be used as the basis of a masters dissertation: the review for
decision-making; the review for analytical therapy; and the review for examining the history of
ideas.
THE STAGES OF LITERATURE REVIEW DISSERTATIONS
The processes involved in undertaking a literature-based masters dissertation differ in the details
from a work-based dissertation, but have some generic stages which are outlined below:

Stage 1 Definition of the problem and research questions are set. It is argued that the
relevant literature will be able to provide answers to, or better understanding of these
when examined in the context of the problem. The literature is therefore identified as
the main source of data for the research.

Stage 2 Careful design of the literature search strategy is undertaken to identify the
necessary sources and resources which will be comprehensively searched. This incudes
clear definition of the criteria and procedures for evaluating the relevance of the
literature for inclusion and exclusion from the research.

Stage 3 Critical analysis of the literature is undertaken to identify appropriate

contributions to the topic problem. This consists of identifying the different ways in
which the problem has been defined and approached, deconstructing the main
arguments, evaluating them against the criteria set, and, if based on ‘findings’,
assessing these on an individual and aggregate level.

Stage 4 The elements of the analysis are synthesized into relevant categories, which
are justified by being based in the literature and used to express complementary and
opposing, alongside highly relevant and confused views on the problem, to show with
more clarity knowledge of the problem, its origins and development or how the
literature can provide a basis of recommendations for lines of action.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND DECISION-MAKING (EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS)

The use of findings from the research-based literature has been developed into a major form of
literature reviewing by policy studies and health informatics. This is despite the literature review
not being recognized as a legitimate research activity in the UK until 1995, when the Research
Assessment Exercise allowed them to be included in submissions. The evidenced-based
approach is based on the assumption that all available verified and reliable evidence should be
used to inform decision-making. In the case of health practice there are three main ways in which
this translates into practice where evidence is used to:

improve the choices patients have of services and treatments;

make measurable improvements in clinical practice; and

improve the management of health service provision.

While some of the problems of evidence-based literature reviewing are beyond the scope of this
book (because they are about bio-medical applications), the approach does have value for areas
within the social sciences such as social policy, information studies and management studies.
The examples we include show this value and indicate how some of the practices of this form of
reviewing can be used in all literature reviews.
EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS
Within the remit of evaluation studies questions about which programme, treatment or approach
works best has been developed into a major international research programme in the medical
fields (Gray, 2001), including social and behavioural psychology (Smith and Glass, 1977). The
basis of the evidenced-based review is to identify in a systematic way relevant studies on a
condition and its treatment, subject the studies to a through evaluation and aggregate the findings
from controlled experimental mega-trails (involving 20,000 subjects in the control and non-
control groups). The purpose is to collect evidence that is reliable and valid and that can be used
to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of decision-making. The emphasis on the usefulness
of the research literature began in 1972 when Archie Cochrane, a British epidemiologist, argued
that there was widespread ignorance among health care professionals of the findings from an
immense research literature (Cochrane, 1989). Cochrane showed that the results of a systematic
review of randomized control trials (RCT) on a course of corticosteroid given to women prone to
premature childbirth could reduce the risks to babies dying of immaturity. Two decades later
more trials had been completed and these were aggregated with the earlier results, showing a
stronger relationship between the effectiveness of the treatment and survival of the immature
babies. As a result of Cochrane’s work, an international collaboration of expert reviewers has
developed and established the Cochrane Collaboration and Cochrane Centre. The outcome of
these is several databases of meta-analysis published as a part of the Cochrane Library.

Meta-analysis is not confined to the medical fields but is a part of most disciplines. The
difference between the Cochrane Reviews and others is often a matter of the type of research
included in the review. Cochrane Reviews mostly include the results of experimental trials
(published and unpublished) while other reviews, usually based on meta-analysis, include
findings from other types of research. An example of metaanalysis in social psychology can be
seen in Smith and Glass (1977). In this study, done before the general availability of electronic
databases, the aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of therapies practised by psychotherapists.
Some 375 original studies were analysed, which included approximately 50,000 subjects.
Applying a range of standard statistical techniques for all the studies, at least one effect size was
calculated, resulting in 833 calculated effects. For each study the dependent variable was the
effectiveness of a treatment related to a range of independent variables (level and type of
treatment). Smith and Glass (1977) concluded from their meta-analysis that psychotherapies do
make improvements to subjects. Importantly they provide a note of caution about which
therapies work ‘best’. Those showing a greater measure of effectiveness, they point out, may be
due to other variables not able to be controlled (confounding variables), such as the most
effective treatments being used to treat the less complicated conditions. The more complicated
the condition, the less effective the treatment, therefore the ranking of therapies cannot be taken
as representing the real effectiveness of therapies.

CHALLENGES OF EVIDENCE-BASED REVIEWS

The main challenges of the evidence-based dissertation are focused around the issues of
reliability of the data in the literature and the need for a high level of technical proficiency in the
biological sciences and statistical techniques. We can list these in the following way:

the language of the article and monograph literature is usually that of the biological
 and chemical sciences in relation to the practice of medicine and therefore requires a
competent level of experience with these;

most of the sources report that findings of trials use statistical techniques, therefore a
sound and proficient understanding of these techniques is needed along with
experience of medical trials, product testing and experimentation;

many sources have an evident bias towards the positive rather than the negative,
therefore an understanding of this practice and how to recognize and balance it is
required;

the disciplines on which the literature is based are intimately connected to commercial
research, which, for commercial reasons, is highly secretive and therefore not
everything is reported in the literature;

the ways in which the literature is indexed and abstracted varies between services and
therefore requires an understanding of the vocabulary of biomedical indexing, and for
abstracts to be persuasive rather than descriptive and evaluative; and

as the purpose of the literature is to inform decision-making, a thorough knowledge of

the different techniques of decision-making is needed.

The systematic review is, I would argue, an essential part of all research and can form the basis
of a dissertation in any discipline on any topic. When used to inform or even implement courses
of action to make changes to a situation, the standards of the review must be thorough and fully
accountable, displaying a sound knowledge of the different types of research, especially the
differences between experimental and non-experimental studies.

LITERATURE REVIEW AS ANALYTICAL THERAPY

When one goes back into the history of masters research in the UK we see that the majority of
dissertations are ‘thesis’ type analysis and discussions of the major theorists and theories. These
are often critiques of an existing approach such as functionalism, chronologically based
interpretations of a theory such as Marxism, or overtly value-driven arguments such as feminist
critiques. Many of these dissertations tend to exhibit sound argument and a good understanding
of the philosophy of the social sciences. These kinds of dissertation may now be in the minority,
but are nevertheless still very relevant because they can provide a deep understanding of the
foundations and origins of the social sciences. They are an excellent vehicle if you are looking to
expand substantially your understanding of the theoretical, methodological and philosophical
aspects of the social sciences and your abilities to undertake advanced critical evaluation and
thinking. The two we will look at in this category are those that seek to clarify the ways in which
assumptions and procedures have been used in order to take us out of misunderstandings, and
those that seek to analyse the meaning and use of words and phrases.

Before we look at these it is important to note that these types of dissertations are not to be
classed as theory-driven or esoteric, but can, as the example in Table 5.8 shows, be based on
contemporary organizational issues, like a work-based dissertation. The main difference is that,
unlike the work-based dissertation, the review-based dissertation often results in understandings
that have a long shelf-life in terms of personal understanding and the long-term contribution the
review-based dissertation can make to the literature. I have called these types of dissertation
‘therapeutic’ because they can bring awareness, understanding and clarity to a problem, in that
we can see its cause and the means to eradicate it.
TABLE 5.8 EXAMPLE OF A LITERATURE REVIEW DISSERTATION

Contents List of the dissertation Comments

Introduction Introductory chapter to justify the topic and define the nature
Executive summary of the problem selected, explaining why a review of the
Aims and objectives literature is needed. The aims set out the investigative
analytical approach while the objectives identify the major
Scope milestones necessary to achieve the aims. The scope sets the
Overview of methodology limits or parameters for the problem and in so doing the limits
for the search and use of the literature.

Background and context As a relatively new development in the literature, KM

Definitions − knowledge − knowledge management (knowledge management) nevertheless has a large and
growing literature. The student therefore shows the range of
differing definitions of the main elements of the KM
movement − knowledge and management. Both are
extremely difficult to define and this is shown.

Organizations implementing KM If companies such as those selected have implemented or are

New Employment Trends in British Petroleum in the process of implementing KM in their organizations,
3M then what is it they are implementing? How do they define or
characterize KM? This links the different definitions in the
Royal Mail Consulting academic literature to the different working understandings of
Dow Chemical and Scandial Link practitioners at a company level. It provides for two
Hewlett-Packard Consulting comparative sets of definitions, those in the literature and
those of the companies.

Core features of KM implementation Examination of the elements assembled to implement KM in

Reasons for implementing KM different organizations are looked at using four categories −
Core competencies − Audits − Information technologies − two related to skills and competencies, one to information
Culture communications technologies and, finally, one to
organizational culture. From these are extracted the features
used to implement KM and therefore what are taken to be the
main elements which may be the common features for the
construction of a definition.

Theoretical aspects of KM Different definitions are found to be linked to different

Data, information, knowledge and wisdom understandings and use of the vocabulary in the KM literature
Process of knowledge creation − Tacit knowledge and and to conceptualizations of what KM is about and how it can
explicit knowledge − Different purposes of organizational be explained. Definitions used are linked to different
knowledge − Intellectual capital understandings of how organizational knowledge is created,
how it can be described and what its purposes are. In
Conclusions about knowledge addition, the assumptions about the competitive advantages
of knowledge are looked at under the heading ‘intellectual
capital’ and this is related to the purposes of knowledge and
different types of knowledge.

Methodological approaches to implementing KM Different definitions and different ways of implementing KM

Best practice transfer − Intellectual capital − Learning are looked at in terms of the broader but highly related
organization management literature on organizations, such as the ‘learning
Innovation − Agile organization organization’ and ‘agile organization’ − characterizations and
recommendations in the literature about what kinds of
Information technology − Business process re-engineering − organizational structures and cultures will be required in the
Total quality management − Core competencies −
 Information management near future for competitive relevance. These characterizations
Ten methodological approaches to implementing KM are examined and shown to be related to conceptualizations
and recommendations in the literature specific to KM and
preceding KM. Hence the origins of KM are shown in terms
of a developmental process to the understanding of
organizational dynamics and, in part, strategic direction. In
total, ten methodological approaches to KM are identified
from a combined analysis of the literature and the mini case
studies of organizations.

Results The results are not statistical but summative in that what has
TABLE 1 Authors citing various methodological approaches been identified in the literature and in practice can be
to implementing KM − Table 4 Organizations practising categorized into one or more methodological approach to
various methodological approaches to implementing KM − KM. Using a series of figures and tables, authors are
Figure 1 Structured conceptual pathway (SCP) depicting the classified as promoting a particular methodological approach
intellectual capital approach to KM − Figure 2 Structured and this is followed by a similar classification for the
conceptual pathway depicting the learning approach to KM − organizations. What we now have is the use of a typology
Figure 3 Structured conceptual pathway depicting the into which authors and organizations can be placed
innovative approach to implementing KM depending on their preferred methodological approach to
defining, characterizing or implementing KM. From the
different methodological approaches the three most common
are schematized and described as ‘conceptual pathways’ to
depict the main elements in the processes used within the
main methodological approach, e.g. ‘learning organizational’
approach.

Discussion of results The construction of the typologies came out of the analysis
Findings from the tables of the literature and the ways in which different companies
KM and BPR (Business Process Research) − KM and TQM are implementing KM. This is then used as the basis for
− KM and core competencies − KM and information examining the relationships of KM to a range of management
management and technologies − KM and intellectual and organization concerns, looked at earlier in the
capital − KM and the learning organization − KM and dissertation, such as total quality management (TQM). This
innovation analysis also revisits some of the main approaches to the
understanding of organizations, such as ‘the learning
KM and the agile organization − Three approaches to KM
organization’ and to characterizations of organizations, such
Structured conceptual pathways as ‘the agile organization’.
Elements of SCPs From this application and subsequent analysis of the
Components of the SCPs typologies, a series of common points of reference are
One approach to KM identified which are used to suggest that there are three main
approaches to KM. These are represented in diagrams
showing the main methodologies, elements and processes.
From these it is shown that a comprehensive definition is not
possible or desirable, but that KM can be characterized in
terms of the ways in which an author or organization has
elected to take in approaches to the essential elements of
KM. These different ways are the conceptual pathways.
Importantly, the three conceptual pathways are then shown to
be based on common objectives and outcomes and can
therefore be synthesized into one main approach to KM. This
is posited as the definition of KM.

Conclusions Where the analysis has been, how it got to where it ended up,
Reflections on the research and what its significance is are briefly discussed in terms of
Reflections on the literature encountered in the research the aims and objectives set for the research. The nature and
features of the literature are also discussed to highlight
common and interesting elements, along with problems and
difficulties encountered.

Bibliographies Comprehensive bibliographies are provided to show the

scope of the literature.

Source: King, 1999 (‘What is knowledge management? A critical analysis of the literature’).
Theoretical analysis
There is a range of ways in which you can do a theory-based dissertation, including examining
the following:

development of a major or minor theory through an examination of seminal studies;

the implications of the theory to a particular issue or problem;

the methodological origins of theory or approach; and

a clarification of methodological puzzles raised by a study.

All of these will involve a thorough review of the literature and a commitment to acquiring a
sound understanding of the methodologies of the social sciences. What this means is that if you
are interested in, for example, the application of postmodernist ideas to public spaces, then you
will also need to encompass in your work other approaches to show the origins of
postmodernism. In these kinds of studies you are dealing with ideas, arguments, concepts and the
ways in which they have been applied. For example, if you were interested in the dramaturgical
approach of Erving Goffman you would review his major works and those of other pre-symbolic
interactionists such as George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley. Your aim might be to examine
the development and use of Goffman’s major concepts to characterize his model of interaction or
to compare and contrast his work with that of another, such as Harold Garfinkel.

A prerequisite for this kind of study is the ability to read sociologically (Anderson et al., 1985).
This means looking at the work of any theorist as exhibited in the exercise and application of
reasoning about an issue. In the case of Goffman we may choose to see his writings as a project
in which he is systematically exploring and developing his analytical framework. It may involve
taking his books and articles in chronological order to see how he develops his ideas through his
use of examples. This would lead us to an examination of his starting point and his
methodological assumptions, to see how he develops them using certain kinds of reasoning and
argument. Our systematic reading of Goffman’s work would lead us, if we have been careful and
open to his ideas, to an understanding of some very sophisticated reasoning in sociology, which
is quite at odds with the way Goffman writes. His articles and books are often written in a style
that seems casual and not scholarly. Hence if we were to show the complexities and
sophistication of his reasoning, then we would be showing that contrary to some popular beliefs
about his work Goffman was a major social theorist.

Definitional clarity
There are many words and phrases used throughout the social sciences which are in common
usage, but which are difficult to define, characterize or understand. The relationship between
how something has been defined and how applied may be hard to understand. In the work-based
dissertation you will have noticed that the identification of concepts is important. In identifying
the main concepts relevant to an issue you also need to be able to unpack the ways in which the
concept has been put together so that you can evaluate its usefulness in application and
operationalization. There are many classic studies in the social sciences which have done this,
including those which have looked at community, alienation, power, bureaucracy and so on.
 See ‘Defining’ in Doing a Literature Review (Hart, 1998) for more on definitions and concepts applied to the concept of
community and suicide.

TABLE 5.8 shows an example of an investigation to bring clarity to the phrase ‘knowledge
management’. Each of these words is difficult in itself to define, but even more difficult when
they are combined. As categories for the designation of commonly used words, knowledge and
management have come to be used throughout the management and organizational literatures.
There is now a substantial body of literature across the social sciences about knowledge
management. Taking as a starting point the observations and arguments of Gilbert Ryle (1949),
we can see in Table 5.8 an attempt to describe the different ways in which different authors have
used the phrase ‘knowledge management’. This detailed description of use makes visible for
analysis the kinds of assumptions different authors are using to construct their understandings,
including recommendations, for their preferred position on the meaning and implications of
knowledge management. The analysis therefore is able to evaluate the degree to which groups of
authors share common assumptions as well as the degree to which they have thought carefully
about their use of categories and concepts. In total, some ten methodological approaches to
understanding knowledge management are identified in the literature. These are then related to
the ways in which a range of actual organizations are or have implemented a knowledge-
management strategy. Comparing different conceptualizations of knowledge management with
different ways in which different companies have implemented a knowledge-management
strategy shows that there is no general agreement as to what knowledge management is.
However, further analysis of the language of the organizations and the literature enables the
vocabulary of knowledge management to be mapped in a series of typological diagrams. These
maps are offered as representations which show the methodological history of definitions and
understandings of knowledge management and importantly where problems resulting from
equivocal definition originate. These diagrams are called ‘conceptual pathways’ because they
map the conceptual paths the methodological approaches have taken. By doing this it is possible
to see where confusions have arisen and also where common points of comparison and similarity
can be identified.

CHALLENGES OF THERAPEUTIC-BASED REVIEWS

Therapeutic dissertations are based largely on a search and review of the literature. Some of the
challenges we raised for the evidence-based reviews are also applicable here, but we have some
which are specific to the therapeutic dissertation including:

the literature can be wide-ranging, covering many subject disciplines across the social
sciences and therefore a good grounding in the main methodological and philosophical
traditions will be needed;

the literature, because it is multi-disciplinary, will exhibit many different styles of

writing and argumentation, and so you will need to be flexible and open to these
differences;

some of the literature will take you into the major social theories and since these can
have extensive literatures of their own which can be both technical and abstract, you
 need to be able to absorb ideas and arguments quickly;

with extensive literatures you may not be able to complete your review within the
normal time allocated for the dissertation, and so you may have to consider taking
longer or preparing your research in advance of the dissertation period;

the amounts of information generated by the search and review can be substantial,
requiring not only a good document management system, but also that you be capable
of cognitively synthesizing a broad range of ideas, concepts, arguments and theories;

you may find yourself challenging some of the long-held assumptions in the social
sciences or some major theories and theorists, and therefore you need to be aware of
the responsibilities and consequences of your analysis, which means paying close
attention to scholarly standards in your work; and

questioning and challenging assumptions in the literature is not an easy thing to do,
nor is placing to one side long-held assumptions you may have about what constitutes
research — both require a degree of bravery and willingness to ‘play’ with ideas.

These are some of the challenges and if you are already familiar with the methodological
literature of the social sciences you may have noticed the implicit bias towards the work of
authors such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle and Peter Winch. This is because this kind of
thinking, approach and analysis provides powerful routes into many of the methodological
arguments common in the social sciences, to unravel some of the most puzzling debates and to
clarify common mistakes of reasoning.

LITERATURE REVIEW AS HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Another approach to using the literature is to look at a theorist or social movement or group
which has been forgotten or largely dismissed. The aim here would be to show the relevance of
the theorist at the time of their major writing and possibly for current social science. For
example, the work of Albion Small and Robert Park were until recently assigned to the not-so-
interesting section of sociological history. But in the 1980s their work was revisited by people
such as Martin Bulmer (1984) and his The Chicago School of Sociology was shown to have been
a major influence on the development of a number of research themes including community
studies, the understanding of immigration and settlement, and ethnography. A variant on this
theme is to employ visual data within the review to construct arguments about how the data may
be seen to exhibit key theories in the literature (Bauer and Gaskell, 2000).

See Doing a Literature Search (Hart, 2001), Chapter 9, and Doing a Literature Review (Hart, 1998), pp. 167–70, for
examples of citation analysis

This may include the study of citations. A citation is the bibliographical details of a publication.
Each time an article is published in a recognized journal its full citation details are recorded,
along with the list of citations the author of the article has referred to. In this way the citation
indexes for the social sciences has built up an incredible database, recording who has cited whom
in their publications. The main citation indexes for the social sciences are the Social Science
Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). It is therefore
possible to plot historically the origins of an idea, theory, development or argument. You do so
by searching the citation indexes.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

In this chapter different types of dissertation have been described. The key points that have
been made in this chapter are:

There are different types of dissertation and all, if done properly, are legitimate
contributions to masters level research.

Each type of dissertation contains common elements such as a justifiable research design
and grounding in an existing research literature.

The types of dissertation described in this chapter are suggestions as to what is possible.
Your own dissertation will be unique, embodying your particular topic and research
design.

Further reading
Anderson, R.J., Hughes, J.A. and Sharrock, W.W. (1985) The Sociology Game: An Introduction to Sociological Reasoning.
London: Longman. See Chapter 7, ‘Reading sociologically: Goffman as an example’; this provides a good example of the
elements required for reviewing a theorist’s work.

Gray, M.J.A. (2001) Evidence-based Health Care: How to Make Health Policy and Management Decisions. London: Churchill
Livingstone. A comprehensive introduction to evidence-based decision-making based on literature reviewing.

Hart, C. (1998) Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Imagination. London: Sage. Companion to this book.
See Chapter 5, ‘Organizing and expressing ideas’ for more on defining, comparing, and the work of Ryle and Wittgenstein.

Hart, C. (2001) Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences. London: Sage.

Hughes, J. and Sharrock, W. (1997) The Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 3rd edn. London: Longman. Clear and concise
introduction, includes excellent overviews of the work of Peter Winch who translated the philosophy of Wittgenstein for use in
the social sciences; especially useful for understanding the nature of ‘therapeutic research’.
 6

Searching and reviewing the literature

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• WHAT IS THE LITERATURE? • WHY SEARCH AND REVIEW THE LITERATURE? •

SEARCHING FOR RELEVANT LITERATURE • GUIDES TO THE LITERATURE •
PLANNING YOUR SEARCH • FINDING TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE AND
IDENTIFYING CORE TEXTS • LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVE LITERATURE ON
YOUR TOPIC • ETHICS OF USING THE LITERATURE • AVOIDING BECOMING A
PLAGIARIST • CITATION STYLE • COPYRIGHT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY •
REVIEWING THE LITERATURE YOU FIND • USING THE LITERATURE TO
FORMULATE YOUR TOPIC AND WRITE AN INDICATIVE REVIEW • DOMAIN
MAPPING • PROBLEM ANALYSIS • STRUCTURED THEMED REVIEW • CONTEXT
SHAPING • EXTRACTING INFORMATION FROM YOUR SOURCES • USING GRIDS
TO ORGANIZE YOUR ANALYSIS • WRITING AN INTEGRATED REVIEW OF
LITERATURE ON YOUR TOPIC • THE LITERATURE REVIEW AND YOUR
RESEARCH • THE ASSESSMENT ELEMENTS OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW • THE
RESEARCH IMAGINATION AND REVIEWING • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER •
FURTHER READING

The search and review of the literature is a critical evaluation, analysis and synthesis of existing
knowledge relevant to your own research problem. It is critical in that you are required to
evaluate what you read. It is an analysis in that you are required to extract different kinds of
information from what you read. It is a synthesis in that you are required to show the
relationships that exist between different studies and show how these relate to your own
research. You are aiming to assess critically what definitions of the topic/problem have been
offered and how they have been used and to evaluate the methodological approaches employed
and to identify gaps in empirical work and assumptions used. A literature review is not therefore
a summary, synopsis or series of annotations or a description of other people’s work. A good
literature review: exhibits technical competencies in searching for and selecting items; has clarity
of expression in writing and arrangement of materials; undertakes argumentation analysis in the
evaluation of existing work; and is used to structure the reasons for your proposed research and
to show where your research, once completed, relates to existing knowledge. The key questions
looked at in this chapter are:

1 What will a search and review of the literature contribute to a dissertation?

2 What is the literature and how do you find relevant publications?

3 How can you analyse the literature?

4 How can the literature be used to justify your topic?

5 What is a literature review and how do you write one?

Students often say that searching the literature is one of the most enjoyable parts of doing
research, but that reviewing what they find is one of most difficult. This chapter will help you to
do both of these necessary tasks in ways which give you the opportunity to develop the ability to
become competent and efficient literature searchers and reviewers of different types of literature.
This chapter is divided into two main parts − searching the literature and reviewing the literature.
The focus throughout is on enabling you to plan and execute an indicative and comprehensive
search for literature on your topic and on possible methodological approaches for your research.

What is the literature?

The literature for most masters research projects is made up of various published and non-
published items including books, statistics and reports. Table 6.1 lists the main items which
make up the literature. Note from this range of publications the inclusion of such things as
conference papers and patents. It you intend to do a state-of-the art search, then the latest
thinking on a topic or method is usually to be found in the conference literature.

If your project is work-based, possibly looking at something like research and development, then
the patents and trademark literature may be relevant. Different types of dissertation, topic and
methodology therefore demand different kinds of literature to be searched. For these reasons you
need to plan your search before you begin. Your main source of help in planning for an effective
and efficient search is:

Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences (Hart, 2001).
TABLE 6.1 THE LITERATURE
Below is a summary of the key points you will find in Doing a Literature Search. Also
remember to consult your librarian for advice on new developments in electronic databases.

WHY SEARCH AND REVIEW THE LITERATURE?

There are many good reasons for searching the literature on your topic. In the early stages of
your research, when you are thinking about what topic to research, an indicative search and
review will be absolutely necessary to identify what has already been done and what may need
doing to fill a gap in our knowledge. The main reasons for searching and reviewing can be
expressed as a series of questions you will need to answer about your ‘topic’. These can be
divided into three broad groups: the first contains questions about the basic features of your
topic; the second is about the nature and extent of the knowledge on your potential topic; and the
third is about mining the methodological details from the literature.

Basic questions to ask are:

1 What research and theory is there on my topic?

2 What are the key sources (books, articles, reports) on my topic?

3 Who are the main theorists and researchers in this area?

4 What is the language of my topic and how is it used?

5 What is the history, chronological development, of the topic or problem?

Intermediate questions to ask are:

6 How has the topic or problem been defined?

7 What are the different frames of reference for researching and discussing the topic?

8 How has theory been related to practice or to empirical research?

9 What methodological assumptions and approaches have been used?

10 What key concepts, variables or factors have been identified?

11 What are the agreements and disagreements between theorists on my topic?

12 What gaps in knowledge, theory or application of a methodology are there in my topic

area?
Once you begin to formulate some answers to this group of questions, you have begun your
review of the literature. As you gather a better understanding of your topic you will be able to
interrogate your sources to find answers to the following questions:

13 What inconsistencies, shortcomings or contradictions are there in our knowledge of the

topic?

14 What evidence is lacking, inconclusive or too limited?

15 What alternative approaches are there for understanding the topic which have not been
used?

Your interrogation will enable you to state what research, theory and approaches have been
unsatisfactory and, importantly, explain where there is a need for new research, theorizing or
approach on the topic. A good search and review of the literature will provide you with:

a state-of-the-art understanding of your topic;

a means of mapping out the theoretical and methodological structure of the current
knowledge on the topic;

an analysis which enables you to compare and contrast approaches to the topic and to
construct a new synthesis; and

evidence for constructing a reasoned argument for your particular definition of and
approach to the topic.
FIGURE 6.1 THE LITERATURE AND YOUR RESEARCH TOPIC

Given that a literature review will furnish you with the necessary topic and subject knowledge
and means of justifying your approach to the topic, we can say a review is an absolute foundation
for all research. Figure 6.1 provides an overview of how your search and review can contribute
to your research.

It is not only at the beginning of your research, however, that you will need your review. The
literature is a resource to be used and referred to, as we show below, throughout the dissertation.
Now we know the reasons for reviewing the literature we can look at how to find the literature.

Searching for relevant literature

A literature search can be systematic and precise or it can be random and chaotic. At masters
level you are expected to be able to demonstrate the ability and capacity to undertake a
systematic and precise search for relevant literature and to be able to manage the large amounts
of information you will find. To help us in this the science of librarianship has, over the past 150
years, developed some useful ways of organizing the knowledge of all subjects. Your academic
and public libraries are manifestations of a highly organized system of schemes and tools which
collect, categorize and make accessible human knowledge. By knowledge we refer to most of
what has been written in various media (paper and electronic), statistical data, dictionaries and
encyclopaedias and all manner of ‘texts’ including ephemera. Your starting point for designing a
search for literature relevant to your topic is with what are called guides to the literature.

Remember that you will need a system for managing the information you generate from your search. See Chapter 2 for
some suggestions on this.

GUIDES TO THE LITERATURE

Across the social and natural sciences and arts and humanities there are guides which list what
tools can be used to search the literature. The main tools are indexes and abstracts. When an item
is published, say an article in a journal, its details (called bibliographical details) are recorded in
an index for the topic to which it belongs. So an article in the British Journal of Sociology will be
indexed in Sociological Abstracts. Guides to the literature will tell you which indexes and
abstracts are relevant to your topic and methodology. Useful guides include:

Manual of On-line Search Strategies (Armstrong and Large, 2001)

A Guide to Finding Quality Information on the Internet: Selection and Evaluation

(Cooke, 2001)

Your supervisor — she or he will know the literature and should be able to guide your
efforts.

These and other guides will help you to find indexes and abstracts for planning a literature
search. Many of these tools are reference sources such as encyclopaedias and dictionaries and
these can be very useful in helping you to understand the vocabulary of your topic.

PLANNING YOUR SEARCH

It is certainly worth the time and effort getting to know how knowledge is organized. As a
masters level researcher this is an expectation and what you learn will be skills and knowledge
you can transfer into everyday life when you need to know something. A typical search has five
main elements and these are described in Table 6.2. A good point to remember when planning
your search is to make it cross-disciplinary.
TABLE 6.2 INITIAL PREPARATION FOR A GENERIC LITERATURE SEARCH

Task What to consult and use

1 Define the topic Consult the dictionaries and encyclopaedias in the quick
Write down the main topic and what disciplines you think will reference section to develop a list of key words that can be
have had something to say about it. used to search the library catalogue, abstracts and indexes.

2 Think about the limits of your topic Use materials from the encyclopaedias and dictionaries to
Limit your search by placing parameters around the timeframe define the scope of your topic and to write a working title.
(dates), language(s), place and population. Adapt the ‘Literature search profile’ to write down the
criteria for your search – what to include and what to
exclude.

3 Identify the main reference tools for your discipline Use guides to the literature from the quick reference
Identify the main indexes and abstracts and any other reference section of the library to identify relevant indexes and
materials that cover the disciplines for your topic. abstracts and reference sources, including Internet
gateways.
Check which reference tools the library holds that you can
use.

4 Think about the housekeeping Use ring binders to store notes and index cards to record
Design a means of recording what you find and cross- citations.
referencing materials.

5 Plan the sources to be searched and start your search Use your notes to construct a list of abstracts, indexes and
List the sources you intend to search in the order in which you other reference sources to be searched.
intend to search them.

Cross-disciplinarity means that even if your topic is in, say, psychology, you should search
indexes and abstracts in other subject areas, such as sociology. This will give you a broader base
from which to select relevant items and offer different perspectives on your topic which you may
wish to incorporate into your study. In many masters courses evidence of cross-disciplinary
knowledge is an expectation.

FINDING TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE AND IDENTIFYING CORE TEXTS

With many searches of the literature you will merely ‘round up the usual suspects’ which are
recognized as the core texts. This is not a problem in itself, but many research students often face
a number of related problems when searching. These include:

Finding too much: this problem is common and occurs when you use search terms
 which are too general and when you have not planned your search in sufficient detail.
The way to overcome this is to think very carefully about the terms and phrases you
will use for your search and the relationships between them. Use dictionaries and
encyclopaedias to construct a list of terms, phrases and synonyms.

See Doing a Literature Search (Hart, 2001), Chapter 10, for guidance on developing a vocabulary for your search.

Not finding enough: this problem is often the result of being too specific in what terms
you use for your search. Every topic has a literature that can be searched. It is usually
a matter of looking to find out where in the structure of the literature your topic has
been classified. Your college librarian will be able to help you with this and show you
how books have been classified and what vocabulary is used by the different journal
indexing services.

Another method is to look at the references (or bibliography) of items you obtain on your topic.
The items others have cited can lead you to other items which in turn have citations. As you
analyse the references of more items on your topic, you will soon see what are the most
commonly cited sources. These often form part of the core literature of a topic or discipline and
will give you a resource to construct more detail using precise terms and phrases for systematic
searching of the indexes including citation indexes.

A text can be said to be core if it has made a landmark contribution to defining, researching or/and understanding a problem,
topic or/and phenomenon.

Citation indexes record the citations an author has given in their article. Therefore when you
know the bibliographic details of an article on your topic you can enter this into a citation index
and locate it. Once found you can look at the citations and get the citation index to search for
who else has used the article you are looking at as its citations. The main citation indexes are
supplied on the ISI Web of Science by the Institute for Scientific Information (www.isinet.com/).
Searching the citation indexes will help you to identify those items which are the main sources in
the literature for the general and particular aspects of your topic.

LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVE LITERATURE ON YOUR TOPIC

Your search skills and common sense should lead you to the main items on your topic. What it
may not do is take you beyond the usual suspects. What we mean by this is that most topics
within a particular subject field have a literature that has common citations. Being able to
identify this literature involves exhibiting a set of technical skills which are standard expectations
of the masters student. There is, however, an issue here concerning the expectations. Most topics
have a literature that is cited by interested parties who expect to see the same or similar literature
cited by others. In finding what is already known about your topic you are finding what is
sometimes accepted as the ‘knowledge’ by those recognized as the knowledgeable on your topic.
To some degree the major refereed journals publish the articles of those recognized as the
knowledgeable and therefore frame and give boundaries to the topic and this can often be seen in
the structure of the literature. Hence there is, on occasion, literature which is outside the major
journals and is rarely cited in the most commonly cited articles and books. A classic example in
the social sciences is the literature from ethnomethodologists (Garfinkel, 2002: 121–35). When
one looks at studies of work and organizations we often find a standard literature about
organizations that does not include many references to studies of work. Figure 6.2 gives an
indication of the phenomena by providing two lists of literatures: one you would normally find
(taken from a very popular sociological textbook, Haralambos et al., 2000), and the other you
may not.

While the conventional literature about organizations looks at concepts such as ‘power’ and
‘hierarchy’ and makes comparisons between ideal forms of bureaucracy, the alternative literature
does not. It focuses on looking to see just how what people do in organizations can be described
so as to show how they do what they do. The detail of what people do in everyday work to
achieve a sense of ‘just what something is, means, should be done’ concerns those pursuing the
alternative social science.
FIGURE 6.2 LITERATURE ‘ABOUT’ AND LITERATURE ‘OF’ WORK
(Note: For the purpose of clarity, the style of citation is different from those recommended.)

In many areas of social studies you will be able to find this kind of dual literature. This does not
mean one is the right literature and the other wrong; it is simply that there are alternative ways of
approaching a topic for research, understanding and interpreting events. As approaches, these
literatures have a particular way of ‘doing’ understanding based on different starting points for
defining the topic. Seeking out this kind of literature can be a little more difficult than searching
and finding the conventional literature. A good starting point is the following source:

The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (IIEMCA

http://www.iiemca.org/).
Ethics of using the literature
If you use another person’s work − text, diagrams, tables, data, pictures − without their
permission or fail to give proper acknowledgement (attribution) to key ideas, phrases and words
or change the arrangement of words in an extract you use, then you will certainly be breaking
ethical standards of authorship and may be liable under the laws governing copyright. Here is
some basic advice on avoiding becoming a plagiarist, how to cite your sources and what
copyright means.

AVOIDING BECOMING A PLAGIARIST

In order to avoid the stigma and shame of being labelled ‘plagiarist’, here are some simple and
easy-to-follow guidelines:

Make notes on where you found the main ideas, words, phrases and other materials
you intend to use so that you can include in your dissertation citations which attribute
the origins of those ideas, words, phrases. This shows you have a clear understanding
of ethical standards, that you have done your literature search and have been able to
incorporate materials. It will also protect you from claims that your ideas cannot be
traced and therefore from doubts about the quality of your work.

Use a consistent style to cite the sources of your ideas, words and phrases. The two
main styles or methods are the Harvard System and the Vancouver Method. Check to
see if your institution has a preferred style. The basic principle of both methods is that
you can attribute a source in-line and at the end of a line. Below are examples of the
use of each as methods of citing sources in your writing (note that some recommend
different ways of constructing the citation based on these two methods).

An example of the Harvard System:

Research on fathering has expanded in scope and breadth over the last several decades (e.g.
Berman and Pedersen, 1987a; Pedersen, 1987). Nonetheless, investigations of and
conceptualizations about men’s behaviors in and attitudes toward families are still sparse
compared to studies of mothering and family processes, more generally. Indeed, relatively
little is known about what residential fathers actually do, how their activities vary, and what
the variability means (Harris and Morgan, 1991: 541; Lamb and Oppenheim, 1989; Radin,
1994, 1988). Arguably, even less is known about the parental involvement of formerly
married fathers who do not reside with their children: ‘the parenting alliance has received
modest empirical attention in both intact and divorced families’ (Gable et al., 1992: 285).

(Arendell, 2003)

Each of the references cited in the text would normally be listed as full citations at the end of the
chapter or end of the dissertation in alpha order (A–Z).

For more information on using the Harvard System see:

 Holland, M. (1996). Harvard System (online). Poole: Bournemouth University.
Available from: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/service-
depts/lis/LIS_Pub/harvardsyst.html (accessed 1 December 2003).

An example of the Vancouver Method:

Jhally’s conclusions are short and confident. He believes that his ‘empirical’ procedure has
shown advertisements to be ‘structured along some definite lines, particularly audience
codes’ (102). He claims to have uncovered not only two gender codes (103) but their sub-
codes (104). Primetime television, according to Jhally, employs the codes of emotion, love,
sensuality, pleasure … [it] is dominated by ‘magic’ codes, affecting products more directly
than rational codes (105).

(Hart, 1993)

Each number refers to a reference that can be found at the end of the chapter or end of the
dissertation. Here is the list based on the extract above:

102 Jhally, S. (1987) Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the Political Economy of Meaning
in the Consumer Society. Co-published by St. Martin’s Press, New York, and Frances
Pinter, London: 171
103 ibid: 131–139
104 ibid: 170
105 ibid: 171

For more information on using the Vancouver Method, see:

Rudjer Bolsover Institute Library, Zagreb at

http://nippur.irb.hr/eng/vrl/citations.html

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/cite/citeprvr.htm

http://www.le.ac.uk/library/teach/irsm/irsm71.html

Give full bibliographic details of the items you use in your dissertation. This is normally done at
the end of each chapter or at the end of the dissertation. These are your references. Include a
reference to everything you have used to produce your dissertation and do not include any source
that has not made a contribution. Bolstering or padding the reference list with items you have not
read or used is a violation of academic integrity and amounts to falsification of sources. In
Table 6.3 you will see some basic advice on the style that may be used to cite your sources.

CITATION STYLE
Correcting inaccurate citations is one of the most common copy-editing jobs for many
dissertation students. This is normally a time-consuming and laborious task that can be largely
avoided by paying close attention to getting the details of your citations consistent from the start.
There are numerous guides to citation practice and you will find that most of them give different
recommendations on how citations should be done. Before you start your project check out what
style is acceptable, or even recommended, by your university. In this section we will look at
some of the unusual items in the literature that you may have to cite. For more comprehensive
guidance, see:

Modern Language Association (MLA): http://cctc.commnet.edu/mla/practical_

guide.html

International Standards Organization ISO 690-2 — information and bibliographic

references: www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/standard/690-2ehtm
TABLE 6.3 CITATION STYLES

Type Example and notes

Books Hart, C. (1998) Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social

Science Research Imagination. London: Sage.
Sub-titles must be included and should be separated from the
main title by a colon, as shown above.
Articles Hart, C., Shoolbred, M., Butcher, D. and Kane, D. (1999) ‘The
bibliographic structure of fan information’, Collection Building,
18 (2): 81–90.
Do not use ‘et al.’ but include all the authors. Some do not have
quotation marks at the beginning and end of the article title.
Chapters in books Francis, D. and Hart, C. (1997) ‘Narrative intelligibility and
membership categorization in a television commercial’. In
Hester, S. and Eglin, P. (eds). Culture in Action: Studies in
Membership Categorization and Analysis. Washington, DC:
University Press of America.
Some place the ‘ed.’ or ‘eds’ in brackets, e.g. (eds). Include as
much information as possible, e.g. DC as there are a number of
Washingtons.
Thesis Hart, C. (1993) ‘The social production of an advertisement’. PhD
thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University/J. Walter Thompson
Ltd. DoRs: Dr D.W. Francis (Manchester Metropolitan
University) and Dr W.W. Sharrock (Victoria University of
Manchester).
Give as many details as possible as theses are difficult to locate
and obtain. Also try to include the Directors of the Research
(DoRs) and their institutions.
Internet articles based on a print source Vanden Bos, G., Knapp, S., and Doe, J. (2001) ‘Role of reference
elements in the selection of resources by psychology
undergraduates’. (Electronic version). Journal of Bibliographic
Research, 5: 117–23.
Use the full ‘and’ rather than the ‘&’. The article title is not
capitalized, but the title of the journal is. No need to use ‘pp.’ for
pages.
Article in an electronic journal Fredrickson, B.L. (2002) ‘Cultivating positive emotions to
optimise health and well-being’. Prevention & Treatment, 3,
article 0001a, from:
http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html
(accessed 7 March, 2000).
The ‘&’ is in the title of the journal. Give the full Internet address
and the date you accessed it.
Document from a private Internet site Dingwall, R. ‘Oration for Harold Garfinkel’, from:
 http://www.pscw.uva.nl/emca/oration.html (accessed 5
September, 2002).
Some of these sites do not have an obvious author or data of
publication so give all detail possible.

Source: adapted from Sage Publications, Guidelines for Authors and Editors and APA Online www.apastyle.org/.

TABLE 6.3 includes the most common and some of the most difficult items to cite.

COPYRIGHT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Copyrights along with trademarks and patents are ways of protecting what people create. Patents
and trademarks ensure that the originator of a machine or process owns the rights of that machine
or process. Patents require formal registration; copyrights do not, but are nevertheless governed
by laws. Copyrights simply mean you have rights to what you write and this includes diagrams,
tables, software and pictures; it also includes material you find on the Internet. To use another
person’s work without their permission is an infringement of copyright law and you could be
liable for payment of damages. It is therefore important to understand copyright. The problem
with this is that the laws, regulations and practices of copyright are subject to continual change.
For this reason check out the latest position by consulting one or more of the major information
science gateways, such as BUBL (http://bubl.ac.uk). What follows is a brief guide to the present
position.
Duration of copyright: Within the EU, author’s life +70 years; non-
EU, author’s life +50 years.

Moral rights: Under UK law authors have moral rights to

their work, which includes the right to be
identified and not have their work degraded in
any way, for example, distorted.

Fair dealing/use: Very little case law on this. It refers to the use
of small parts of a publication in ways that do
not affect its market potential or value, its
meaning or quality in the case of picture
reproduction. In the UK the Society of
Authors and the Publishers Association have
published guidelines in an attempt to quantify
what may be considered fair use so that
publications can be used without formal
permission but must be fully acknowledged:

• single extract (prose): up to 400 words;

• series of extracts from the same work (prose): up to 800
words, of which no one extract shall exceed 300 words.

There are far more complicated guidelines for the use of poetry, music and lyrics and for use of
these you are recommended to consult direct with the owner before you use them. The good
news is that for most academic work, especially for dissertations, most authors and organizations
are quite willing to give permission for you to use their materials.

Reviewing the literature you find

Now that you know a little about designing and implementing a search for relevant literature, we
will look at what you do with what you have found. This section outlines some of the methods
and techniques you can use depending on what kind of dissertation and research you are doing. It
also tries to take into account the situation in which you are studying − full-time, part-time or
distance learning. For more information on reviewing the literature, see:

Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination (Hart,
1998).

USING THE LITERATURE TO FORMULATE YOUR TOPIC AND WRITE AN

INDICATIVE REVIEW
One of the requirements before you begin your research is to research and write a proposal. In a
later chapter we will look in more detail at the research proposal. Our concern here is with using
the literature to formulate your topic in order to produce an indicative literature review for
inclusion in your proposal. An indicative review is normally three to six pages and covers only
the basic items, usually about six. There are various ways in which you can produce an indicative
review and the four we will look at, adapted from Cox (2002) and summarized in Table 6.4,
were developed for students with different kinds of research dissertation.

For information on different types of literature review, see Chapter 5, where evidence-based reviews, theoretical reviews
and historical reviews are discussed.

Domain mapping
Mapping out a domain with which you are familiar, even a specialist in, involves using a series
of subject domain maps (mind maps) to identify potential areas for research.
TABLE 6.4 METHODS OF ANALYSIS FOR PRODUCING AN INDICATIVE REVIEW

Method of analysis Useful for students who are:

Domain mapping subject specialist

Problem analysis industry specialist

Structured themed review distance learners

Context shaping specialist in new field

There are five stages in producing a domain map:

 Stage 1 Prepare mind maps of the subject area using the course documentation (the
lecture list, readings and so on).

Stage 2 Identify in the mind map those areas in which you have strengths and
knowledge. These are your areas of interest.

Stage 3 Prepare a mind map for each area of interest using key texts from the
literature.

Stage 4 Review and evaluate each mind map and eliminate those which have the
highest risk, that is, ones requiring more knowledge and skills than you currently
possess or which have ‘data’ problems. Identify the domain that has the lowest risk
factor and conduct a search and review of literature in this field.

Stage 5 Using the literature produce a detailed mind map of the selected domain,
identifying issues, problems and opportunities for research.

You may include some author citations in your domain map, but not all the details of the studies
from which the main and sub-categories have been taken. It is more economical to focus on the
main concepts and positions and add the detail to the main review of the literature.

Problem analysis
Identifying a problem in a workplace situation can be done using the problem analysis technique.
It is useful when one is a specialist and is looking to undertake a work-based dissertation. There
are three basic stages in using problem analysis to define your research problem:

Stage 1 Identify from the current periodicals and trade literature concerns in your
industry or organizational type. If required, assess these in terms of your own
organization.

Stage 2 Undertake a search and review of available literature to find out the origins
of the concern, what is being done, what has been done, what critiques have been made
of what has been done, what evidence there is to support the concern and what
opportunities there are for research into the concern.

Stage 3 Identify from your review an area for research or analysis and state what
this is. Using the literature justify your aim in relation to a set of achievable objectives
for a research project. Identify which elements of your course materials you will draw
upon and how your research may contribute to the literature in general and
understanding of the concern.

Note that the way in which problem analysis is presented here a distinction is being made
between research undertaken in the workplace and research undertaken for the industry. The
latter is being emphasized as a way of avoiding problems in the workplace, such as change of
management, role or employment.
Structured themed review
When studying at a distance you are largely responsible for your own learning and this includes
formulating a workable proposal for your research. Using a structured approach to identifying a
theme for a topic can be one way in which you can systematically work through a relatively
small body of literature to identify a potential topic. Typically, the literature you look at would
be part of the reading for your course. You are therefore looking to find a topic from within the
syllabus of the taught elements of your masters. Table 6.5 provides an example of the stages of
doing a structured themed review over a five-week period (Cox (2002) does this over a 14-week
period).

The weekly schedule can be an effective means of setting yourself deadlines for achieving a
modest amount of work. You also know that you can ‘bounce’ ideas off your tutor, who can be
expected to be a specialist in the field of the curriculum you are analysing.
TABLE 6.5 DOING A STRUCTURED THEMED REVIEW IN FIVE WEEKS

Week Activities and deadlines Example from Cox (2002)

1 Review the course syllabuses and identify potential Identify potential project themes within the
topic areas for research. Select two or three themes and workplace. Internet design. Customer
identify at least two academic papers on these to see relationship management. E-business strategy.
how they have been framed.

2 Review potential themes in terms of possibilities for Identify at least two academic papers relevant
research, including access to data and/or materials, to each project theme.
skills for analysing the data and timeframes. Select the • Internet design
least risky theme for development.
Wen, H.J., Chen, H.-G. and Hwang, H.-G.
(2001) ‘E-commerce web site design:
strategies and models’, Information
Management and Computer Security, 9 (1):
5−12.
Vescovi, T. (2000) ‘Internet communication:
the Italian SME case’, Corporate
Communications, 5 (2): 107−12.
• Knowledge management (customer
relationship management)
Beijerse, R. (1999) ‘Questions in knowledge
management: defining and conceptualising a
phenomenon’, Journal of Knowledge
Management, 3 (2): 94−110.
Logan, D. and Caldwell, F. (2000)
‘Knowledge mapping: five dimensions to
consider’, Gartner Report: DF-11-3834, 20
July 2000.
• E-business strategy
Rozwell, C. and Berg, T. (1999) ‘How to
devise a practical, effective e-business
strategy’, Gartner R-09-4033, 27 September
1999.
Marchewka, J.T. and Towell, E.R. (2000) ‘A
comparison of structure and strategy in
electronic commerce’, Information
Technology and People, 13 (2): 137−49.

3 Develop the selected theme into a broad research aim. • Framework for Managing Knowledge in XYZ
 Identify key sources in the literature to be consulted, Ltd.
use a selection of those sources to frame your • Approach to Formulating E-Business Strategy.
justification for the topic of your research. State the
aim of your research along with a set of clear
objectives which will actualize the aim.

4 Assess different approaches to research and select, Identify key publications that may be used
according to your aim, the most appropriate approach. during the project.
Justify this in terms of a short comparative argument • Framework for Managing Knowledge in XYZ
for your approach, using the literature to support you Ltd:
choice.
Journal of Knowledge Management
Information Technology and People
Corporate Communications
• Approach to Formulating E-Business Strategy:
Journal of Strategic Management E-Business
Review

5 Construct a realistic timetable for conducting your Specify the aim(s) and objectives.
research, identifying possible contingencies and ways Aim: Develop a strategy for managing
in which these will be accommodated. knowledge to improve customer relations in
financial services.
Objectives:
• Identify critical success factors in customer
relations.
• Define problems in managing customer
relations.
• Identify components of knowledge
management.
• Assess benefits of knowledge management to
customer relations.
• Develop a framework for knowledge
management in customer relations.
• Develop a strategy for managing knowledge in
customer relations.

Context shaping
Students converting from one subject area to another using a masters as the means often find
context shaping a useful tool to identify research topics based on their prior experience and
knowledge. The basic principle to the approach is to take an area with which you are familiar and
analyse it to see how it can be used in a new area. The process usually involves a five-stage
process of gradually refining, through exploration, what it is you already know to guide you into
a new field:

Stage 1 Prepare a mind map of the skills, knowledge, qualities and interests you
already have along with your career goals.

Stage 2 Identify potential areas for research based on your self-analysis. Using the
literature from your course, identify themes which fit with your existing profile. Map
out some of the themes to identify potential opportunities for research.

Stage 3 Using the same literature, define the scope of the different themes. Assess
each theme for suitability in terms of how much you can use what you already have to
take advantage of a research opportunity and what you would need to acquire in
 terms of new skills and knowledge. Select a theme that meets your needs based on your
existing skills.

Stage 4 Map out the theme selected and identify potential primary and secondary
research opportunities. Draft out general aims of intent for the research you have
identified and assess what will need to be done (tasks) and what skills/knowledge you
will need to acquire.

Stage 5 Using the literature, construct a justification for your research that includes
reference to your existing knowledge and skills and what is required to supplement
these to complete the research. State what the main aim is and write out the objectives
for achieving the aim.

The main outcome of these and other techniques of using the literature is to enable you to
produce an indicative review of the literature which demonstrates that you understand the topic
and can justify your research.

EXTRACTING INFORMATION FROM YOUR SOURCES

Once you have begun to obtain some relevant items, you need to start reading them with a
purpose. This means analysing them to extract the kinds of information, argument, concepts,
definitions, approaches, findings and conclusions relevant to your own topic or problem. In
Doing a Literature Review (Hart, 1998) I gave advice on reading to review and suggested that
you use a range of tools and methods to record systematically your findings from the literature.
In this section these have been adapted to show you a method of assessing different aspects of
your literature and how to use it to construct a review. The scheme, shown in Table 6.6,
illustrates the different kinds of information that you will be expected to extract from your
literature. Some of the categories may not be relevant to your needs, but it is nevertheless good
for you to be aware of them in order to say why they are not relevant to your research. The
scheme in Table 6.6 is based on making a critical evaluation of six aspects of a study.

The principle on which Table 6.6 is based is ‘interrogation’: as the knowledge base, the literature
is subject to different levels of interrogation based on a series of questions. The questions to ask
are a matter for you to decide, but they should be relevant to your topic and the purposes of your
research. An important aspect of this is to ask questions which combine information extraction
with justification. This means once you have the who, what, when and how, look to ask ‘Why?’,
‘Based on what, with what consequences?’ and ‘What if?’ Chapter 8 looks in more detail at the
consequences of different research strategies.
TABLE 6.6 A SCHEME FOR THE SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF A LITERATURE

Areas for assessment Amplification

Assessing the questions or hypotheses What are the hypotheses or questions of the research? How
well have these been expressed? Do they show any biases in
the way they are expressed and have been tested? What
variables or factors has the research identified for comparison
or framing the problem? Are these adequate? What others
could have been used and why?
 Assessing the context of justification How has context been defined or implied? What influence
has this had on framing the hypothesis or problem? Have
alternative ways of framing the context been given or
rejected? If not, what alternatives could you envision? Is the
nature of the literature fully understood? Is this selective?
How has it been used to formulate the context? Is the context
based on a closed- or open-research design? What difference
would an alternative make to the aims of the research and
findings?

Assessing the methodology Have the main methodological assumptions of the research
tradition and approach been critically discussed? If not, what
kinds of assumptions have been made about knowledge? In
the design of the research, what is seen as valid data and why
and how has this been obtained? Is the design coherent and a
systematic application of the methodology?

Assessing awareness of alternatives Are alternative methodological traditions and approaches

acknowledged? What limitations are recognized to the
methodology used? Has alternative data been identified? If
not, what kinds of data can you find and what does this mean
for the research? Is the data, whether statistical or textual,
coherent and adequately presented? Are there alternative
ways it could have been presented? If so, how might these
have influenced what significance could be made of it?

Assessing the findings or results Are the reported findings or results consistent in terms of
collection methods and any statistical methods used? What
inconsistencies are identified and how are these explained? If
a hypothesis was used, how has any significance been
achieved? How are findings related to other studies? Are
there any indications of selective presentation?

Assessing the conclusions and recommendations What weight is given to the findings/results? What level of
generalization is being used? Is this justified by the data and
research design? Is the conclusion based only on the results,
as it should be? Or are other factors, including values,
introduced that are not in the data? Is there a sense of critical
evaluation of the findings or is the conclusion presented as
self-evident? Are recommendations (where given) clear,
consistent and properly formulated? Do they cite what
findings they are based on? What other conclusions can you
draw from the data?

USING GRIDS TO ORGANIZE YOUR ANALYSIS

It is necessary to have some means of organizing the information you extract from your
literature. There are a number of ways of doing this, including ‘spider diagrams’ and tables
which show the main themes in the literature. Table 6.7 shows a tabular approach in which the
literature on supporting management learning in the workplace has been themed. Table 6.7
shows parts from two themes in the literature on action learning presented in tables by Teare
(1999).

WRITING AN INTEGRATED REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON YOUR TOPIC

The result of your hard work, your reading, analysis and note taking, is the production of a
literature review that is relevant to your topic or problem and the methodology you intend to use
in your research. The kind of review you write will, of course, depend on the type of dissertation
you are doing and the purpose of your research.

Both quantitative and qualitative aspects, including findings, are capable of integration into a
review. With each kind of study and data there are, however, some points worth noting about
integration. With quantitative data you will usually be attempting to integrate descriptive and
analytical statistics such as means and modes along with correlations and significance. You will
therefore need to have competence in using and applying statistical techniques. This may involve
doing one or more of the following with the literature:

Showing the chronology of the topic or problem: Tables and matrixes should portray
the results of previous studies in chronological order. This will help you to show and
describe the development of the problem and different ways in which concepts,
variables, methods and techniques were applied.

Summarizing results of studies: With studies conducted using the same method and
techniques on sample populations exhibiting similar characteristics, you can aggregate
the results using secondary statistical techniques. The technique involves producing a
meta-analysis of data from existing studies. The techniques of metaanalysis have been
developed since the 1970s and are now relatively sophisticated. Care should be taken
with this and good advice and guidance can be found in:
TABLE 6.7 USING TABLES TO ORGANIZE YOUR INFORMATION
Source: Adapted from Teare, 1999.

− Synthesizing Research (Cooper, 1998)

− Evidence-based Health Care (Gray, 2001)
 − Conducting Research Literature Reviews (Fink, 1998)

Portraying results of studies: Results from individual studies on the ‘same’ topic or
problem can be presented in tables and matrices to summarize the key findings and
characteristics of each study. The point is not to describe each study in turn, but to
systematically identify similarities and differences among the studies. A
methodological approach to using tables and matrices can be found in:
− Evaluating Social Science Research (Black, 1993)

Critiquing studies: The purpose of summarizing the literature is to provide an

organized set of materials for critical evaluation. Look to evaluate the appropriateness
of the research design, sampling techniques, measuring instruments, presentation of
the data, statistical tests done and inferences made. Both Black (1993) and Gray (2001)
provide detailed discussions on evaluating the quality of quantitative research.

Synthesizing critiques of studies: The aim of most quantitative studies is to generalize

on the basis of the use of representative samples. Using formal statistical techniques of
analysis, especially multiple regression, meta-analysis can produce meta-
generalizations (on 30 or more studies) and at the same time identify weaknesses in
existing research and areas where there are issues about the quality of data. A good
source of advice on synthesizing quantitative research is:
− The Handbook of Research Synthesis (Cooper and Hedges, 1994)

In Example A below you can see a textual summary of research about the correlation of violence
on television and violent behaviour. We have selected this one because it is typical of many to be
found on the Internet in that it exhibits typical failings of non- refereed publications. Read this
for yourself before looking at what we have to say about it.

Example A: Impact of
televised violence:
correlational studies
Extract from the literature review Comments
The weight of evidence from correlational studies is fairly This is clearly a review of quantitative research from a
consistent: viewing and/or preference for violent television is behavioural frame of reference. One would expect the data
related to aggressive attitudes, values and behaviors. This from the studies to be made available in the review.
result was true for the studies conducted when television was
new, and the measures of children’s aggression were What is the basis for this selection? There is very little detail
teachers’ ratings. It is still true for more recent studies when of the studies, for example, methodology, data collection
the measures of aggressiveness have become more instruments. Only studies confirming the correlation are
sophisticated. To choose several studies as examples: mentioned. No mention of the particular television
Robinson and Bachman (1972) found a relationship between programme(s) viewed.
the number of hours of television viewed and adolescent
self-reports of involvement in aggressive or antisocial
behavior. Atkin, Greenberg, Korzenny, and McDermott
(1979) used a different measure of aggressive behavior.
 They gave nine- to thirteen-year-old boys and girls situations
such as the following. Suppose that you are riding your
bicycle down the street and some other child comes up and
pushes you off your bicycle. What would you do? The
response options included physical or verbal aggression
along with options to reduce or avoid conflict.
These investigators found that physical or verbal aggressive This section of the review is biased towards the view that
responses were selected by 45 per cent of heavy-television- there is a correlation between watching violence on
violence viewers compared to only 21 per cent of the light- television and people being violent.
violence viewers. In a further study, Sheehan (1983)
followed two groups of Australian children, first- and third-
graders, for a three-year period. He found that for the older
group, now third through fifth grade, both the overall amount
of violence viewing and the intensity of viewing were
significantly related to the child’s level of aggressive
behavior as rated by their classmates. Finally, in a study
focused on adults, Phillips (1983) investigated the effects of
the portrayal of suicides in television soap operas on the
suicide rate in the United States using death records
compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics. He
found, over a six-year period, that whenever a major soap
opera personality committed suicide on television, within
three days there was a significant increase in the number of
female suicides across the nation.

(Adapted from Murrey, 2003)

While Example A shows a selective summative integration of correlational studies on the topic,
when using the data from such studies there are some basic points of good practice it fails to
follow. The studies selected are presented in a chronology, which is good practice, but the review
is too selective given the substantial literature on this topic. Little attention is given to contextual
factors, making for differences between the studies, or to technical matters such as sample size,
research design or statistical techniques used to analyse the data. No data, as such, is presented.
The use of words like ‘true’ tend to be employed by those who have preconceived beliefs about
something. In this case the selective use of studies and the rhetorical writing style indicate that a
preconceived position is being substantiated by the studies mentioned. Studies included are
described in vague terms with no results being portrayed systematically. There is no attempt to
make any evaluation of the studies; they are accepted at face value.

The synthesis of qualitative studies is a little more difficult than the synthesis of quantitative
studies. The main reason for this difficulty is the different purposes of qualitative research.
Qualitative studies are not normally aiming to make statistically based generalizations through
the application of formal comparable techniques. This is not to say that qualitative research
cannot produce generalizations, for clearly many do. The kinds of studies reflected here are those
based on participant and non-participant observation, unstructured interviewing and use of non-
statistical data sources for analysis. With care it is possible to analyse qualitative studies on the
same topic and draw out similarities and differences based on the use of concepts and
approaches. Due to the difficulties of synthesizing qualitative studies, there are not many sources
on how to do it; the following are some of the most useful:

See Doing a Literature Review (Hart, 1998: 67-71) for an example of a good review of qualitative community research.
 Meta-ethnography (Noblit and Hare, 1998)

The Qualitative Dissertation (Piantanida and Garman, 1999)

Using the following set of headings we can organize our analysis and notes to provide the
necessary materials for an evaluative integration of qualitative studies:

Show the chronology of the topic or problem: Trace the chronology of studies and draw
out of them the different ways in which the topic or problem was defined, how
concepts were used and what methodological assumptions were employed.

Categorize the aspects of studies: From the individual studies similarities in use of
concepts, assumptions, data, perspective and standpoints can be extracted and
grouped into categories. Diagrams can be very useful for portraying the categories and
you will find many throughout this book and in Doing a Literature Review (Hart,
1998).

Summarize results from studies: A combination of tables and text can be used to
summarize the key features and characteristics of the studies to highlight commonly
used assumptions, arguments, conclusions and recommendations.

Critique the studies: Critically evaluate and appraise what you find by examining the
level of generalization offered, claims for validity and rigour, the influence of ethical
and political standpoints, the implications and logical consequences of conclusions
and/or recommendations of studies.

Synthesize the evaluation of studies: From the critical evaluation you can identify a set
of conclusions and recommendations which identify the issues that need to be
addressed in future studies and which concepts, approaches and assumptions may be
useful.

While Example A shows the use of some findings from a literature, there are many other uses of
the literature at the beginning and throughout a dissertation. Example B shows the use of the
literature in health care research to examine the definitions of the problem.

The literature review and your research

By now you will have realized that a search and review of the literature is an essential part of all
research. Figure 6.3 shows how the literature can be used throughout a dissertation, in the
rationale for your research, methodology, discussion of what you find and making inferences and
conclusions. The latter you can relate back to previous research to show how your research
makes a contribution to knowledge on the topic or problem.

THE ASSESSMENT ELEMENTS OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

One way of approaching the ‘contribution question’ is to look at the ways in which your search
and review is assessed. Table 6.8 and Table 6.9 outline some of the generic criteria often
employed to assess the quality and contribution a review makes to a dissertation. Table 6.8
provides an overview of the technical and intellectual aspects expected of the literature review.
Note the emphasis on citations, identifying key texts and argumentation. You might want to take
these criteria and apply them to some of the extracts we have included in this chapter to gain
some experience of applying, rather than meeting, formative criteria.
FIGURE 6.3 RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE LITERATURE AND THE PROJECT ELEMENTS

Example B: A review of
 definitions
Extract Comments
Hider et al. (1998b, p22, L1), and Hobbs in an editorial The literature is largely made up of reports from government
opinion (1995, L9) highlight the problem of defining and bodies.
counting emergency admissions. Government reviews (NSW
Health Council 2000; The Scottish Office 1998) echo this
concern: ‘The range of opinion offered to account for The use of italics is not necessary. Quotations of more than
emergency pressures suggests a lack of coherent information three lines should be indented.
regarding all aspects of emergency care. Major
uncertainties remain, responses have been uncoordinated,
and few of the many initiatives undertaken have been It is acceptable to use ‘et al.’ for multiauthor publications, but
properly evaluated or costed against their objectives’. include all authors in the reference.
(Scottish Office 1998, para 210.) It is increasingly important
that the levels and types of emergency admissions are
properly defined and monitored, not least to enable The implications of the literature are provided in a conclusion
evaluation of the impact of any action arising from the work that points to what further work needs to be done.
of the Task Force, as well as to enable fair comparisons
between hospitals’ performance. A better understanding of
the route of presentation and admission is also required,
particularly in light of a growing perception in Melbourne
that Emergency Departments are being used by frustrated
referring clinicians and patients as a way to circumvent waits
for surgery or diagnostic procedures. Hider et al. (1998b)
report on a study conducted by the New Zealand Ministry of
Health which found that while GPs were the largest source
of referral (51%), EDs themselves accounted for 43% (p25).
They also report that there is little evidence of large-scale
abuse of the emergency admission category in either New
Zealand or the UK (p65). They conclude that the rise in
acute medical admissions cannot be attributed to longer
waiting lists for elective procedures. Conclusion: Clearer
definitions of the various categories of emergency and
urgent admissions, and better data are required, to support
ongoing efforts to manage hospitals in which emergency
admissions predominate.

(Adapted from Dwyer and Jackson, 2001: 12)

TABLE 6.8 GENERIC ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review and citations Grade

Excellent review of the literature, clear arrangement and selection of key texts, Excellent
thorough, consistent critical evaluation of main ideas, theories, arguments, approaches
and findings synthesized and focused on the topic puzzle. Excellent citations
demonstrating consistency, detail and accuracy.

Good review of the key texts with clear arrangement, may lack consistency of critical Good
evaluation or elements not fully synthesized or lacks thoroughness, but is focused on
the topic. Good citations but may need more detail in some instances.

Adequate literature review identifying most of the key texts, but lacks thoroughness or Adequate
critical evaluative stance or clear arrangement and does not fully demonstrate ability to
synthesize ideas. Acceptable citations but lacking detail, consistency or accuracy in
some.
In Table 6.9 the criteria of argumentation are outlined. The purpose of this is to show that a
literature review involves analysis and construction of an argument. The literature on a topic is
analysed and evaluated and from this a case is made for further research into the topic. It is
therefore important to understand and be competent in analysing the soundness of argument and
to be able to construct a sound argument.

See Chapter 4 of Doing a Literature Review (Hart, 1998) and Further Reading to this chapter for advice on argumentation
analysis.

THE RESEARCH IMAGINATION AND REVIEWING

In part the search for relevant literature is a series of technical tasks. Being able to demonstrate,
through application, the skills of doing an efficient and effective literature search is important
because it is an essential prerequisite of research. But there is often a marked difference between
those reviews based only on the application of technical criteria and those based on an
imaginative use of technical ability. This difference was noted by C. Wright-Mills, who said:
TABLE 6.9 ARGUMENTATION ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Argumentation and critical awareness Grade

Excellent use of analysis and structures of argumentation to analyse and synthesize the Excellent
literature, topic, methodology and data collected. Arguments are developed with
evident clarity and logic in an unbiased and objective way. Extremely high standard of
critical analysis and evaluation. Conclusions and/or recommendations directly linked to
and from the findings.

Good use of argumentation structures and techniques of analysis. May lack consistency Good
across chapters and within chapters or clarity and logic or contain some unsubstantiated
statements or make conclusions and recommendations not fully embedded in the
results.

Some attempt to employ argumentation, but at a basic level not demonstrating a sound Adequate
understanding of argumentation analysis or its need throughout the dissertation or
containing too many unsubstantiated statements and assumptions. Weak conclusions
and/or recommendations poorly expressed.

The [research] imagination … consists of the capacity to shift from one perspective to
another, and in the process to build up an adequate view of a total society and its
components. It is this imagination … that sets off the social scientist from the mere
technician. (1978: 232, orig. 1959)

By having a research imagination we mean using and developing practices and attitudes which
take you beyond the ‘usual suspects’ in the literature. Going beyond the usual means actively
seeking citations that are not usually found in reference lists or have not been fully discussed in
an article or book. Once you have identified some minority citations, seek out the details others
have overlooked or left to one side, then follow such trails to see if they amount to anything new
or different. You often find that some of these citations lead to whole new literatures not
represented in mainstream textbooks and articles in the key journals. They may also provide an
added list of terms and phrases for your search vocabulary that can help you search the indexes
for more of the ‘marginalized’ literature. Another effective technique is to take a walk around the
library, serendipitously browsing, to see what is in books and journals you would not normally
look at. You will find ideas and theories with which you may not be familiar that will often give
you different views on what you have already read. Taking a broader view is an essential
attribute for all researchers. To do this you will need to take or develop an ‘open attitude’ to
ideas and theories you are not familiar with and this includes exercising such attitudes and
qualities as being proactive, positive, discrete, reflective, anthropological, inter-disciplinary,
adaptable, sociological and willing to play, through experimentation, with ideas. Dismissing
work because it seems too difficult to understand or having prejudicial prejudgements about an
approach are signs that you need to develop a more open attitude or are intellectually too lazy to
question the parochial restrictions of a perspective you find comfortable.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

The purpose of this chapter has been to provide an overview of an important part of the
research process — the search and review of the literature. The main points which have been
made include:

A search and review of the literature is essential for all research projects because it
provides the basis for defining, framing and designing your research topic or problem.

A literature review is an analysis and synthesis of ideas, arguments, concepts, definitions

and theories from the literature.

A literature search requires a creative attitude in order to maximize searching skills.

There are many literatures, not just one, and so a search should encompass as much as
possible in the time available.

Further reading
Fisher, A. (1993) The Logic of Real Arguments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A clear introduction to understanding
argumentation.

Gash, S. (2000) Effective Literature Searching for Research. 2nd edn. Aldershot: Gower. A generic introduction for most
subjects.

Hart, C. (2001) Doing a Literature Search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences. London: Sage. A comprehensive
introduction to planning and searching the literature.

Hart, C. (1998) Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage. A systematic and
pedagogical approach to a difficult task.
 Part Two

Research Design and Methodology

 7

Methodological assumptions and beliefs

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• USING AND UNDERSTANDING THIS CHAPTER • THE IDEA OF A SCIENCE OF

SOCIETY • CHARACTERIZING POSITIVISM AND SCIENCE • POSITIVISM AS A
SCIENCE • SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE • THE TERRAIN OF THE POSITIVIST VIEW OF
SCIENCE • THE VIENNA CIRCLE • FROM VERIFICATIONS TO FALSIFICATIONS •
CLOSED SYSTEM ANALYSIS • DIFFERENCES OVER THE NATURE OF
KNOWLEDGE • EXTERNALISTS AND INTERNALISTS • CORRESPONDENCE AND
CONGRUENCE THEORIES: THE DEBATE BETWEEN • TALCOTT PARSONS AND
ALFRED SCHÜTZ TALCOTT PARSONS: HIS CONTRIBUTION AND ARGUMENT •
ALFRED SCHUTZ: HIS CONTRIBUTION AND ARGUMENT • KNOWLEDGE AS
SITUATED RATHER THAN UNIVERSAL • SCIENTIFIC PARADIGMS • LAKATOS,
FEYERABEND, PUTNAM AND HACKING • RELATIVISM AND VALUES IN
RESEARCH • RELATIVISM OR RELEVANCE? • VALUE CHOICES • IS A NATURAL
OBSERVATIONAL SCIENCE OF HUMAN ACTION STILL POSSIBLE? • THE
PROBLEM OF LITERAL DESCRIPTION • SACKS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A
PRIMITIVE OBSERVATIONAL SCIENCE • THE MECHANICS OF SOCIAL
INTERACTION • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

This chapter will help you to think about some of the methodological assumptions which can be
used to inform and shape your research. The next chapter will look at some of the consequences
of using certain methodological approaches to design and implement a research strategy.

All research has a starting point and this normally consists of thinking about and then
formulating a topic. A part of this process, especially when you begin to look at designing your
research and reading the literature, is consideration of methodological issues – that is, the
assumptions you choose to make, or in some cases take for granted as those that are normally
used, as the basis for doing research. For example, if you have a belief that facts are important
and only that which can be observed and measured can count as data, that objectivity is possible,
that there is a universal reality, that something is either true or false and there is no role for
cultural values, then you may have a preference for a positivist approach to research.
Alternatively, you may have different preferences in research. If you believe that the role of
research in the social sciences is to interpret and understand as well as to explain; that truth and
falsity are relative concepts; and that the subjective nature of human behaviour – with its
complex, different social values being the defining properties of social life that create different
realities – then you have a preference for an interpretivist approach to research. Given the
complexity of the philosophy of social research, this chapter will attempt to answer the following
questions:

1 What are methodological assumptions? Why are they important in social research?

2 What kinds of assumptions have theorists made about the nature of social reality?

3 How can knowing the history of social theory help us to understand methodological
debates?

4 In what ways are different methodological assumptions different ways of describing

social structures?

From the standpoint of most people contemplating their masters research, when they encounter
the philosophies of research the common reaction is one of bewilderment. The methodological
literature of the social sciences is substantial, full of complex and advanced level arguments and
seems to lack any clear purpose for research itself. As we aim to show, it is essential that you at
least become familiar with the terrain of this literature; getting to know the basic vocabulary of
names given to the different positions and approaches, to the theorists and to the basic
assumptions being employed.

One of the most difficult tasks facing anyone doing advanced research for the first time is
coming to terms with what seems to be a bewildering range of different philosophical arguments
on what constitutes science, knowledge and truth. Clearly these words have something to do with
research, but questions about just what and how have generated a substantial literature, which is
often referred to as the philosophy of science or philosophy of research. What this literature has
to say is complex, and just what it is that philosophical debate has to do with doing research is
rarely discussed. This chapter will not even try to summarize all of the major positions
constituting the philosophy of research; rather, it will present some of the assumptions about
research and debates about these assumptions. This will highlight the nature of the major
positions and arguments in this literature so that you can become more aware of, and adept at
understanding the nature of argument and how there are alternative possibilities for determining
what constitutes knowledge, truth and science.

Using and understanding this chapter

If you are new to social science research and writings (the literature) you may find that reference
books such as the following will help you to understand and appreciate the scope of
methodological assumptions, approaches and issues:

The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought (Outherwaite and

Bottomore, 1993)

The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Gregory and Zangwill, 1998)

You will find it useful to have such reference books at hand while reading this chapter. There are
also several recommended further readings accompanying this chapter that are written in a style
which make methodology accessible to the novice. In places throughout this chapter these are
used to direct you to specific readings which give more in-depth expositions of the more
complicated ideas and arguments. This is not a chapter on how to do methodology, but about
methodological positions and arguments. It is based on a number of basic contrasts including
those between the positivists and interpretivists, realists and idealists, externalists and
internalists. The purpose of making these contrasts is to show the argumentation of
methodological debates.

The idea of a science of society

The idea of a science of society can be found in the writings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century thinkers such as Saint-Simon (1760–1825), Auguste Comte (1798–1857) and Herbert
Spencer (1820–1903). Many of their writings are still widely available today in academic, public
and virtual libraries. In their separate works they show a common belief that a science of society
is possible and desirable. A scientific understanding of society would uncover the laws of the
social society in much the same way as the naturalist approach had begun to uncover the laws of
nature (evolution). This would be based on the collection of facts and this empiricist data, rather
than theories, myths or belief, could be used to determine the truth about social reality,
dismissing myth, superstition and religion as the basis for explanation. Reason would replace
earlier forms of non-scientific explanation and be used to accumulate more and more knowledge
about how society works and therefore how changes could be made to it for the betterment and
improvement of humanity. This new positive philosophy, called positivism by Comte, would
enable humans to exercise their reason to forward the evolution of society towards higher and
more refined levels of civilization.

Key theories and analogies associated with this period include: utilitarian liberalism, evolutional theory, organic analogy,
social dynamics, social statics and social statistics.

The reforming influence of the early social philosophers can be seen throughout the history of
the social sciences and especially social policy up to the present day. The most striking example
for most people in the UK was the slum clearance and construction of ‘communities in the sky’
(tower blocks) in the 1950s and 1960s. The aim to improve, make something better and eradicate
some social problem is a feature of much research done throughout such disciplines as sociology,
psychology and economics. The social survey movement, for example, used the principles of
positivism to collect substantial amounts of statistical data on the variables of poverty. The
following are some of the classic examples for which details are readily available in libraries and
via the Internet:

London Labour and the London Poor (Mayhew, 1851)

In Darkest England and the Way Out, (Booth, W., 1890)

Life and Labour of the People in London (Booth, C.,1889)

Poverty: A Study of Town Life (Rowntree, 1901)

CHARACTERIZING POSITIVISM AND SCIENCE

The frame of reference for the early social survey movement and for others who have followed
their aims is the belief that positivism in its principles and its methods can be used to study
society. Before characterizing positivism and science we need to point out that saying what
science is and how scientists do it is highly debatable and that there are complex and subtle
variations within positivism. Therefore what is offered here is a characterization intended to help
you approach such debates so that you understand them and can use them to make reasoned
choices for your own methodology.

POSITIVISM AS A SCIENCE
The idea that knowledge of the world, of what is true and is not true, is possible is a bedrock
assumption of the positivist position. This includes the aspirational claim that knowledge that is
objective, universal, true and cumulative is possible. The general assumption is that
commonsense, everyday knowledge and understanding is flawed because it is not systematic,
sceptical and free from values and is therefore not objective, is particular, is based on how the
world appears to us and does not accumulate in terms of building a total unified picture of the
inter-connectedness of things. As we will see, some or all of these claims are open to serious
challenge. Table 7.1 attempts to summarize many of the assumptions and consequent arguments
of the positivist tradition. In constructing Table 7.1 a deliberate bias has been employed to skew
it towards the positivist conceptions for a social science rather than a positivist view for the
natural sciences.

SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE
The early positivists had an attitude to the study of society that to a large part underpins much of
what we take for granted today about how research ought to be done. Robson claims there are
three major parts both to the scientific attitude and also to what is called, the ‘research attitude’.
‘Research’, Robson claims, ‘is carried out systematically, sceptically and ethically’:

systematically means giving serious thought to what you are doing, and how and why you
are doing it; in particular, being explicit about the nature of the observations that are made,
 the circumstances in which they are made and the role you take in making them;

sceptically means subjecting your ideas to possible disconfirmation, and also subjecting
your conclusions to scrutiny (by yourself initially, then by others);

ethically means that you follow a code of conduct for the research which ensures that the
interests and concerns of those taking part in, or possibly affected by, the research are
safeguarded. (2002: 18)

Robson holds to the view that through the application of this attitude, even though it may be
more difficult to implement than to state, most researchers should be able to produce ‘something
worthwhile’ (2002: 19). The assumption that research should have a practical value is explicit in
this position, but as you will see by the end of this chapter, research requires an understanding of
the methodological arguments and choices which need to be made and this in itself is a valuable
outcome of any research.
TABLE 7.1 CHARITABLE SUMMARY OF EARLY POSITIVIST ASSUMPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS

Assumptions Arguments

Realism There is only one real world not dependent on how people
think it is. Science attempts to uncover laws which are hidden
from everyday perceptions and are beyond common sense,
which may give unsuspected explanations of familiar things
and reveal relationships and objects beyond the range of the
normal senses.

Demarcation Science is different from common sense and other forms of

knowledge, such as theology and speculation. Non-scientific
views of the world are beyond the boundaries of testability
and verification and therefore cannot be proved either true or
false. This does not mean that such forms of knowing are
valueless, for they may assist the imagination and conjecture.

Foundations Observation and experimentation provide the foundations for

testing and generating hypotheses and theories. It is not,
however, a simple matter of collecting ‘facts’ (directionalist
empiricism), but of systematically studying differences and
similarities between things and identifying relationships
between them.

Cumulativeness Scientific knowledge is built on what is already known to be

true through testing theory against observation. Scientific
knowledge is therefore cumulative, but is always open to test
as successive facts and truths are discovered.

Subject matter Each science studies a realm of distinct facts about one part
of reality and aims to describe the quantities, qualities,
properties and relationships of and between phenomena.

Many methods Science has many methods including description,

classification, observation, generalization, comparison,
experimentation − all aimed at subjecting theories to tests
against the facts they seek to explain.

Laws Scientific knowledge produces empirical generalizations

(descriptive statements of regularities), theories (hypothetical
 explanations) and hypotheses (carefully stated conjectures
that include the conditions for their verification or
falsification).

Explanation and prediction Testability provides the basis for reliable prediction, action
and control. Pure and applied aspects of any science cannot
be divided from each other because to understand and to
control something are necessarily connected.

Ethics and morals The application of scientific methods (means) should be free
of prejudices and aimed at the acquisition of knowledge for
the betterment of the social, cultural, intellectual and physical
environment of human kind (ends).

Qualities of scientists An open mind and humility before the facts is required along
with rigorous care with data, integrity and honesty about the
conditions of testing, and a readiness to change explanations
when faced with disconfirming evidence.

Source: Adapted from Fletcher, 1971.

THE TERRAIN OF THE POSITIVIST VIEW OF SCIENCE

From the brief discussions above you already know something of the nature of positivism, a
major methodological tradition. In this and the next section the major twentieth-century positivist
theorists and their arguments will be looked at more closely. It is, as will be seen later in this
chapter, important to get to grips with the terrain of this literature because you will need to know
what the origins and consequences are of the methodological approach you have taken, and this
includes the criticisms which may be made of your research based on your methodological
assumptions. To begin with, Figure 7.1 attempts to provide an overview of the main assumptions
along with the names of key positivists. It uses a loose chronology of positivism to show the
development of positions, often in contradiction to each other.

Using Figure 7.1 as a reference point (and guide for your further reading) the main assumptions
and arguments in the development of positivism in the twentieth century can be outlined. A point
to note is that while many theorists have been labelled as positivist, some may disagree with this.
Among those who accepted the label there were disagreements and differences on the specifics
of what constituted science.
FIGURE 7.1 POSITIVISTS AND THEIR ASSUMPTIONS IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

THE VIENNA CIRCLE

The main reference for understanding positivism and its influence on the social sciences is the
Vienna Circle, which introduced itself to the world in 1929 with a manifesto entitled The
Scientific World-view: The Vienna Circle (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis).
The Vienna Circle was a European philosophical movement led by Ernst Mach, Mauritz Schlick
and Rudolf Carnap, and was to include many of the philosophers who influenced the social
sciences such as Ludvig Wittgenstein, Karl Popper, Alfred Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Alfred
Ayer and Carl Hempel. Although there is no generally accepted way of providing a brief
characterization of what the Vienna Circle was about, a quote from the British philosopher David
Hume, on whose work the positivists had built some of their own arguments, captures the
essence of the attitude of the Vienna Circle:

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we
take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school of metaphysics, for instance; let us ask,
Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain
any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to
the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. (Hume, 1910)

The positivism of the Vienna Circle centred on the elimination, from science and scientific
knowledge, of metaphysics (values, notions, ideas, conjectures). The principal instrument that
was identified as making this possible was the development of a logical analysis and application
of language to provide objective descriptions of a verifiable world. The principle of verification
would provide theories developed from observations with the means of confirming or
disconfirming the power of the theory to predict and explain similar things. The spread of the
movement was rapid. This was mostly due to a series of congresses (meetings) held throughout
Europe and America during the 1930s, the publication of many journals and books and the
emigration of key members to America, fleeing the Nazis. Whether we like it or not, the
influence of the logical positivists, as the Vienna Circle came to be known as, was widespread
and our debates in the social sciences today are largely a dialogue with the heritage of
positivism.

The overall aim of the Vienna Circle was to correct what they perceived as faults in earlier
understandings and formulations of a positivist science. We can sum up their arguments in the
following series of points:

in the natural sciences the detailed accumulation of facts has resulted in major
measurable advances to human knowledge and control of the natural environment;

the assumptions and methods of the natural sciences have uncovered regularities in
nature that we were previously unaware of, for example, evolution;

the assumptions, attitudes and procedures of the natural sciences can be applied to the
study of the social world and its problems;

to do this all traces of speculative ideas and values should and can be removed from
the procedures involved in the production of scientific knowledge;

only when this is done can we have an objective science and objective knowledge;

this can be done by separating facts from values;

 we can begin from the natural science knowledge that the world is made up of atomic
facts — there is only one world and this world is made up of physical things
(physicalism);

this world can be described using carefully constructed statements that correspond
(mimetic approach) to these facts;

only statements that can be demonstrated to be true through testing against

observational data can be accepted (synthetic statements); all other statements are
meaningless in scientific terms;

there is, therefore, a neutral observational language that all sciences can use to
describe their particular aspect of the world, and so there is a unity to science given in
a universal descriptive language;

from the systematic repeated observation of phenomena hypotheses can be developed

to go beyond what has not been directly observed to infer dependent relationships, and
therefore cause, and so give rise to theories and explanations;

correlations between data can be tested (variable analysis) and from these explanatory
theories developed which are to be tested against observations in controlled conditions
to verify the power of the theory to predict and explain the behaviour of similar
things;

where a theory cannot yet be established as a general law of explanation, regularities

repeatedly observed between specified variables of a phenomenon can be used to
construct a model of the phenomenon to provide the means of calculating the
probability of the occurrence of that phenomenon under certain conditions;

the same data will be collected by any competent scientist in their field of study,
therefore replication of observations is possible and a way of providing verification;
and

the competent scientist brings no values to work and uses methods to collect data
which have no effect on the data; both scientist and methods are therefore
unobtrusive.

This summary of points includes arguments from Carnap, Wittgenstein, Schlick, Whitehead,
Russell, Ayer and many others. However, it does not do justice to the complexities and
sophistication of the arguments made by the individuals involved in the movement. You are
recommended to refer to the suggested readings (especially Smith, 1998 and Hughes and
Sharrock, 1997) to look for yourself at longer explications of positivism and at some of the
primary sources which are available through most academic libraries and Internet sources.

FROM VERIFICATIONISM TO FALSIFICATIONISM

Karl Popper (1902–94) found it difficult to hold most of the assumptions of logical positivism
(see Table 7.1 for an outline of these). His particular criticisms were made on two fronts: on the
criteria which demarcated science from non-science and on the growth of knowledge.

Epistemology: the study of, and debates about, ways in which we know things and have knowledge – often distinguished
from ontology, the study of reality. Epistemologist are often divided into either empiricists (e.g. Locke, Berkeley, Hume) or
rationalists (Plato, Descartes, Leibniz).

In terms of demarcation, the logical positivists held the view that inductive empiricism was the
method of science which produced descriptions of the things in the world. Descriptions were
verified by observing instances of a phenomenon and falsified if a disconfirming observation
was made. There was then an asymmetry in inductive empiricism; disconfirming cases were not
sought but confirming ones were. It is impossible to conclusively verify a statement by reference
to experience. There was always the possibility, however, of a disconfirming case and this made
inductivism a probabilistic exercise where a single case could threaten the theory. Therefore, no
matter the weight of confirming observations, one falsifying one would suffice to challenge the
whole theory. It is therefore not possible to have an accumulation of reliable knowledge because
the method is too fragile to support that certainty in one’s knowledge. Popper substitutes
inductivism with deductivism and verificationism with falsifiability. We will look at his
deductivism in a moment. The basis of Popper’s falsifiability theory originated in his admiration
for the theories of Einstein. He noted that Einstein had proposed a very risky theory that, at the
time, was highly improbable. Einstein had also shown within his theory the conditions by which
it could be disproven rather than confirmed. Comparing other theories Popper notes that ones
such as psychoanalysis could not be falsified, not even in principle. This led him to state that the
demarcation between a scientific and a non-scientific theory is the criterion of falsifiability. To
be a scientific theory, a theory must have in principle a conceivable way of being falsified. The
longer the theory is not falsified is testament to its robustness and power to explain and predict.

On the second front Popper challenges the logical positivists’ view that observations and
descriptions corresponded with real things and were based on pure observation free from theory
and values. For Popper our understandings and hypotheses about the world do not arise only
from observation. Theories, he argues, arise in many different ways and often initially take the
form of hunches and guesses. The origin of a hypothesis is of no consequence – whether from a
dream, the imagination or fancy – the point is they are aimed at solving problems. Science for
Popper starts from attempting to understand and then solve some problem and not from some
disinterested observation. The problems we recognize are often the outcome of our personal
biography and therefore are not value-free. The growth of human knowledge proceeds from our
formulation of problems and attempts to solve them. Popper suggests that problem solving is
essentially a mental activity: that we use our imaginations to reason (conjecture) about the nature
of the world around us and in so doing challenge existing theories. This sets him apart from most
of the logical positivists who held a empiricist epistemology; that knowledge comes from
observation. Popper’s rationalist epistemology holds that knowledge comes from deductive
reasoning about hypotheses. The process is what Popper called the hypothetico-deductive model
(or scheme). The hypothetico-deductive model holds that explanations have three parts: (i)
general; (ii) a more specific thing or event to be explained; and (iii) the conditions under which
the general can explain the particular. Figure 7.2 shows how an explanation of an event can be
deduced from a general theory or law within the conditions set for the explanation.
 The hypothetico-deductive model can be seen in many studies in the social sciences including:

Durkheim’s (1897) Suicide

Barker’s (1988) The Making of a Moonie

Goldthorpe et al. (1968–69) The Affluent Worker Studies

Oakley’s (1974) The Sociology of Housework

Young and Willmott’s (1973) The Symmetrical Family.

FIGURE 7.2 THE HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE MODEL OF EXPLANATION

The hypothetico-deductive model expressed the law in terms of ‘whenever A, then B’. From the
law a hypothesis can be deduced to explain an event. This can then be tested against the relevant
facts to see if the predicted features of the event do exist or happen according to the law. The
truth or falsity of a hypothesis could then be checked by observation.

CLOSED SYSTEM ANALYSIS

In the social sciences, especially those fields concerned to provide explanations of behaviour
through correlational and experimental studies, the positivist approach can be characterized as
‘closed systems analysis’. This approach has the methodological aim of isolating the key
variable(s) that cause the behaviour. This is done by constructing a strict boundary made up of
definitions of concepts, their operationalization and measurement. This boundary is constructed
to purge the research field of any extraneous variables from the situation which must, according
to the protocols of the method, be subject to full control. Hence the behaviour under study is also
isolated in controlled conditions to ensure that it is not contaminated by unknown variables. This
means that the intrinsic predispositions of individuals who do other than comply with the method
are, by the design and imposition of the method, excluded from all measurements. While this
approach has been generally successful for the experimental fields of the natural sciences, it is
not always applicable or desirable for obtaining faithful portrayals of human understanding and
interpretation. Some of the debates among social scientists are therefore cast in terms of
quantitative versus qualitative because it has been common to find statistical techniques used
when attempting to apply a closed-systems approach to explain human behaviour. However, this
is to simplify the argument because it often fails to take into account the broader methodological
positions and logic of employing an approach that is either largely numbers based or one that is
not. Hence the need for Popper’s critical stance in all research, in order to avoid slavish
acquiescence to method because it is assumed to be more ‘scientific’ than alternative ways of
finding answers to our research questions.

Although Popper’s work is much criticized, he gives us a critical stance towards theories and
research. He insists that critical reasoning is an essential part of science and should be used to
interrogate all existing theories. This comes from his argument that all knowledge is provisional,
conjectural and hypothetical. Critical interrogation is to be used to eliminate weak theories: those
which have inconsistencies; have confused the empirical and logical elements; have little
empirical content and predictive power; or for which empirical applications cannot be derived
from the conclusions. Popper’s advice is that we challenge the boundaries of our theories no
matter how sacred they may be in our disciplines. Only in this way, he argues, will we be able to
discriminate between good and bad theories and progress, through trial and error, in our
knowledge. Before moving on it may be worth noting that this text has in effect told a story.
Much of what follows, and which can be read in the literature of the philosophy of research, are
narrative accounts of who said what and interpretations of what they meant. It is mostly about
trying to make some acceptable sense about what this stuff means and what its relevance may be
for us doing research. To this end, namely understanding, we turn now to what are called
epistemological problems, that is, where our knowledge of whatever we take to be real comes
from.

Rationalism stresses the role played by reason in preference to that of the senses in the acquisition of knowledge.
Rationalists maintain the possibility of a priori knowledge – that a ‘truth’ can be established independently of any sensory
observation.

Differences over the nature of knowledge

This textual characterization has so far made no comparisons between positivistic approaches
and other approaches to research methodology. This section will highlight the basis of the
arguments that have been made to expand on some of the main differences between the various
positions regarding knowledge. This procedure, by its very nature, will be selective and because
of this the ways in which the differences will be presented are not the same as those you will find
in many other books on research. This section begins with the familiar, by typifying those who
prefer a positivist closed-system approach as ‘externalists’ and those who find the positivist
approach too restraining or logically a problem as ‘internalists’. It then goes on to look at the
argumentation of the debates between those who hold a correspondence theory and those a
congruence theory of knowledge.

EXTERNALISTS AND INTERNALISTS

Following Hilary Putman’s (1981) discussion we can begin with a simple comparison between
those who hold an externalist position and those who hold an internalist position regarding
knowledge. For the externalist there is a real world existing independently of the ways in which
we think of it. Finding out how the world really is gives science its main purpose: to discover,
through the systematic collection of data, experimentation, comparison and testing of theories,
how the world really works. The ways in which we often think things are is not always the case.
Science uses a different form of attitude from that used in everyday life to uncover the ‘real’
nature of reality and to correct our mistaken, incorrect or partial views of reality. Whatever exists
has a basis in physical or material reality. Therefore all things, including what we often term the
‘mental’ and ‘cultural’, are describable by reference to a physical reality.

In nature things belong to classes and are generally ordered hierarchically within and among the
classes. Science aims to identify what individual things belong to what classes of things and to
find the relationships between and among the different classes. Although each science has its
own realm of interest, using a universal descriptive language, it is possible to have descriptions
that correspond to the structures which exist in nature and which provide a unified description of
reality.

The internalist hold that the only way of knowing what is in the world is to use a frame of
reference to describe things. Internalists do not doubt the ‘reality’ of reality, but do not see how it
is possible to have a description of reality that has no reference to a framework in which the
description can be made sense of. Although this may seem a little odd, here is an example,
provided by Anderson et al., which encapsulates what it means for a description to require a
frame of reference:

Consider the task of describing a woodyard and its contents. We can talk of pieces of wood,
perhaps, but of what kind? There is teak, mahogany, oak, plywood, hardwood, pine, etc.
and, if the person making the description knows their woods, then it is likely that such
descriptions will be right. But there is another way we could proceed. We could describe the
woodyard as consisting of tongue and groove boards, window frames, doors, wall panelling,
and so on. This description, too, can be perfectly sound and correct. (1985: 36)

From the internalist standpoint we can only make sense of the world by using descriptions that
have a frame of reference suitable for our purposes. Internalists look to collect empirical data like
the externalists, but any description, interpretation or conjecture about the data is generated from
within, rather than being external to, a theory. Our theories about the nature of the world are
necessary for us to assess the relevance of what we observe, and not the other way around.

CORRESPONDENCE AND CONGRUENCE THEORIES: THE DEBATE BETWEEN

TALCOTT PARSONS AND ALFRED SCHUTZ
The issue most theorists in the social sciences have attempted to address is the problem of how
best to conceive of what constitutes social reality and how it can be studied. To focus on this
issue we will look at a debate between two of the key social theorists of the last century, Talcott
Parsons (1902–79) and Alfred Schutz (1899–1959). During the 1940s, Parsons and Schutz
corresponded with one another over how the social sciences could (and should) conceive the
characteristics of social activities (their letters are reproduced in Grathoff, 1978). In other words,
they discussed the question ‘What must social reality be like in order for it to be able to be
described?’ In terms of our everyday common sense this kind of question may seem odd, but as
will be explained later it is crucial to all social research. This is because if you do not have a
formulation of what it is you are studying, then how can you study it? In their letters there is a
clear difference of assumptions about what characteristics can be studied. Their two positions are
termed the ‘correspondence theory’ and the ‘congruence theory’ respectively. The debate
between Parsons and Schutz is a complex one and in places makes implicit assumptions about
larger debates in philosophy. Their arguments will therefore be presented as a sequence of points
which I believe encapsulates the essence of the two logics for the assumptions they hold about
how best to conceive of what constitutes social reality and how it can be studied.

Talcott Parsons: his contribution and argument

The work of Parsons amounts to a substantial collection, over many decades, of systematic
reasoning about the nature of social reality and the subject matter for sociology. Although no
longer ‘in vogue’, Parsons’s theory of social action has rarely been matched for its depth and
breadth by those who seek to criticize it and it is for this reason that, whatever you may have
read about Parsons, his work deserves serious consideration. Parsons’s assumptions go like this:

the social world can be divided into those elements which are rational and structured
and those which are unique, random and non-rational;

the properties of rational actions are capable of being scientifically described;

science is the systematic investigation of reality based on doubt, scepticism and value
neutrality;

commonsense descriptions of social reality, unlike scientific ones, fail to distinguish

from the flux of appearances and cannot penetrate everyday reality to uncover the
orderly structures of which individual actions are a part;

social science does not therefore begin with common sense or with individual actions,
but with abstraction by theoretically reconstructing the observable elements into
phenomena of orderly relationships — abstractions which are more than the sum of
the parts — for example, institutions, systems, wholes, power, control, bureaucracy
and so on;

social science should produce abstract descriptions of the intensively complex reality
hidden from everyday perception and superficial descriptions;

scientific sociological descriptions should be based on a view of social reality that is

ordered and has logical relationships;

human reasoning is a part of rational reality and can therefore be used to formulate
abstract descriptions of the rationality of the larger social wholes of which it is a part;
and

social reality, although infinite and changing, is that which is ordered and has a logic
describable by means of human reason (Kantian position).
Alfred Schutz: his contribution and argument
Of those social theorists to have engaged seriously with the methodological debates in the social
sciences, and in particular with the work of Parsons, Schutz and Garfinkel stand out.
Interestingly, Garfinkel’s own work owes as much to Parsons as it does to that of Schutz. Schutz,
however, had a radically different approach from Parsons to characterizing the nature of social
reality and the subject matter for sociology. Schutz’s phenomenological assumptions go like this:

phenomenology rejects the distinction between how things appear to us and how they
may really be; perception does not stand as an inferior version of ‘reality’, but it is
itself a part of (constitutive) reality;

things (phenomena) are real to the extent and ways in which they are experienced and
acted upon; however, if two persons perceive the same thing in different ways, then for
each the thing is different;

this does not mean our descriptions of the world are relative, without any agreed point
of reference;

rather, a distinction needs to be made between the attitude most of us hold in everyday
life (a natural attitude), in which our experiences have an objective character that we
take for granted (do not systematically doubt), and an attitude we can take to describe
those experiences;

everyday activities are a form of rationality and are different from the ‘rationality’ of
science. Science differs from the natural attitude in terms of means and ends:
organized knowledge is an end for science, while in the natural attitude it is a means
for achieving particular purposes. The person in everyday life is only interested in the
state of their knowledge in so far as it can be used to realize their plans and intentions;

knowledge in everyday life is not chaotic, random or disorganized, but only appears
that way if viewed from an idealized model of rationality as proposed by science.
People organize what they experience by using what they already know about how to
organize experiences. Social reality for most people, including scientists, is particular
in that it is the product of particular problems and needs in a specific time and place;

in applying the recipes we have for organizing our experiences into types, we do not
follow rules of rational thought, as science might, but employ the general techniques
and frames of reference we know about and which have worked in the past; in so
doing we add to our stocks of knowledge about how to understand. Hence there can be
differences between stocks of knowledge and therefore differences between how one
person or group understands a situation and how another does. Social reality is
experienced by us as ‘objective’, but in a multitude of ways at different times;

phenomenology aims to study the natural attitude as a reality based on experience;

to do so it must not assume there is an underlying reality of a hidden ‘logic’ that

structures an individual’s experiences (to be penetrated by analysis), but that the
 natural attitude can be studied as a phenomenon in its own right;

phenomenology is an empirical programme that aims to empirically investigate all

forms of activity in everyday life, from teaching a class of six-year-olds, to conducting
an experiment in a laboratory, to experiencing bereavement; and

the topics for phenomenology are everything in the social world and the task is to
describe what it is that makes one experience this experience and not something else
(its essence).

Parsons and Schutz looked at the characteristics of social reality very differently from each other
and in ways which are largely irreconcilable. An illustration of their differences is their
respective use of the term ‘actor’. Both employ ‘actor’ in their writing, but they have very
different understandings of what they mean by the term. For Parsons the actor was the agent
exhibiting features according to a predetermined theoretical standpoint to the phenomenon. For
Schutz the actor refers to a person experiencing some commonly occupied social situation.
Parsons’s conception, because it removes the person and their understandings, is often termed
the ‘objective’ conception of the actor. This conception of abstractedness is frequently seen in
research reports and journal articles when the researcher and their subjects are referred to in the
third person. Schutz’s conception, because it focuses on experience, is often termed the
‘subjective’ conception of the actor. It consequently has a vocabulary, different from that of
Parsons, which looks to describe the ways in which experiences are assembled into a
recognizable order. The difference between the two at this level is therefore one of different
frames of reference.

Knowledge as situated rather than universal

The Parsons–Schutz debate has highlighted some of the main differences in the social sciences.
This is expressed in various dichotomies including the ‘objective–subjective’, ‘positivist–
phenomenological’ and ‘positivist–interpretivistic’. Note that it is definitely not a ‘quantitative–
qualitative’ comparison, which is a commonly mistaken assumption. This section will look at
some of the main attempts to clarify and characterize the process of scientific development and at
how this can help us to understand just what it means to do positivistic research or interpretive
research. The section begins with what is possibly the most influential book for the current
philosophy of science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962/1970) by Thomas Kuhn.

SCIENTIFIC PARADIGMS
Kuhn (1922–96) was a graduate of theoretical physics who looked at the history of science in
order to give introductory lectures to humanities undergraduates. As a newcomer to the
humanities, and in particular to the history of science, Kuhn soon had a view of the development
of science that contrasted with those commonly accepted. His research led him to look seriously
and critically at many long established assumptions and in particular those of the positivists and
falsificationists, especially Popper. Popper’s view of science was one that included the following
main claims:
 1 Falsificationism was the logic that drove scientific knowledge forward.

2 Scientific knowledge was evolutionary, progressing through a process of trial and error
underpinned by the logic of criticism.

3 Knowledge and truth accumulate, not as universals but in terms of degrees

(verisimilitude).

4 There is no such thing as social science because what passes for social science is not
falsifiable. Added to this, social science in following the goal of positivist reformation of
society will lead to uniformity, thereby negating the open criticism and plurality of
argument which is the basis of epistemological evolutionism.

Kuhn’s studies of the history of science revealed something different from that described and
advocated by Popper. Looking at such developments as Aristotle’s Physics and Newton’s
physics, he found that rather than both being at different positions on a continuum, neither were
within the same spectrum (Crotty, 1998: 34). Most of the time scientists work on specific
problems employing a common view of what science is and how it is to be done (Kuhn, 1977:
188–234). Their framework is what Kuhn terms ‘a paradigm’. A paradigm is a way of looking at
and understanding the world and is made up of a cluster of values, views, opinions and
understandings on what criteria gives worth to something. New scientists are socialized into the
general paradigm and most come to accept and work within it. A small number, however,
challenge some of the basic assumptions or premises of the normal paradigm and occasionally
change the theories of the paradigm to such a degree that the new theory is incommensurable
with the old one. A new paradigm provides a new way of seeing old problems and brings into
view new problems; it also largely replaces the old paradigm. Science therefore comes to work
within the new paradigm, leaving the old one behind as a historic relic.

Kuhn is not saying that scientific progress does not take place, but does argue that progress
cannot be measured as if on a linear continuum. Each development is judged, he maintains, by
applying rational criteria accepted at that time for that particular ‘science’. For Kuhn critical
rational thought is a part of the institution of science in much the same way as it was for Popper.
This is not the only point of similarity between the two. Popper and Kuhn also share a degree of
agreement over the place of non-rational sources for the generation of ideas and breakthroughs in
understanding, over the need to be able to test conjectures, and in recognizing that diversity and
differences between scientists are good for critical debate. With so many similarities, what is it
that Kuhn did and what is its relevance to research?

One way of approaching this question is to see Kuhn as taking an element in Popper’s work
which acknowledges the use of sociological analysis. Kuhn takes this and follows it through to
see where it may lead. Popper’s assumptions and recommendations are used by Kuhn on
Popper’s own work; Kuhn can be seen as applying Popper’s own standards to Popper’s notions
about science. This is not an unusual thing to do, but Kuhn does it in such a subtle way that if
you do not know Popper well much of Kuhn’s analysis and argument can be lost or easily
misinterpreted. In one respect Kuhn’s work makes visible many of the sociological features of
Popper’s work. These include: the place and role Popper gave to values in the research process,
as being a source of some of the most interesting and risky conjectures; the function of words,
which Popper saw as doing more than providing names for things (nominalism); and a blurring
of the demarcation between science and non-science, in that methodological procedures of the
different sciences each aim to provide descriptions, rather than a unified account, of reality.
Popper is therefore left as a key figure in science by Kuhn, for he opened up for investigation
science as a multiplicity of context dependent activities. This may not be a reading everyone
agrees with, but it does give a way of understanding the relevance of succeeding debates about
science found in the writing of theorists such as Lakatos and Feyerabend (more on these below).
It asks us to see science in broader historical terms as something individuals chose to do and
which is now associated with established institutions. Kuhn’s portrayal of science is of humans
pursuing their interests prudently, with an attachment to why they are doing what they are doing,
and doing it in ways which incorporate the highest degrees of validity and reliability possible
within the techniques they can apply. The practice of research is, it may be argued, similar to the
way Kuhn portrays science; that it is value-laden, focused on solving puzzles, does not always
result in generalizations and is not unified, but nevertheless involves reasoning.

LAKATOS, FEYERABEND, PUTNAM AND HACKING

Even if the history of science is not a continuum, the debates about it do exhibit an
interconnectedness. They share a common concern to characterize either how science represents
the world or aims to intervene to makes changes to it. The names used in the sub-heading are
representative of contributions to the science debate and what I will do next is summarize
elements of contributions which are relevant to contemplating research methodology.

Imre Lakatos (1922–74) and Paul Feyerabend (1924–94) were close associates and for a period
had a great deal in common regarding the ideas and arguments of Popper and Kuhn. Lakatos
critically appraised Popper’s position and attempted to realign some of Kuhn’s insights on the
development of scientific knowledge to show that knowledge was cumulative because it was a
rational activity. He focused on the criteria for demarcating science from other forms of
knowing. He examined inductivism, conventionalism and falsificationalism and found each in
their turn unacceptable as demarcation criteria. Like Popper, he dismissed induction and
conventionalism for not acknowledging the accumulation of knowledge as a gradual and real
process. However, with falsificationism he argued there was some hope. Popper’s
falsificationism, he thought, had been largely misunderstood and had been applied in a dogmatic
fashion. Popper’s suggestion that a hypothesis, even if empirically refuted, could still be useful
attracted the attention of Lakatos. He looked to Kuhn to see how scientists working in particular
research programmes held on to theories which had either been refuted or were incapable of
falsification. He argued that the disciplinary and institutionalized existence of science created
research programmes (a rough substitute for Kuhn’s paradigm). Theories such as Marxism,
relativity, gravity and psychoanalysis were, in Lakatos’s terms, research programmes which had
a core set of assumptions and propositions on which individual scientists and theorists had built
their careers. Such propositions and assumptions were not, therefore, to be easily given up even
in the face of the severest criticism. Each research programme has, argues Lakatos, puzzles its
adherents approve of and believe lie within its remit and those it sees as outside of or not
possible to address within its parameters. Programmes of research are substantial enough to
protect ideas which would be unacceptable in other programmes and have the ability to adapt
and re-invent aspects of them to remain progressive. Programmes which do not do this but
merely repair old ideas are not progressive and are liable to decline.
Scientists working within research programmes are therefore often actively trying to make sense
of the ideas around their core propositions in ways that Lakatos and Popper would term as
rationalist epistemology rather than empiricist epistemology. This position strongly implies that
there are social, psychological and historical considerations to be taken into account when
looking at science and knowledge and that they can be invoked to show how knowledge has
progressed because of rational thought. This is largely where Paul Feyerabend made his major
entrance into the debate.

As a student of Popper, close friend of Lakatos, admirer of Wittgenstein’s work, nearly the
production assistant to Bertolt Brecht, and involved with quantum physics, Feyerabend was
professionally and socially at the centre of the debates about science. Starting out with arguments
for a realist position for science as opposed to logical positivism, his early work was very similar
to Popper’s falsificationist rationalist epistemology, conventionalism and rejection of
empiricism. Feyerabend ended up being seen as a radical relativist who, from the 1960s
onwards, argued that science has the capability to contribute to a free and open society but that
the science advocated by logical positivism could lead to a monolithic, closed and totalitarian
society. Feyerabend’s position was that science as a form of life and knowledge is no better or
worse than any other form of life and knowing. Alternative medicine, voodoo, oracles and
religion (Feyerabend, 1993: 36) are all different, not comparable and are, to use Feyerabend’s
term, incommensurable (a term also employed by Kuhn). Western science is for Feyerabend a
dogma that exercises an imperialistic domination over how we view other ways of knowing.
Science is given its privileged position because, argues Feyerabend, it has succeeded in getting
accepted myths about itself; that it is objective, unified and progressive. Feyerabend sees the
nature and history of science as an ideology, having been written so as to appear to be a unified,
systematic, continuous evolution of knowledge. He is therefore not against research but against
‘scientism’, the belief that science is supreme in method and knowledge to all other forms of
knowing. He attempts to show that scientists held in high regard, such as Galileo and
Copernicus, were not objective and disinterested collectors of facts and tellers of truths.
Feyerabend portrays them as self-interested, self-propagandists who were not impeded by the
facts not fitting their theories. Feyerabend uses the case of Copernicus to show that science is far
from systematic, to claim it is ad hoc, accidental and often a political activity (1993: 157). These
views may be seen as challenging the ways in which what people do are reported and how they
actually do what they do. He uses his cases to argue that it is not rationalist empiricist argument
that decides the usefulness of a theory, but that the personality, politics and general social milieu
are more of an influence than anything else. Hence, Feyerabend was labelled an ‘irrationalist’
‘relativist’ and accepts for himself the role of outlining an anarchistic methodology (1993: 13).

Feyerabend’s solution to the problem is to recommend the principle of proliferation. This

principle contains the recommendation that we challenge the concepts and theories with which
we are familiar by using counter induction (1993: 53). This means using hypotheses which
contradict established theories to highlight the historically rooted assumptions we employ in our
theories. This links to Feyerabend’s conventionalism; the view that theories and concepts
(frames of reference) are historically conditioned (1993: 51) and that the point of science and
politics is to push at the boundaries of these in whatever ways our creativity can construct. In this
way Feyerabend advocated methodological pluralism and relativism as the rational rules for
science (1993; Caldwell, 1994).
Hilary Putnam (1975), whose work we met when we introduced his distinction between
internalists and externalists (Putnam, 1978), has made some significant contributions to the
debate. Putnam agrees with many empiricists that science, as an approach to applying a range of
methods, produces reliable knowledge. But unlike the rationalist empiricists, he advocates that
researchers look to describe the very essence of the phenomena they are investigating. By
essence he means the very things (substances and relationships) that make a thing what it is and
not something else. Putnam is mainly referring to physical objects, as can be found on the
periodic table. Just what makes gold what it is and not lead? When we look to see what makes a
thing (or behaviour) what it is, Putnam argues, it does not matter too much what we call it, for
the stuff that it is made of and its relationship to other things will not change if we change its
name. This position has a number of other implications. One is that there can be continuity
between the theories of different paradigms, for the theory may change but the substance, in
itself, does not. Second, there is here a recommendation to look at a thing closely, to see the
detail of what it is. Ian Hacking’s (1981 and 1983) work also recommends we should look to see
how scientists have intervened in the world in order to be able to collect data, make
measurements and conduct experiments. From this we will be able to see the range of ways in
which research is and can be done and look at the range of ontologies researchers use to anchor
their epistemologies. In this way the internal consistency of a theory becomes the standard by
which research done within that theory can be judged as adequate or not. There can then be,
according to Hacking and Putnam, many theoretical frames of reference and many different and
possibly competing conceptions of how different aspects of the world are organized. There is no
need to aim for a correspondence between descriptions and reality, but to produce, through our
research methods and techniques, systematic descriptions and accounts of what we find.
Diversity and difference become embodied within this conception of research, and notions about
the unification of science, universal laws and the like are unnecessary. Things are the way they
become because of how they were observed and thus become exhibits or artefacts of the
investigation.

Relativism and values in research

From the summaries so far, the philosophers of science seem to not only eschew inductivism, but
many also share a concern to express their values and to say that our theories of the world are
contingent on the cultural context and time in which they were produced. What we have, then,
are the issues of how we can deal with the problems of the possibility of relativism – that there
are truths but no universal truth, and what role values and ethics should or can play in research.

RELATIVISM OR RELEVANCE?
What we have said so far may imply that we are moving towards a relativist view of knowledge;
that there are competing views on what reality is and all are acceptable within certain conditions.
This debate is intimately involved in many discussions about the role of values in research, but
for the sake of a little clarity we have made an analytical distinction between the two. This
distinction is based on the use of language to describe things in the world rather than to argue for
how people ought to behave. This is because most of the debates about relativism are about how
we make connections between the words we use to name/describe what we want to name and
describe (for the reasons we have). The key figures involved, usually used as reference points in
the literature, for this debate include Peter Winch (The Idea of a Social Science, 1958/1990),
Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1970) and Karl Popper (Objective
Knowledge, 1972).

From the above outline of Kuhn’s ideas, it appears that reality can only be described from within
a frame of reference and that there are many frames of reference which can be used to describe
the same thing. Hence, if there are different ways of describing reality, then this is an argument
for saying that there are different ways of describing reality and not that we cannot know about
reality. Winch (1958), like Kuhn, does not attempt to provide any argument about the respective
truths of science or claim that all versions of reality are equal. His major concern is to translate
the work of Wittgenstein (1958) on using language for use in the social sciences. His main point
is to provide conceptual clarity to the ways in which social science has and can use language to
understand (rather than explain or compare) other cultures. In his critical examination of studies
of other cultures, in particular that of Evans-Pritchard’s study of the belief in witchcraft and
oracles among the Azande people (Evans-Pritchard, 1965), Winch shows that a mistake has been
made in attempting to find a reason for what are believed to be incorrect beliefs. Evans-Pritchard
approached the Azande’s beliefs as a puzzle for scientific explanation; of how another culture
could believe and organize much of their collective behaviour around witchcraft and oracles. As
if in need of correction or explanation as to its point, Azande behaviour was not taken as a part of
a larger and more complex mode of cultural existence. Evans-Pritchard, by focusing too much,
largely separated beliefs from the social organization of Azande society. Popper (1972) also
holds with the argument that there are different frameworks for understanding the world and that
it is the differences between them which make for useful discussion rather than
incommensurability. The frameworks he identifies are: that for describing the physical world;
that for states of consciousness; and that of external objective knowledge. The latter includes
theoretical systems and logic, which he claims exist independently of the individual – as a part of
the logic developed and uncovered by the human mind over millennia. That logic includes
critical engagement with theories about how the world can be best described and it is this that is
objective knowledge because it is a product we inherit through our socialization into the
activities of science.

The claims that all alternatives to positivism and the conventional view of science necessitate a
relativist position are largely unfounded. Anderson et al. (1985: 36) argue that with the woodyard
(in the example given above), as with anything, we can have multiple descriptions of the same
‘thing’ and each can be as correct as the others. Some social scientists would see this as an
argument for relativism; as there cannot be one definitive description of social reality, we are left
with the problem of competing descriptions and an associated barrier to accumulating
knowledge. In its extreme form it is known as ‘the anything goes’ position, but as we will see in
the next section this is a naïve reaction that displays a thin understanding of the nature of social
reality. This is because we can and do have different descriptions of the same thing. Different in
terms of the point of view being taken by the one doing the description and using a particular
frame of reference to make their description relevant.

In the frames of reference in the woodyard example earlier in this chapter there are two schemes
of classification: ways of describing types of wood and ways of describing wood products. The
purpose of the description strongly influences which classification scheme is selected as the
frame of reference to be used. Different classification schemes are designed to bring out different
features of the thing being described. It is normal to have different rather than competing
descriptions of the same thing. Asking which is correct is senseless, for it ignores an essential
characteristic of social life, which is the human capacity, on the one hand, to generate, establish
and develop highly complex and sophisticated ways of classifying things and events they find in
their world, and, on the other, to express them using only a few terms.

VALUE CHOICES
One of the assumptions of the logical positivists was that science, as a process, could divorce
itself from the ethical commitments and value relevances of the individual and community for
the sake of scientific knowledge. Values and ethics would impact on the product of the process
and result, possibly, in a biased view or description of the phenomenon under investigation.
Despite attempting to use science to make positive improvements to ‘society’, ethical and value
neutrality was seen as an essential prerequisite for reliable knowledge. Emile Durkheim, for
instance, in his Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1982), says that two key rules of science are
firstly that scientists must focus only on the data and not bring to it assumptions or
preconceptions, and secondly that we must only pay attention to the external properties of a
phenomenon (1982: 69–72). Durkheim may be characterized, along with others such as Talcott
Parsons and Robert K. Merton, as belonging to the naturalist position regarding the role of values
in research. This position holds that social science ought to be based on social facts (for example,
rates of suicide) and these be treated as things which exist. This followed the positivist
conception of science and its procedures. But alongside the development of positivism as
exhibited in the work of Comte and Spencer was an alternative that, like that of the positivists,
can be traced back into Greek philosophy. The interpretivists, as they are collectively labelled,
held that there was a difference between the natural and social worlds and that different
approaches and in some cases assumptions should be used for the study of each. From the late
1600s, French and German scholars offered up this alternative to the positivist and materialist
conception of a science of society. Battista Vico (1660–1744), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–
78), Georg W.F. Hegel (1770–1831), Karl Marx (1818–83), Friedrich D.E. Scheiermacher
(1768–1834), William Dilthey (1833–1911), Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936) and Max Weber
(1864–1920) are the main protagonists in the dispute over methods for the study of human
culture and history (the ‘Methodenstreit’). Their positions, although they had some significant
differences, centred on the meaning and interpretation of culture and in particular the
interpretation of textual materials, and consequently of the culture and history of humanity. For
these thinkers positivism failed to recognize, let alone acknowledge, that culture and history were
the products of the creativity possessed and expressed by humans which was beyond the laws of
nature and reduction to biology and materialism. Hence the dualism between mind and body (the
material) in much of their arguments, along with a distinction between the objective and
subjective. Humans were essentially subjective in their world, which was based in interpretation
and meaning; we live, to paraphrase Weber, in webs of signification which we, our
contemporaries and forerunners have created (Geertz, 1973: 3). This position gives rise to the
role of value choices and ethical commitments in social research.

Max Weber is often used as the main reference for the debates over values and ethics in research.
His position, though not a simple one to understand, may be characterized as having its origins in
his assertion that social reality is infinitely complex and that any description of it will necessarily
be selective and partial. Being a part of that which we study as social investigators, we bring to
our investigations preconceived notions, beliefs and values about what is important and how best
to study it. In an attempt to bring some clarity to the matter, Weber makes a number of
recommendations about how problems are chosen because of their relevance to us and how the
methods we use can be free of values. First, he believes that our own place within our culture at a
particular time in human society is an influence on the problems we choose for investigation.
Our own value relevance influences our choice of topic and the way in which we define that
topic. The interests, passions and politics of a researcher may be the genesis for their research
and at the same time provide the frame of reference for describing their problem. However,
Weber argues that when investigating a problem an attitude of value-freedom should be adapted
so as to avoid, as far as possible, bias in data collection, categorization and interpretation. This
means the researcher taking a position that is distanced from the topic they are investigating. At
the same time Weber believed it was the responsibility of the researcher to set out the evidence
for whatever they were talking about for others to judge the adequacy of the interpretation
offered.

The selection of a problem using issues one is familiar with is something akin to Popper’s claim
that it matters little where a problem originated. This view is not, however, shared by all in the
research community. It is common to see objections being made to research proposals because
they are based on an issue or problem close to the researcher. Our position is that some of the
best problems in applied and evaluative research are due to the fact that they have been
suggested because of a personal involvement with a problem and that this is the case in both the
social and natural sciences. Value freedom, however, raises a number of much more complex
issues. Many researchers seriously question whether detachment is a realistic possibility given
the value relevance that often leads to the selection of a topic in the first place (Gouldner, 1975;
Bell and Newby, 1977; Eckhard and Ermann, 1977; Rosaldo, 1989; Parkin, 2003: Stanley and
Wise, 1993). Parkin (2003), for instance, claims that the lack of moralization in a theory does not
make it objective or value free. Similarly, Becker (1967), in his famous article ‘Whose side are
we on?’, accuses much of sociology and implicitly psychology of ignoring that research,
especially positivistic research, epistemologically favours some form of social control. Research
assists either practically or ideologically in providing legitimation for the beliefs of the powerful
to enact various forms of control over the ‘underdogs’. Following some of, though not all, the
arguments of Stanley and Wise (1993) we can say from experience that one’s own self and sense
of purpose is always a part of the research one does and that good research is often the outcome
of a tenacious and motivated person who has some experience of the problem they are
investigating.

Is a natural observational science of human action still

possible?
The complexity of human behaviour is not something easily overlooked and because of this
numerous attempts have been made to capture this complexity by developing highly
sophisticated methodological positions and measuring instruments. Positivism, verificationism,
falsificationism and hypothetico-deductivism, along with attempts to reduce human behaviour to
biology or psychology, are only some of the attempts to deal with the problems of complexity
and diversity of human behaviours.

In this section the work of Harvey Sacks is introduced. The reason for this is to show you that
there is an alternative strategy to analysing social phenomena. In the early 1960s and into the
1970s the American sociologist Harvey Sacks looked closely at the conventional paradigm in the
social sciences in respect of developing a sociology that was a stable natural observational
discipline, that is, a scientific discipline. His approach, developed alongside that of Harold
Garfinkel, is radically different from all others. In order to understand and appreciate it, a good
place to start is with his critique of the assumption of correspondence.

THE PROBLEM OF LITERAL DESCRIPTION

A core assumption of the conventionalist approach in the social sciences, exemplified by
Parsons, is the assumption of correspondence. This assumption holds the view that it is possible,
and logical, for some kinds of descriptions to be accurate and correct literal reflections of things
as they are, rather than as they appear, in the world. The correspondence theory therefore aims to
answer the questions of what exactly ‘this thing’ is and what is really going on here. There are
many examples in the library in the social science literature of attempts to take specific
phenomena and apply just these questions; among them are studies of poverty, criminality,
educational underachievement, gender relations and so on. The theory further holds that it is only
through analysis of the seemingly chaotic appearances can the real reality of a phenomenon be
determined and described.

For Garfinkel and Sacks the goal of literal description is misguided and if dropped can, they
demonstrated, lead to a distinctive alternative for the social sciences. In a series of exercises he
gave to students, Garfinkel demonstrated the practical impossibility of producing a literal
description of even the most routine event – a conversation. Students were asked to report on a
mundane conversation they had recently had with someone (Garfinkel, 1967b: 24–34). On the
right-hand side of a sheet of paper they were asked to write down what was said and on the left-
hand side what the conversation was about. No matter how much the students explained what the
conversation was about, Garfinkel could find more questions to ask for further clarification. The
more elaboration that was provided, the greater the opportunity to ask more questions on
clarification. As a phenomenon the conversation was understandable, but once described became
something else in which the possibility of literal description became more difficult. Sacks also
identified this problem when he made the following observation:

How is the scientific requirement of literal description to be achieved in the face of the fact
… that a description of even a particular ‘concrete object’ can never be complete? That is,
how is a description to be warranted when, however long or intensive it may be, it may
nonetheless, be indefinitely extended? We call this the ‘etcetera problem’ … to any
description of a concrete object (or event, or course of action …), however long, the
researcher must add an etcetera clause to permit the description to be brought to a close.
(1963: 10)

If we accept the possibility of correspondence, then to meet this we would need to have complete
descriptions of things and events. As Sacks and Garfinkel show, this is impossible: all we can
have are incomplete descriptions. This does not mean our descriptions are flawed, but that we
recognize the opportunities afforded if we drop the goal of literal description. This is a point both
Schutz (Grathoff, 1978), in his correspondence with Parsons, and Anderson et al. (1985), in their
example of the woodyard, were making. This opportunity involves looking to see what an
alternative – the congruence theory – may offer. This would involve taking the things we
experience as real, but not different from the way in which we experience them. This does not
mean we take experiences at face value and never express doubt or investigate them, but that we
treat them as things which cannot be divorced from what it is we understand within our frame of
reference. The methods we routinely use to apply our knowledge are, according to Garfinkel
(1967), indistinguishable from the things our methods and knowledge are being used to
understand and describe; there is congruence between how we accomplish understanding and the
categorization of what is going on and what something is.

SACKS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A PRIMITIVE OBSERVATIONAL SCIENCE

During his relatively short lifetime (he died aged only 40), Sacks published very little but left
behind a substantial amount of lecture material he had prepared for his classes. Fortunately,
many of his lectures were recorded onto tape and have been transcribed (Sacks, 1992). In his
lectures Sacks attempted to deal systematically with his project to see if human interaction and
action could be studied in such ways that the analysis and data could be reproducible. What
Sacks is arguing for is making sociology a stable natural observational discipline. His reasons for
setting this grand aim were in part as a provocation to the kinds of social science then taken for
granted, such as structuralism, semiology, cognitive psychology and behavioural psychology
(Schegloff, 1992: xxxi). What he means by ‘stable’ is a discipline that can provide analysis and
findings and data which are all reproducible for anyone to inspect, assess and make their own
analysis. This is based on the observation that very few studies include the full data and specify
in detail how the analysis of the data was done. Most studies, whether based on hypothesis
testing or ethnographic observations, ask the reader to ‘take on trust’ the data because it cannot,
usually due to the amount, normally be included in an article or monograph. Schegloff, in his
introduction to Sacks’s lectures, explains what is meant by reproducibility:

Contributions to science … are composed of two essential parts. One is the account of the
findings. The other is the account of the scientists’ actions by which the findings were
obtained. What discriminates science from other epistemic undertakings is the claim that its
findings are reproducible, and that reproducibility is itself grounded in the claim that the
results were arrived at by courses of action reproducible by anyone in principle. Other
investigators can, by engaging in the same actions, arrive at the same findings.

Sacks argued that both of these parts of contributions to science are ‘science’, and not just
the findings. For it is reproduction of the actions reproducing the results which make the
findings ‘scientific’, and the description of those courses of action which make their
reproducibility possible. If the results are scientific, the descriptions of the actions for
reproducing them must also be science. (1992: xxxi)

The kind of social science Sacks thought about and pursued in his work is, however, very
different from what was then (1960s–70s) and is still largely taken to be social science. His
starting point, like that of Garfinkel, was with investigating what a non-ironic and non-
correspondence theory of reality could look like. Figure 7.3 is an attempt to provide an overview
of Sacks’s position in relation to conventional social science.

Sacks states his position, and epistemological difference, in relation to conventional social
science by saying, ‘the problem is that, … each major treatise that has set up scientific fields
starts out by saying that what people know and use is wrong’ (quoted in Watson, 1994: 173–4).
In contrast, what he wants is a sociology that does not use concepts such as ‘false-
consciousness’, ‘ideological’, ‘hidden codes’ or distinctions between appearance and reality, the
etic standpoint (Pike, 1967: 37), to account for behaviour. Such an approach, he notes, negates
the details of what people actually do and how they do what they do, in their social interaction
which accomplishes the sense of that interaction and reproduces social order. He says that what
he wants to do ‘is see if we can look at the enforceable and usable procedures for whatever
knowledge persons happen to have’ (quoted in Watson, 1994: 173). This means looking at social
interaction from within, from the standpoint of an emic reality (Goodwin, 1984: 243–4), to see
what kinds of infrastructure participants use to accomplish that interaction for what it is, that is,
recognizable-reportable. Sacks is therefore rejecting ‘scientism’; that is, the tendency in
conventional social science to attribute meanings to behaviour by using labels such as ‘primitive
mentality’, ‘superstition’ and ‘dysfunctional’ through the use of grand theorizing, hypothesis
testing and the operationalization of concepts by elaborate measuring instruments and
subsequent statistical formulae.
FIGURE 7.3 SACKS’S POSITION IN RELATION TO CONVENTIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

His focus is on, then, the grossly observable, readily available mechanisms of social interaction.
The most common and pervasive feature of social life is conversation, talk between persons in
the pursuit of their everyday purposes. Whatever a researcher may come across in a scene,
including conversations, news interviews, telephone calls, talk over emergency radio
frequencies, are the kinds of data which are the stuff of social interaction and as such are
recordable and preservable for analysis.

THE MECHANICS OF SOCIAL INTERACTION

The following is a typical extract (from the 1964–65 lectures) used by Sacks to analyse the
apparatus of social interaction:

A: This is Mr Smith, may I help you?

B: I can’t hear you.

A: This is Mr Smith.

B: Smith.

(Sacks, 1992: 3)

This extract is from a telephone call to a suicide prevention centre. It illustrates the simplicity of
the data and complexity of the phenomenon Sacks attempted to address. From recordings of calls
to the centre Sacks noticed that most callers resisted giving their name and that this was a
recurrent phenomenon. Callers used responses such as ‘I can’t hear you’ as common
(methodical) ways of avoiding giving their name. Similarly Mr Smith does not, at first, ask
directly for the caller’s name, but uses a commonly used opening to an exchange that would
normally elicit the other’s name. Sacks is drawing our attention to the mechanics or apparatus of
how we do social interaction and the analysis of social interactions (Schegloff, 1992: xxi). In this
and other cases he is showing that exchanges occur in units and these have typical sequences.
How participants produce the sense they do in their exchanges and what they accomplish can be
observed in the sequences of their exchanges. Hence sequences could be analysed as phenomena
in their own right; as the basis of how members accomplish the sense of the world they are
currently engaged with.

It is important to note that we are not talking here about doing analysis of narrative or discourse
or saying what most members already know. Sacks is taking us to a level of analysis that gives
us an unusual way of applying demarcation criteria. This can be seen, first, in his vision of what
kind of analysis he is attempting to achieve: he likens this to the machinery of culture. By
‘machinery’ Sacks is referring to our socialization into a culture that gives us the knowledge of
applying an apparatus to generate the recognizable sense/intention of our actions. The second
way in which this can be seen is in his analysis of the story ‘The baby cried, the mummy picked
it up.’ This was a description produced by a young child. Figure 7.4 attempts to show how Sacks
analyses this simple, everyday story in a way that makes visible the apparatus of how the activity
of describing is done and done recognizably.

Although Figure 7.4 has had to leave out much of the detail of Sacks’s analysis of the child’s
story, it shows what makes his analysis a sociological finding and not merely a reformulation of
any member’s description. Sacks shows how there is an intimate and unavoidable relationship
between the understandings and knowledge of the investigator and that of persons in everyday
life. Observations such as the mummy in the story is ‘heard’ as the mother of the baby and the
baby cried before its mother picked it up are reformulations of what anyone could say about this
story. There is nothing scientific in this because it produces nothing about the phenomenon we
did not already know. Sacks, however, produces findings about the ordering of interpretive
procedures (Schegloff, 1992: xxxvii) which make visible the apparatus employed to generate the
recognizable sense of the story and this apparatus was not known about prior to Sacks’s analysis:
it is therefore a finding. It is also a finding based on his research question about how ‘know-how’
is used by members engaged in social exchanges in ways that make them self-explicating, self-
describing commentaries on themselves. Psathas (1995) summarizes the distinctiveness of
Sacks’s position when he outlines the basic assumptions of conversation analysis.

Conversation analysis studies the order/organization/orderliness of social action,

particularly those actions that are located in everyday interaction, in discursive practices, in
the sayings/tellings/doings of members of society.
FIGURE 7.4 SACKS’S ANALYSIS OF THE ‘BABY CRIED’ STORY

Its basic assumptions are:

1 Order is a produced orderliness.

 2 Order is produced by the parties in situ; that is, it is situated and occasioned.

3 The parties orient to that order themselves; that is, this order is not an analyst’s conception,
not the result of the use of some preformed or preformulated theoretical conceptions
concerning what action should/must/ought to be, or based on generalizing or summarizing
statements about what action generally/frequently/often is.

4 Order is repeatable and recurrent.

5 The discovery, description, and analysis of that produced orderliness is the task of the
analyst.

6 Issues of how frequently, how widely, or how often particular phenomena occur are to be set
aside in the interests of discovering, describing, and analysing the structures, the machinery,
the organized practices, the formal procedures, the ways in which order is produced.

7 Structures of social action, once discerned, can be described and analysed in formal, that is,
structural, organizational, logical, atopically, contentless, consistent, and abstract, terms.
(1995: 3)

Although the methods of analysis Sacks left in his lectures and few published articles have not
entered mainstream social science, they have inspired a substantial amount of detailed empirical
analysis by those who have understood the logic of his project. Among his main achievements
were the ways he side-stepped any need to employ neo-Kantian epistemology of correspondence
that constructs a description to correct those produced by members. He sees as tragic (Watson,
1994: 176–7) that the work of Durkheim has been held as the model for social science. For
Sacks, Durkheim’s definition and operationalization of the concept of ‘suicide’ ignores the
commonsense category ‘suicide’. He argues that if the commonsense category is ignored, then
what Durkheim constructs for his analytic-theoretical purposes is a characterization for
theoretization: it solves the problem of theorizing about the phenomenon. Sacks’s position is
diametrically opposed to this position. His insistence on the need to understand the everyday use
of any category to make visible the interpretive procedures of the phenomenon is an essential
starting point for the description of social order. Sacks’s position is therefore irreconcilable with
that of the constructive analysis of Durkheim because, in the same way Durkheim’s analysis
makes everyday understandings disappear, so Sacks’s analysis makes Durkheim’s analysis
disappear. We therefore have two main approaches to doing social analysis, each of which are
not easily characterized, simplified or synthesized.

Neo-Kantian: in the context used here, to refer to Heinrich Rickert’s contention of there being an irreconcilable difference
between the natural and the social sciences, means social reality was too complex to be known by other than simple
categories and was incapable of generalization from the particular.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

In this chapter we have introduced some of the main, though by no means all, theorists who
 have contributed to the debates about the ontological and epistemological status of knowing
and knowledge. The space has been used to get across some of the points of reference in the
story of methodological choices. The language used is at times a little dense and cannot
always be used to definitively categorize someone as this rather than that. You may have
noticed, especially if you have looked at other books on research (for example, Anderson et
al., 1997), what is often called ‘the interpretative approach to research’. There is no section
labelled ‘interpretivist’ in this chapter. The reasons for this are that the exposition of the
debate between Parsons and Schutz served to introduce many of the key features of the
interpretivist approach. Their correspondence highlights the kinds of fundamental differences
which exist, and will continue to exist, among social scientists. Interestingly, when you read
the journals of the natural sciences, those dedicated to biology or chemistry, you see few
references to ontology and epistemology. You see debate over interpretation and method, but
no great worries about observations being dependent on theories. The key points that have
been made include:

The histories of the philosophy of science usually have very little to do with research, but
they can show us how to understand and develop abilities in argumentation and logical
reasoning.

Individual theorists such as Popper and Feyerabend show us that there are often ethical
and political aspects to recommendations about the nature of science and that these are
usually allied to the promotion of democracy.

Challenge, where possible, the boundaries and core assumptions of whatever discipline
you work in. In this way you will become more aware of the strengths, weaknesses and
opportunities for your discipline and will enhance your abilities to understand other
disciplines and their core assumptions.

Textbooks are not normally a reliable source for getting to know what something is
because they are only representative stories which sometimes attempt to make systematic
that which is fragmented and occasional. There is no substitute for going and looking at
the behaviour of those people you are interested in (or even living as they do), if you
want to experience the essence of their existence. Hence you cannot know what research
is until you do some yourself.

Further reading
Crotty, M. (1998) The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. London: Sage. Brings
a degree of clarity to the complex relationships between epistemology, ontology theory methodology and methods.

Hughes, J. and Sharrock, W. (1997) The Philosophy of Social Research. 3rd edn. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman. A sound
companion to Smith (1998) (see below), providing a thorough overview of the complexities of the relationship between
philosophy and social research.

Ryan, A. (1970) The Philosophy of the Social Sciences. London: Macmillan. Still one of the most sophisticated introductions to
the problems and issues facing the social sciences.
Slife, B.D. and Williams, R.N. (1995) What’s Behind the Research: Discovering Hidden Assumptions in the Behavioral Sciences.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. A systematic exposition of many much-used yet not stated assumptions in psychology.

Smith, M. (1998) Social Science in Question. London: Open University/Sage. One of the most comprehensive introductions to
the methodological issues for social scientists and researchers. With many diagrams and illustrations to show the consequence
of different approaches.
 8

Methodological choices and consequences

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• STUDIES OF FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS • GODDARD’S STUDY OF THE KALLIKAK

FAMILY • GODDARD’S RECOMMENDATIONS • CONSEQUENCES OF THE
KALLIKAK FAMILY STUDY • THE ISSUES • CRIMINAL TYPES • LOMBROSO’S
RESEARCH AND THEORY • CONSEQUENCES OF LOMBROSO’S THEORIES • THE
ISSUES • THE UNIVERSALITY OF MIND • STRUCTURAL STUDY OF CULTURES •
THE STRUCTURE OF MYTH • ANALYSING MYTHS • SUMMARY OF LÉVI-
STRAUSS’S ARGUMENT • CONSEQUENCES OF LÉVI-STRAUSS’S
STRUCTURALISM • THE ISSUES • STUDIES OF THE SELF IN COMMUNITIES • THE
SELF IN SITUATIONS • MANAGING THE SELF IN EXTREME SITUATIONS •
CONSEQUENCES AND ISSUES OF GOFFMAN’S METHODOLOGICAL
BEHAVIOURISM • STUDIES OF PRACTICAL ACTIONS • GARFINKEL’S STUDY OF
AGNES • CONSEQUENCES OF GARFINKEL’S EXPLICATION • THE ISSUES •
MATTERS OF METHODOLOGICAL RELEVANCE • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER •
FURTHER READING

A key question about methodological traditions that is often asked by research students is, ‘What
does it matter which approach we use?’ In normal masters research it does not matter which
research tradition you have a preference for. But you must be able to demonstrate in your
discussions of the research literature that you understand the terrain of the philosophical
traditions, what the consequences can be of using those traditions as a starting point for your
research and argue convincingly for your preferences. In this chapter we will look at some of the
consequences of research done in different methodological traditions. We are going to look at
five cases of research and, with each, describe the research and highlight some of its
consequences and issues. There is space only for five, if we are to look seriously at them; you
can, no doubt use the library and find many more pieces of research and theorists to examine for
yourself. We cannot look at every aspect, but pull out from these cases some of the main
consequences and issues of doing research. The purpose of this chapter is, then, to think about
the nature of research as an activity that embodies the aims of the researcher and in so doing their
values, biography and their ontological and epistemological assumptions – as their strategy for
their research. Following on from the previous chapter, this chapter looks at the following
questions:

1 How do researchers use methodological assumptions to design a research strategy and

project?

2 How do methodological assumptions have consequences?

3 When used as the starting point for research, what kinds of issues do certain
methodological assumptions raise for consideration?

The theorists and their work reported on in this chapter represent some of the main
methodological alternatives in the social sciences and are intended to show the complexity of the
choices available to you. The first two theorists (Goddard and Lombroso) show the use of an
early positivist and realist set of methodological assumptions within a closed systems approach.
They show the use of an externalist approach to producing categorizations in the role of
predicting behaviours. The study of the third theorist (Lévi-Strauss) also shows application of a
realist set of methodological assumptions, but a much more sophisticated one than the others. It
shows the basic assumptions on which many ‘structuralist’ approaches are based and how
analysis of cultural artefacts has been used to ‘uncover’ hidden mechanisms of the mind. The
fourth theorist (Goffman) shows the use of an idealist (or specifically a version of neo-Kantian)
set of methodological assumptions. It shows how behaviour can be observed from the standpoint
of the naturalist and co-existing interpretations of a behaviour produced. The final theorist
(Garfinkel) shows how the issues surrounding the comparisons between internalist and
externalist, realist and idealist can be side-stepped to produce detailed analysis of how people
continually produce the objective sense of their world.

It is not being recommended that you follow any of these approaches, but use them to develop
your understanding of how methodological assumptions are used to create a research strategy.
Although some of these examples may, at first, seem a little difficult, bear with them. By doing
so you will soon expand your ability to think methodologically and better navigate your way
through whatever methodological literature your own research will use.

Studies of feeble-mindedness
Henry H. Goddard (1866–1957), the American psychologist, is best known for his work on the
inheritability of intelligence. Influenced by Mendelian genetics, his interest was in ‘morons’ –
defined by Goddard as ‘high grade defectives’ – and he believed that ‘feeble-mindedness’ was
the result of a single recessive gene. Morons, according to Goddard, lacked self-control, making
them susceptible to sexual immorality and vulnerable to other individuals who might exploit
them for use in criminal activity (Goddard, 1912: 54–6).
In 1906, Goddard began research as the director of research of the ‘Vineland Training School,
New Jersey, for feeble-minded boys and girls’. Applying the Binet–Simon measuring scale
(Binet was the originator of the IQ test), he sent research assistants into the homes of families
identified as feeble-minded to learn what they could about the history of the family through
questioning (1912: vii). Of the 300 families studied, the Kallikak family remains the most
famous. The name ‘Kallikak’ is a pseudonym created by Goddard from the Greek words Kallos
(beauty) and Kakos (bad). The two-part name was meant to indicate that the Kallikak family was
divided into two strains, one ‘good’ and one ‘bad’, both of which originated from a common
progenitor, Martin Kallikak, senior. Goddard published his research in journal articles and books,
the most famous being The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-mindedness
(1912) and Feeble-Mindedness: Its Causes and Consequences (1914).

GODDARD’S STUDY OF THE KALLIKAK FAMILY

Goddard’s study of the Kallikak family was largely based on a genealogy of the two parts of the
family: the ‘bad’ or feeble-minded, and the ‘good’ or normal. The starting point was with Martin
Kallikak, senior. When he was a young soldier, he had a liaison with an ‘unnamed, feeble-
minded tavern girl’. Martin Kallikak, junior, was the result and he displayed the Kakos (bad)
strain and it was from him that the feeble-mindedness of the Kallikak family descended. Martin
Kallikak, senior, later married a Quaker woman from a so-called good family and from this the
Kallos (beauty) line descended. The basic influence of this can be seen in Figure 8.1, part of the
family tree drawn by Goddard. On the side of Martin Kallikak, junior, Goddard identified
‘generations’ of ‘mental defectives’ who were characterized by (in Goddard’s words)
illegitimacy, prostitution, alcoholism, epilepsy and lechery. Figure 8.1 also shows that the other
side of the family exhibited opposite traits. Goddard argued that the differences between the two
branches of the family were due to the different genetic input from Martin Kallikak, senior’s two
partners – the women (1912: 105–6).

FIGURE 8.1 KALLIKAK FAMILY TREE.

Source: Goddard, 1912: Chart II, p. 37.

The genealogical chart shown in Figure 8.1 is based on 24 family trees (Goddard, 1912: 37) with
N = normal, F = feeble-minded, A = alcoholic, Sx = sexually immoral and EA = epileptic
alcoholic, with circles being females and squares males.

GODDARD’S RECOMMENDATIONS
On the basis of his study Goddard made a number of recommendations about what could and
should be done about feeble-minded persons. The following extract, although long, illustrates
very well his argument for his recommendations.

Chapter V What is to be done?

No one interested in the progress of civilization can contemplate the facts presented in the
previous chapters without having the question arise, Why isn’t something done about this?
It will be more to the point if we put the question, Why do we not do something about it?
We are thus face to face with the problem in a practical way and we ask ourselves the next
question, What can we do? For the low-grade idiot, the loathsome unfortunate that may be
seen in our institutions, some have proposed the lethal chamber. But humanity is steadily
tending away from the possibility of that method, and there is no probability that it will ever
be practiced. But in view of such conditions as are shown in the defective side of the
Kallikak family, we begin to realize that the idiot is not our greatest problem. He is indeed
loathsome; he is somewhat difficult to take care of; nevertheless, he lives his life and is
done. He does not continue the race with a line of children like himself. Because of his very
low-grade condition, he never becomes a parent. It is the moron type that makes for us our
great problem. And when we face the question, ‘What is to be done with them – with such
people as make up a large proportion of the bad side of the Kallikak family?’ we realize that
we have a huge problem.

The career of Martin Kallikak Sr. is a powerful sermon against sowing wild oats … Even
the people of his generation, however much they may have known about the circumstances,
could not have begun to realize the evil that had been done. Undoubtedly, it was only
looked upon as a sin because it was a violation of the moral law. The real sin of peopling
the world with a race of defective degenerates who would probably commit his sin a
thousand times over, was doubtless not perceived or realized. It is only after the lapse of six
generations that we are able to look back, count up and see the havoc that was wrought by
that one thoughtless act. Now that the facts are known, let the lesson be learned; let the
sermons be preached; let it be impressed upon our young men of good family that they dare
not step aside for even a moment. Let all possible use be made of these facts, and something
will be accomplished… Had Martin Kallikak remained in the paths of virtue, there still
remained the nameless feeble-minded girl, and there were other people, other young men,
perhaps not of as good a family as Martin, perhaps feeble-minded like herself, capable of
the same act and without Martin’s respectability, so that the race would have come down
even worse if possible than it was, because of having a worse father.

When we conclude that had the nameless girl been segregated in an institution, this
defective family would not have existed, we of course do not mean that one single act of
precaution, in that case, would have solved the problem, but we mean that all such cases,
male and female, must be taken care of, before their propagation will cease. The instant we
grasp this thought, we realize that we are facing a problem that presents two great
difficulties; in the first place the difficulty of knowing who are the feeble-minded people;
and, secondly, the difficulty of taking care of them when they are known.

A large proportion of those who are considered feeble-minded in this study are persons who
would not be recognized as such by the untrained observer. They are not the imbeciles nor
idiots who plainly show in their countenances the extent of their mental defect. They are
people whom the community has tolerated and helped to support, at the same time that it
has deplored their vices and their inefficiency. They are people who have won the pity
rather than the blame of their neighbours, but no one has seemed to suspect the real cause of
their delinquencies, which careful psychological tests have now determined to be feeble-
mindedness. The second difficulty is that of caring for this large army of people. At the
lowest estimates of the number needing care, we in the United States are at present caring
for approximately one tenth of the estimated number of our mental defectives. Yet many of
our States think that they are now being over-taxed for the care of these people, so that it is
with great difficulty that legislatures can be induced to appropriate money enough to care
for those already in institutions. It is impossible to entertain the thought of caring for ten
times as many. Some other methods must be devised for dealing with the difficulty.

Before considering any other method, the writer would insist that segregation and
colonization is not by any means as hopeless a plan as it may seem to those who look only
at the immediate increase in the tax rate. If such colonies were provided in sufficient
number to take care of all the distinctly feeble-minded cases in the community, they would
very largely take the place of our present almshouses and prisons, and they would greatly
decrease the number in our insane hospitals. Such colonies would save an annual loss in
property and life, due to the action of these irresponsible people, sufficient to nearly, or
quite, offset the expense of the new plant. Besides, if these feeble-minded children were
early selected and carefully trained, they would become more or less self-supporting in their
institutions, so that the expense of their maintenance would be greatly reduced.

The other method proposed of solving the problem is to take away from these people the
power of procreation. In recent years surgeons have discovered another method which has
many advantages. This is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as asexualization. It is more
properly spoken of as sterilization … The operation itself is almost as simple in males as
having a tooth pulled. In females it is not much more serious … Objection is urged that we
do not know the consequences of this action upon the physical, mental, and moral nature of
the individual … A more serious objection to this last method comes from a consideration
of the social consequences. What will be the effect upon the community in the spread of
debauchery and disease through having within it a group of people who are thus free to
gratify their instincts without fear of consequences in the form of children? The indications
are that here also the evil consequences are more imaginary than real, since the feeble-
minded seldom exercise restraint in any case.

Taking this family as a whole, we have the following figures: there were 41 matings where
both parents were feeble-minded. They had 222 feeble-minded children, with two others
that were considered normal. These two are apparent exceptions to the law that two feeble-
minded parents do not have anything but feebleminded children. We may account for these
 two exceptions in one of several ways. Either there is a mistake in calling them normal or a
mistake in calling the parents feeble-minded; or else there was illegitimacy somewhere and
these two children did not have the same father as the others of the family. Or we may turn
to the Mendelian law and we discover that according to that law there might be in rare
instances such a combination of circumstances that a normal child might be born from two
parents that function as feeble-minded. For practical purposes it is, of course, pretty clear
that it is safe to assume that two feeble-minded parents will never have anything but feeble-
minded children.

From all of this the one caution follows. At best, sterilization is not likely to be a final
solution of this problem. We may, and indeed I believe must, use it as a help, as something
that will contribute toward the solution, until we can get segregation thoroughly established.
But in using it, we must realize that the first necessity is the careful study of the whole
subject, to the end that we may know more both about the laws of inheritance and the
ultimate effect of the operation. (1912: Internet edition)

Goddard, as the director of an institution for the training of persons categorized as

‘feebleminded, was in an ideal position to undertake extensive research over a number of years.
Yet what dominates his published studies is an argument he returns to again and again. The key
points of this argument are: feeble-minded people were ‘multiplying at twice the rate of the
general population’ (1912: 71); thus producing ‘more feebleminded children with which to clog
the wheels of human progress’ (1912: 78); unable to control themselves, feeble-minded people
were the principal cause of many social problems, including crime and illegitimacy; and as no
amount of education or training could change a feeble-minded person into a normal one,
rehabilitation is not an option. Within this argument there is the claim that doing nothing will
cost taxpayers more in the long term than doing something in the short term. The logical
conclusions Goddard arrives at are based on his argument, which he states in the following way:

The Kallikak family presents a natural experiment in heredity. A young man of good family
becomes through two different women the ancestor of two lines of descendants – the one
characterized by thoroughly good, respectable, normal citizenship, with almost no
exceptions; the other being equally characterized by mental defect in every generation. This
defect was transmitted through the father in the first generation. In later generations, more
defect was brought in from other families through marriage. In the last generation it was
transmitted through the mother, so that we have here all combinations of transmission,
which again proves the truly hereditary character of the defect. We find on the good side of
the family prominent people in all walks of life and nearly all of the 496 descendants
owners of land or proprietors. On the bad side we find paupers, criminals, prostitutes,
drunkards, and examples of all forms of social pest with which modern society is burdened.

From this we conclude that feeble-mindedness is largely responsible for these social sores.
Feeble-mindedness is hereditary and transmitted as surely as any other character. We cannot
successfully cope with these conditions until we recognize feeble-mindedness and its
hereditary nature, recognize it early, and take care of it.

In considering the question of care, segregation through colonization seems in the present
state of our knowledge to be the ideal and perfectly satisfactory method. Sterilization may
 be accepted as a makeshift, as a help to solve this problem because the conditions have
become so intolerable. But this must at present be regarded only as a makeshift and
temporary, for before it can be extensively practiced, a great deal must be learned about the
effects of the operation and about the laws of human inheritance. (Goddard, 1912: Internet
edition)

CONSEQUENCES OF THE KALLIKAK FAMILY STUDY

Goddard’s books were very popular until the mid-1930s, due partly to the presentation of the
genealogies and detailed case studies. As a landmark the Kallikak study in heredity was
influential, leading to compulsory sterilization laws being passed in 30 US states by 1941.
Contributing to this popularity was the large number of immigrants from Europe. In 1913
Goddard was invited to Ellis Island to give advice and help in detecting morons among the newly
arrived immigrants from Europe. In his ‘Mental tests and the immigrant’ (1917) he asserted that
most of the Ellis Island immigrants were mentally deficient. He stated that 83 per cent of the
Jews, 80 per cent of the Hungarians, 79 per cent of the Italians and 87 per cent of the Russians
tested were feeble-minded. Goddard’s work influenced the US Immigration Restriction Act,
passed in 1924 (which remained until 1965).

The original German edition of The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of
FeebleMindedness (Die Familie Kallikak) was printed in 1914 and reprinted in 1933, shortly
after the Nazis came to power. Goddard’s research was used to justify state-sponsored ‘ethnic
cleansing’, even though he never intended such use or had any connections with Nazism. In 1938
and 1939 he tried to use his name to help the daughter of a Jewish colleague escape from Austria
(Zenderland, 1998: 333–5). Even though Goddard made several public declarations stating he
had reversed many of his opinions about feeble-minded persons (Goddard, 1927: 41–6),
psychology textbooks as late as 1961 (Garrett and Bonner) still provided summaries of
Goddard’s earlier recommendations and praised his research for the ways in which it gave
support for the eugenicist movement.

Francis Galton (1822–1911) coined the word ‘eugenics’ (1883), meaning ‘good birth’. A cousin of Darwin, he believed a
better breed of humans was possible by allowing only ‘higher order’ humans to reproduce.

THE ISSUES
Goddard’s general argument and assumptions are not particular to him; these kinds of views and
opinions, along with the language and categorizations, were in common usage in the late
nineteenth and into the first half of the twentieth centuries. Words and phrases such as ‘feeble-
mindedness’, ‘idiocy’, ‘retard’, ‘savage’, ‘stupid’, ‘cretinism’, ‘degenerate’ and others are not
acceptable now for everyday use or as scientific descriptions. This is not only because of the
stigmatizing connotations these words have as labels, but as concepts they are extremely difficult
to operationalize. Goddard’s procedure was based largely on maintaining that a trained observer
could recognize the manifestations of feeble-mindedness; these included poverty, drunkenness,
prostitution and other forms of ‘immorality’. The context, that is, the social environment of such
behaviours (placing to one side all definitions of them as unacceptable for now), is not seriously
acknowledged by Goddard. The economics of poverty, of its causes in economic systems, of
typical reactions to it, are sidelined. Prostitution, the need to earn a living in a welfareless
society, the largely middle-class customers for fee-based sex, are similarly not acknowledged.
The reason for this is that Goddard’s explanatory frame of reference is hereditary; he firmly
believed in nature over nurture as the main causal determinant of human behaviour. His idea of
demonstrating this using the genealogy of the Kallikak family can generally be said to be
innovative for the time. This was one of the first longitudinal studies conducted and did, to some
degree, conform to notions about what the correlational comparative method might consist of.
He had an extensive data set, a large number of living subjects, a set of variables and a theory.
The main issue with his results is that he used the genetic frame of reference, to the exclusion of
all others, for his observations, measurements and interpretations. His work on testing the
intelligence (whatever this may be taken to be) of newly arrived immigrants to the United States
excluded consideration of the context for the tests. These were peoples from many parts of the
world, many of whom could not speak English, and who were probably disoriented, as is
common with immigrants. A long sea voyage, followed by official processing by persons in
police and medical uniforms, was not conducive to the ‘objectivity’ Goddard claimed for his
tests. This illustrates the issues of employing a closed system of research that relies on a priori
assumptions.

Criminal types
Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), the Italian criminologist, is widely known for his studies which
attempt to explain criminal behavior by designating criminals as ‘types’, relating different types
to physical features of the individual. Lombroso assumed, following Darwin, that careful,
disciplined observation and detailed measurement of criminals would enable a classification of
criminal types to be constructed to aid in the identification of criminals before they committed a
crime.

Lombroso studied at the universities of Padua, Vienna and Paris (1862–76), and became
professor of psychiatry, forensic medicine and hygiene at the University of Pavia. From 1896 he
was professor of psychiatry and criminal anthropology (1906) at the University of Turin. He was
also the director of a mental asylum in Pesaro, Italy. His published work, Luomo delinquente
(The Criminal Man) (1912) and Le Crime, Causes et Remedies (1899), had a significant
influence on criminology in Europe and America. L’uomo delinquente was the most popular of
his publications and grew from 200 pages in the first edition to over 3,000 in its fifth. By the
1880s he had acquired the status of the leading expert in the theories of criminal physiology and
was often called to perform as expert witness – to assess the criminality of the accused based on
their physical features – at criminal trials.

LOMBROSO’S RESEARCH AND THEORY

Lombroso’s research was based on an examination that measured the physical characteristics of
400 Italian prisoners. Using mechanical and electrical equipment Lombroso measured and
recorded details of the prisoners’ skull shapes (using the craniograph), handwriting, tattoos, ears,
mouths, noses, arms, eyes, physical strength (using the dynamometer), walking, and the like.
Photographs were taken of prisoners and, according to their physical features and the nature of
their conviction, classified into criminal types. How the measurements were done is recorded in
detail along with advice on how to do an examination in Criminal Man (1912: 219–57). The
following list summarizes some of the main physical features which distinguish the criminal
type:

arms: excessive length compared with stature;

eyes: hard expression, shifty glance, dropping eyelids, eyes too close together;

eyebrows: bushy in murderers and violators of women;

ears: large size in relation to head, standing out from the face (like a chimpanzee);

nose: frequently twisted, up-turned or in thieves, flat and in murderers, like the beak
of a bird of prey;

mouth: general bony elevation, in violators of women, fleshy protruding lips and
swindlers, thin straight lips;

skull: adhesions, thickening of the meninges, especially on the left-hand side and
differences in brain cells;

tattooing: extensive body tattooing is indicative of vices; and

handwriting: shaky, zigzag letters, closeness of letters and words, dashing strokes
indicate differences between normal, criminal and lunatic.

Many of the physical features associated with violators of women and thieving are likened
to features found in dogs and apes and ‘Negroes’ (1912: 10–24). It is interesting to know
how Lombroso claims to have discovered the relationship between physicality and
criminality. While involved in a post-mortem on a criminal who died in the insane asylum
in Pavia, Lombroso says he noticed an abnormality common to apes and this: … was not
merely an idea but a revelation. At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see all of a sudden,
lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky the problem of the nature of the criminal
atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity
and inferior animals. (Sawyer, 1972: 63)

Lombroso’s insight led him, presumably, to his research topic and the subjects he measured. In
Criminal Man he makes a series of statements which encapsulate his major theory:

The criminal is an atavistic being, a relic of a vanished race. This is by no means an

uncommon occurrence in nature. Atavism, the reversion to a former state, is the first feeble
indication of the reaction opposed by nature to the perturbing causes which seek to alter her
delicate mechanism. Under certain unfavourable conditions, cold or poor soil, the common
oak will develop characteristics of the oak of the Quaternary period. The dog left to run
wild in the forest will in few generations revert to the type of his original wolf-like
progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the
 form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform,
heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons become irritable and savage like their wild
ancestors.

This tendency to alter under special conditions is common to human beings, in whom
hunger, syphilis, trauma, and, still more frequently, morbid conditions inherited from
insane, criminal, or diseased progenitors, or the abuse of nerve poisons, such as alcohol,
tobacco, or morphine, cause various alterations, of which criminality – that is, a return to
the characteristics peculiar to primitive savages …

The aetiology of crime, therefore, mingles with that of all kinds of degeneration: rickets,
deafness, monstrosity, hairiness, and certain cretinism, of which crime is only a variation …
Heredity is the principal organic cause of criminal tendencies. It may be divided into two
classes: indirect heredity from a genetically degenerate family with frequent cases of
insanity, deafness, syphilis, epilepsy, and alcoholism among its members; direct heredity
from criminal parentage. (Lombroso, 1912: 135–7)

CONSEQUENCES OF LOMBROSO’S THEORIES

The practical implication of Lombroso’s findings was that criminal types could be identified
before they committed any crime. Even if a cure was not possible, prevention was. Although
Lombroso discusses the alternative penalties for convicted criminals, his main position was that
as biology is the determining factor in most criminality, criminals should not be held responsible
for their actions. He argues therefore that society should not punish those who are driven by
biology and who cannot make distinctions between what is morally right and wrong. Punishment
should only be administered to those criminals who violate the rules of society by choice and
who could, knowing the punishment, be deterred. The atavistic criminal was to be seen as a
degenerate and not considered fully human or civilized, even if they looked so. Criminals could
seem normal to ordinary people, but the trained criminal physiologist could detect them: the
professional analyst was therefore to be accorded a privileged position as one who could detect
what others could not.

In many criminal trials Lombroso was called as an expert witness. In the case of a French woman
being tried for murder, Lombroso was sent her picture. In his opinion she was abnormal due her
round, small skull, flat forehead and virile expression on her face. He classified her as an
hysterical epileptic with cretin features, susceptible to commit crime when under the influence of
alcohol. Other doctors in the case had concluded that her ‘victims’ had died of natural causes.
The court therefore made attempts to think of ways in which she could have made this seem to
be the case because she was a criminal type and therefore must be guilty (The Times, 1908: 7).

THE ISSUES
Lombroso’s research attempts to confirm the existence of biological determinism by invoking a
theory he relates to Darwin’s ideas of evolution. The Origin of Species had and continues to have
an extraordinary impact on the ways in which we understand the world, especially how we
account for the diversity of what we can see. Lombroso’s work is one among many from this
period which attempted to uncover the laws of human behaviour, but began with the
preconceived notion that there existed different categories of behaviour, some of which were
unacceptable. His work is based on assumptions about what is acceptable and what is not
acceptable; it is, therefore, based on a moral standpoint. Although not clearly defined, the
differences between criminality and deviance are not thought to be important, nor is there any
acknowledgement of the cultural and temporal relativity of behaviour. Abnormal behaviour
which he regards as deviant or criminal is pathological by default and is correspondingly a social
problem. Classification of the elements by which pathology can be observed is the method he
employed to produce a catalogue for the prediction and explanation of deviant types.
Classification of human behaviour, as with everything else, is a common activity across the
natural and social sciences and is predicated, to a large degree, on commonsensical ways in
which we generalize an object, event or behaviour in everyday life by using an abstraction into
which to place them.

Applying the procedures of detailed measurement gave Lombroso the method for confirming
what were already commonly held assumptions about deviance and criminality: that some groups
of people displayed atavistic features which showed them to be less developed in terms of the
social and intellectual development of persons such as Lombroso and ‘society’. Applying
positivistic ideas to produce a scientific catalogue of atavistic features may have been done to
ensure that those categorized as criminal or deviant were seen not to be responsible for their own
behaviour and therefore any punishment should fit the person and not the crime. In its time, and
for several decades later, this was generally the understanding and rationale for such research; it
was about providing the means for social reform in the form of benevolent intervention. This
may mean the segregation of criminals from ‘normal’ society in colonies because for some,
whose atavistic development was too chronic, there could be no reformation of their behaviour.
The method and these assumptions found a believing audience, especially among the social
reformers, from across the political spectrum, including some from the Fabian Society. The
method gave legitimacy to classifying persons, assessing them according to their features and
predicting what could and could not be done on their behalf. This was early social work that had
the aim of ridding society of an illness, sharing many of the same methods of measurement as
research into poverty and educability. Those subject to its help were, as a matter of course,
denied any voice, for they were being ‘helped’ for something that was not their fault, but for
which the science of criminology had a solution.

The universality of mind

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–), the French anthropologist, is widely known for his work on the
structural analysis of culture, especially kinship and myths. Influenced by structural linguistics,
Lévi-Strauss argued that Western cultures are neither superior nor unique and that the human
mind is everywhere essentially the same. It is this universality of the mind, he attempted to
demonstrate, through his analysis of myths, what makes human beings essentially the same. Any
culture can be seen as a system of communication that can be reduced into its constituent
elements and the structural relationships between those elements identified, thereby allowing
structures to be uncovered and the principles of their operation described.
Lévi-Strauss undertook a substantial amount of fieldwork studying the indigenous peoples of
South and North America. Educated in philosophy and law at the University of Paris (1927–32),
Lévi-Strauss taught sociology at São Paulo University, Brazil (1934–37) and at the New School
of Social Research, New York (1941–45). In 1948 he was appointed professor at the Institute
d’Ethnologie, University of Paris, and after 1959 was Director of Studies at the Collège de
France. From a prodigious output his most popular and notable writings include: Tristes
Topiques (1955, tr. 1992), The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949, tr. 1969), The Savage
Mind (1962, tr. 1966), Structural Anthropology (1958, tr. 1963) and The Raw and the Cooked
(1964, tr. 1990).

STRUCTURAL STUDY OF CULTURES

The work of Lévi-Strauss is a systematic and detailed attempt to demonstrate, through the formal
analysis of anthropological exhibits (myths, kinship, art), that the human mind is everywhere the
same. He argues that Nature has an order, even though it may not be directly observable, and as
the human Mind is a part of Nature, it too must share some of the properties of order found in
Nature. Lévi-Strauss’s work has an overriding concern with the ‘structure’ of the human mind: a
structure that is a quality rather than an empirically observable object. The structure of the mind
is like, he argues, a set of mathematical equations which can tell us many things about, for
example, the strength, weight, trajectory, endurance and the like of constructions even before
they have been created. The mind, like mathematical equations, does not have empirical
existence but can be used to model the structural relationships between the elements of most
things actual or capable of being conceived. The basis for this is the ways in which humans
constantly look to order through categorization the things they encounter through their senses.
All input into the brain is, according to Lévi-Strauss, subjected to arrangement into categories
which are present in Nature:

Starting from an ethnographic experience, I have always aimed at drawing up an inventory

of mental patterns, to reduce apparently arbitrary data to some kind of order, and to a level
at which a kind of necessity becomes apparent, underlying delusions of Liberty.

Mythology has no obvious practical function: … it is not directly linked with any kind of
reality, which is endowed with a higher degree of objectivity than its own and whose
injunctions it might therefore transmit to minds that seemed perfectly free to indulge their
creative spontaneity. And so, if it were possible to prove in this instance, too, that the
apparent arbitrariness of the mind, its supposedly spontaneous flow of inspiration, and its
seemingly uncontrolled inventiveness imply the existence of laws operating at a deeper
level, we would inevitably be forced to conclude that when the mind is left to communicate
with itself and no longer has to come to terms with objects, it is in a sense reduced to
imitating itself as object; and that since the laws governing its operations are not
fundamentally different from those it exhibits in its other functions, it shows itself to be the
nature of a thing among things … since it is enough to establish the conviction that if the
human mind appears determined even in the realm of mythology, a fortiori it must also be
determined in all its spheres of activity.

In allowing myself to be guided by the search for the constraining structures of the mind, I
am proceeding in the manner of Kantian philosophy, although along different lines leading
 to different conclusions. The ethnologist … instead of assuming a universal form of human
understanding … prefers to study empirically collective forms of understanding, whose
properties have been solidified, as it were, and are revealed to him in countless concrete
representational systems … he chooses those that seemed to him to be the most markedly
divergent, in the hope that the methodological rules he will have to evolve in order to
translate these systems in terms of his own system and vice versa, will reveal a pattern of
basic and universal laws … my ambition being to discover the conditions in which systems
of truths become mutually convertible and therefore simultaneously acceptable to several
different subjects, the pattern of those conditions takes on the character of an autonomous
object, independent of any subject.

I believe that mythology, more than anything else, makes it possible to illustrate such
objectified thought and to provide empirical proof of its reality … it is the same with myths
as with language: the individual who conscientiously applied phonological and grammatical
laws in his speech, supposing he possessed the necessary knowledge and virtuosity to do so,
would nevertheless lose the thread of his ideas almost immediately. In the same way the
practice and the use of mythological thought demand that its properties remain hidden:
otherwise the subject would find himself in the position of the mythologist who cannot
believe in myths because it is his task to take them to pieces … [and] claims to show, not
how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware
of the fact. (1970: 10–12)

Consequently, humankind, who created culture, divides everything around them into groups or
classes (Leach, 1970: 21). When they construct the artificial things of culture, they actually try to
imitate Nature: ‘the products of our culture are segmented and ordered in the same way as we
suppose the products of Nature to be segmented and ordered’ (Leach, 1970: 21). Lévi-Strauss
believes that by studying these classifications and the way humans use them, much can be learnt
about the human brain and the way ‘it’ thinks. Humans are able to communicate through signs
and language, due to the structural characteristics of the human mind. Through binary
discriminations the mind divides things into sub-classes, then divides each of these further into
an X and non-X, and so on, thereby creating a system of ‘relations’ and forming an algebraic
matrix. The brain also operates in a similar way when it uses non-verbal elements of culture to
form a ‘sign’ language. Combined, these two processes form the ultimate relational system, or a
human culture. Thus, the human brain can think on a multidimensional level – metaphorically
and metonymically at the same time. Lévi-Strauss believes this mental process extends to all
means of communication, including myth.

THE STRUCTURE OF MYTH

If, according to Lévi-Strauss, the structure of human minds is universal, so the structures of
cultural items that come from it, such as myths, are universal too. Hence he has a methodological
starting point:

In order to understand what a myth really is, must we choose between platitude and
sophism? Some claim that human societies merely express, through their mythology,
fundamental feelings common to the whole of mankind, such as love, hate, or revenge or
that they try to provide some kind of explanations for phenomenon which they cannot
 otherwise understand – astronomical, meteorological, and the like. But why should these
societies do it in such elaborate and devious ways, when all of them are also acquainted
with empirical explanations? … Mythology confronts the student with a situation which at
first sight appears contradictory. On the one hand it would seem that in the course of a myth
anything is likely to happen. There is no logic, no continuity. Any characteristic can be
attributed to any subject; every conceivable relation can be found. With myth, everything
becomes possible. But on the other hand, this apparent arbitrariness is belied by the
astounding similarity between myths collected in widely different regions. Therefore the
problem: if the content of a myth is contingent, how do we explain the fact that myths
throughout the world are so similar? (1963: 207–8)

His analysis and interpretation of myths is a sustained and detailed attempt to demonstrate that
they are not just stories with meaningless sequences of events. Like cooking, they are cultural
creations which distinguish culture from nature, but also mediate the oppositions felt by humans.
They have a logical structure and are usually concerned with deep intellectual problems of the
human mind (Cuff et al., 1998: 211). These problems are circumstances in life that constantly
trouble humans and to which no ‘satisfactory, stable solutions’ can be found. Myths attempt to
resolve this unstable logical position by confronting contradictions and making it seem that
logical differences can be overcome. This is done through an intellectual ‘trick’. The real
message of the myth is concealed in a code, and the structure of the message creates a sense of
well-being in the intellectual structure of the brain. The mind feels the contradiction is somehow
resolved, even though it knows this is not really the case. The outcome of myths is to make the
problem easier to live with, and hence they are a form of ‘collective self-delusion’ (Cuff et al.,
1998: 217).

ANALYSING MYTHS
The procedures applied to a general version of a myth by Lévi-Strauss follow these four steps:

1 Split the myth into its separate incidents/events, or mythemes.

2 Group together similar mythemes in the vertical columns of a table.

3 Find what themes contrast with one another (the binary oppositions).

4 Look at what meanings these could carry for the myth as a whole.

Lévi-Strauss’s analysis of the Oedipus myth demonstrates this process more clearly. First of all,
he breaks the myth up into elements in a syntagmatic chain. He also focuses on the significance
of three of the characters’ names:

I. Kadmos seeks his sister Europa, ravished by Zeus.

II. Kadmos kills the dragon.

III. The Spartoi (men born as a result of sowing the dragon’s teeth) kill one
another.
 IV. Oedipus kills his father Laios.

V. Oedipus kills the Sphinx.

VI. Oedipus marries his mother Jokaste.

VII. Eteokles kills his brother Polyneikes.

VIII. Antigone buries her brother Polyneikes despite prohibition.

IX. Labdakos – father of Laios = Lame.

X. Laios – father of Oedipus = Left Side.

XI. Oedipus = Swollen Foot.

(1963: 206–31)

He acknowledges that the choice of these particular elements is arbitrary; it is not the narrative
that is important, but the structure. Lévi-Strauss’s next step is to put similar mythemes together
in a table (Table 8.1). Each of the columns represents a theme. Column I is the over-rating of
blood relations, which in its most extreme form is incest. In contrast column II reflects an under-
rating of blood relations, where offences are fratricide/patricide. The incidents in column III deny
the autochthonous nature of man through the destruction of the monsters, and in column IV show
the autochthonous nature of man through the limping Oedipus, symbolizing the emergence of
man from the earth. It is clear that I is the opposite of II, while III is the opposite of IV. Lévi-
Strauss puts this into the structure I: II:: III: IV. What this means is that I is to II what III is to IV.
From this Lévi-Strauss infers the function of the myth.
TABLE 8.1 GROUPING OF ELEMENTS OF THE OEDIPUS MYTH
Source: Adapted from Lévi-Strauss, 1963: 213–4.
FIGURE 8.2 LÉVI-STRAUSS’S AXES OF INITIAL AND FINAL STATES OF AFFAIRS IN ‘THE STORY OF
ASDIWAL’ (LÉVI-STRAUSS, 1958: 164)

Greek religion maintained that man was autochthonous. Therefore, there is a contradiction to be
mediated: there needs to be found a satisfactory transition between this theory and the knowledge
that humans are really born from the union of man and woman. This problem cannot be solved,
but the myth provides a kind of logical tool which relates the problem: born from one or two?
Thus the myth sets up the contradiction and then, by an intellectual trick, mediates it (Lévi-
Strauss, 1963: 216). This is just one example of Lévi-Strauss’s application of his methodology to
myth. He carries out a much deeper analysis of the myth of Asdiwal, but using the same
techniques. Another way of identifying binary oppositions, and from these inferring the meaning
of the myth’s message, is to pinpoint the main themes found in the initial state of affairs to
identify how the scenes contrast with each other. In other words, placing the syntag- matic axis
alongside the paradigmatic axis to see how the two are superimposed one upon the other. He
uses a diagram (shown in Figure 8.2) in The Story of Asdiwal to show the main codes allowing
us to infer a meaning from the myth.

Lévi-Strauss believes hidden meanings and structures are universal, a point he attempts to prove
in Mythologiques (1964–1968). He studies 813 myths which appear to be quite different on the
surface, but which, he argues, contain the same themes such as incest and patricide. Lévi-Strauss
also maintains that behind all this there is a similar message wrapped in code, and this shows that
many different myths are versions of the ‘same’ myth. As the message transcends the narrative,
the repetition of this and the underlying structure can be found in a wide variety of narratives.
Leach demonstrates this in his extension of Lévi-Strauss’s Oedipus myth, which attempts to
show that many different stories are simply ‘permutations of a single plot’: that ‘Greek
mythology as a whole constitutes a single “system” (language) and that each individual story is a
syntagm of the “system”’ (Leach, 1970: 69). He uses the schema shown in Figure 8.3 to show
that different incidents or individuals in the myths can fit into the overriding, general binary
oppositions.
FIGURE 8.3 LEACH’S MATRIX OF OPPOSITIONS IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY (LEACH, 1970)

SUMMARY OF LÉVI-STRAUSS’S ARGUMENT

If all these points are brought together an idea of Lévi-Strauss’s overall argument emerges.
Basically humans are both animal (Nature) and human (Culture), with a mediator in between to
join the two. This idea is taken from Freud, whose own ‘binary oppositions’ are id (animal) and
ego (human), which are mediated by the ‘super-ego’, the unconscious. For Lévi-Strauss the
divisions go into further subsections if considered from the individual’s point of view, with such
examples as family or tribe. To him this process is dialectical, as humans express these
categories in things like marriage and the structure of myth. Lévi-Strauss’s fundamental interest
is in looking at mediators which humans use to distinguish themselves as cultural, not animal.

The main thing that separates humans from animals is language. Rousseau commented that only
when humans are capable of using metaphor for comparison and contrast can they realize they
belong to a group (Glucksmann, 1974: 65). Hence the mediator for humans is metaphor. It is
language that makes this mental operation possible, due to its symbolic categorizations (Leach,
1970: 39). All humans use this method to create an orderly universe, and by transforming the
categories of nature into the social or cultural they themselves become mediators. Thus, it is the
ability of humans to use metaphor to express their categorization of nature that makes them
different from animals. To explain why humans are able to mediate, the difference between
animals and humans must be considered more carefully. Both humans and animals can
distinguish between things such as different species, dominance and submission, or what is and
is not edible. Humans are able to distinguish further using the rules of their culture, and this is
social status. This takes place within the unconscious, the structure of the brain, and is done to
allow the individual to fit in to the particular culture. Hence the animal level of distinction is
developed into social classifications (Glucksmann, 1974: 40).

As this behaviour is unconscious, humans are not aware of the constructions they are using to
convey different meanings. Lévi-Strauss believes all the different possible combinations
available in the unconscious are the equivalent of an algebraic matrix (Leach, 1970: 42).
Therefore, through using language and metaphor, humans have become capable of symbolic
thought, able to see signs, understand what they signify and use them as ‘things’ with which to
think. Animals can only respond to signals. In society the binary pairs are full of cultural
significances, and used in communication and exchange.

CONSEQUENCES OF LÉVI-STRAUSS’S STRUCTURALISM

In everything that Lévi-Strauss studied, his main concern is with the unconscious nature of
collective phenomenon. His approach is about making an attempt to uncover the thought
formation of human minds, which for him is universal. He is asking us to see his enterprise as a
catalogue of the ordering principles of human cultures:

The ensemble of a people’s customs has always its particular style; they form into systems.
I am convinced that the number of the systems is not unlimited and that the human
societies, like individual human beings (at play, in their dreams, or in moments of delirium),
never create absolutely: all they can do is to choose certain combinations from a repertoire
of ideas which it should be possible to reconstitute. For this, one must make an inventory of
all the customs which have been observed by oneself or others. With all of this, one could
eventually establish a sort of periodic chart of chemical elements, analogous to that devised
by Mendeleev. In this, all customs, whether the real or merely possible, would be grouped
by families and all that would remain for us to do would be to recognise those which
societies had, in point of fact, adopted. (1961: 6)

All cultural items come from these universal principles operating in our minds, and it is only the
particular environments and technology in which people find themselves that divide up human
beings. Hence, the universal principles are the same in Westerners as in South American Indians,
but Westerners, living in a technological environment, have overlaid our basic logic with special
logics required by our artificial conditions. Therefore, Lévi-Strauss studied unsophisticated
cultures such as South American Indians, whose thought processes were less hidden and whose
chief way of communicating them was through myth. Hence the source of meaning is not an
individual’s experience or understanding, but the signs and grammars, binary oppositions and
operations which govern language. The focus is therefore on the system that regulates and limits
what any individual can do with it. Whatever we say can, accordingly, only be a part of a system
we use. I can only say ‘I’ because I can use a system of language of which ‘I’ is a part.

Any analysis will not provide a description of the teller of the myth, but instead the structure,
which is not a ‘conscious contrivance’ of the teller. Each teller gives their own partial version of
the pattern of possibilities, so we can only understand the patterns and structure by seeing the
way they are worked out over the whole range of myths. As Cuff et al. state (1998: 217–18),
Lévi-Strauss is not looking to trace the cultural history of a myth, nor is he looking for patterns
that result from one individual’s ideas and beliefs. This would not be finding the true meaning;
this only originates from the system, which tells us significant things about the structures of the
human mind. He also believes that places, events, temporality and people in myths are the
reverse of those found in society because the relationship between fact and myth is dialectical.
Myths offer a way to contemplate the contradictions upon which society is formed; they do not
represent society (Glucksmann, 1974: 78).

THE ISSUES
Lévi-Strauss’s structural analysis rests ultimately on a version of realism. This is the idea that
knowledge, ideas and language must have some ‘real’ basis in the world. In its crude and main
form (‘empiricism’), it is the notion that our ideas and words refer to and get their meaning from
the fact they ‘correspond’ to real objects ‘out there’ in the world. Lévi-Strauss’s realism is much
more sophisticated than this. He recognizes that reality can be ‘cut up’ in many different ways.
Therefore it cannot be objects which determine our ideas. Yet our ideas must have some real
basis. What is it that is ‘real’ if it is not the objects our ideas describe? Lévi-Strauss’s solution (a
development of Kant) is to focus on the structure of our ideas. The logical organization of our
ideas is what, according to Lévi-Strauss, constitutes and guarantees their reality. But if structure
is ‘real’, where is this reality itself located? It is not located ‘out there’, argues Lévi-Strauss, nor
is it in language, for languages vary from one culture to the next. Lévi-Strauss needs some
crucial repository in which to locate ‘structure’ as a real thing and he finds it in the mind.
Therefore, in describing the structures of culture and language one is describing the ‘reality’ of
the mind. It is the mind which is ‘really real’; thus Lévi-Strauss has his absolute, his bedrock on
which reality (as we can know it) rests. The main issue for us is about the assumption of this kind
of realism. Does there have to be a bedrock upon which our ideas must rest, for those ideas to be
possible in the first place? If we accept that there must be, then we must also consider how we
can produce correct descriptions of this reality. Does the correctness of a description reside in its
reflecting of the ‘real structures’ which constitute the mind or is it judged in relation to rules and
standards for doing structuralist analysis? Lévi-Strauss’s realism takes in some difficult but very
interesting methodological questions; questions with which he was fully familiar and
demonstrated throughout his empirical work. Hence we have a body of work which can show us,
if we wish to follow his realist approach, how to conduct a structural analysis of culture.

Studies of the self in communities

Erving Goffman (1922–82), the Canadian sociologist, is known throughout the social sciences
for his anthropological studies of how the ‘self’ adapts to the problems of different social
environments. Strongly influenced by the ethnographic approach of the Chicago School of
sociology, European anthropology, the philosophy of William James and the pragmatists, and the
social psychology of George Herbert Mead, Goffman’s interest was in how individuals managed
information exchanges with others in a range of settings. For Goffman the individual self is
engaged in the management and co-ordination of encounters with other ‘selves’ to define, and
act in accordance with the situation (in an operating theatre or asylum).

Goffman gained his masters and doctorate in sociology and anthropology at the University of
Chicago (1949–53), spending some of this time doing anthropological field studies in the
Shetland Isles for his thesis and book, the Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (1959), which
is still in print and available in several languages. Before taking up a teaching post at the
University of California (1958–62), he was visiting scientist at the National Institute of Mental
Health, Bethesda; Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
was published in 1961. From 1962 until his death he taught at the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia. Goffman continued to write numerous articles and books of his studies, all of
which are well known, including: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963);
Behaviour in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (1963); Interaction
Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (1969); Relations in Public: Micro-Studies of the
Public Order (1971); and Frame Analysis: Essays on the Social Organization of Experience
(1974).

THE SELF IN SITUATIONS

All of Goffman’s studies share to a lesser or greater degree a concern to explicate the ways in
which people manage, as individuals in a collective, the sense of who they are, their worth and
identity. The self is a crucial part of human existence; it is about the self-worth one feels one has
and the degree to which others recognize that worth (status, recognition, respect). The self,
according to Goffman, needs to have something to belong to (community, collective, group,
team) and also something to resist. Goffman’s studies document the different ways persons
construct a sense of their self in the course of an interaction. The waiter, for example, moves
through the door separating the kitchen (back stage) from the diners and the dining area (front
stage). The move through the door exposes the waiter to different definitions of their self, who
they are. In the public arena the waiter becomes the ‘waiter’; who they are becomes irrelevant to
the diners; they expect, along with the waiter, that a particular pattern of social organization – an
interaction order – will ensue. Diners ascribe to themselves a sense of greater importance, as
persons to be served and shown respect. The servility expected of waiters does not mean they are
accepted without some resistance from the waiter. In the backroom of the kitchen the waiters can
mock the diners, telling stories and giving disrespectful impersonations of particular diners. This
example highlights one of Goffman’s analogies, the dramaturgical analogy. This describes
social interaction as if it were a performance in a theatre. People are actors who take on roles
according to the script; there are props, audiences and performances. In everyday life there are
back stages, where we can be ‘ourself’, and front stages, where we perform to give the
impression of being what we know will be expected (normative meanings). The individual is
never alone as the self is social in its construction, development and use. Goffman says that there
is the:

… back region with its tools for shaping the body, and the front region with its fixed props.
There will be a team of persons whose activity on stage in conjunction with available props
will constitute the scene from which the performed character’s self will emerge, and another
team, the audience, whose interpretive activity will be necessary for this enterprise. The self
is a product of all of these arrangements, and in all of its parts bears the marks of this
genesis. (1959: 253)

Goffman is therefore looking at interactions to explore the details of identities, group

relationships and the impact of the environment on the self. The self-identity a person has is
shaped by their interactions with others, through the exchange of information and environment,
which allows changing definitions of identity to be managed. The process of establishing and
knowing one’s identity is closely related to situations and especially ‘fronts’, which are seen as
relatively stable environments in which persons know what kind of information to project for
others to understand as being in agreement with the normative expectation of the setting. Co-
operation is collective representation which establishes the proper setting for appearances for the
social roles assumed by the participants. The role a participant assumes is ascribed particular
expectations and these are expected to be seen (communicated) by the others. Each actor
(participant) produces a performance by controlling what information (impression management)
they make available to be seen as exhibiting an appropriate role and attitude for the situation.

MANAGING THE SELF IN EXTREME SITUATIONS

In some extreme environments such as asylums for the mentally ill and disabled, prisons,
hospitals, boot camps and other ‘total institutions’ the front/back stage distinction and sense of
self is very different from that witnessed in everyday life. The total institution subjects the
inmate to a series of degradations, humiliations, abasements and invasions of the body which
show no concern for the person’s sense of self. The process of becoming an inmate is about
stripping away the person’s self so that they will submit to the behaviour of the institution. The
inmate is made to wear a uniform, is assigned a number and their behaviour documented in
detail. There is no back stage, only front, so there is nowhere to be one’s self. In Asylums,
Goffman describes in a series of essays different ways in which inmates of different total
institutions attempt to resist and protect their selves from stripping and transformation. He
describes inmates managing the tension between themselves as a self and the pressure of
definitions imposed upon them by the institution. Goffman’s description of inmates’ behaviour
includes examples of hoarding mundane objects such as pieces of string, tinfoil, combs, toilet
paper and letters – often carrying everything in their pockets – and having an obsessive
preoccupation with privacy. Objects they own take on a sacred character and when these are
threatened by other inmates or staff are defended beyond any ‘normal’ sense of their value. This
kind of behaviour is interpreted as ‘abnormal’ and as a symptom of the inmates’ mental illnesses.

Goffman, however, uses his descriptions to draw out the normality of the inmates’ behaviour.
Despite the seeming chaos of what they do, Goffman argues that from the inmates’ position their
behaviour makes sense:

When patients entered Central Hospital, especially if they were excited or depressed on
admission, they were denied a private, accessible place to store things. Their personal
clothing, for example, might be stored in a room that was beyond their discretionary use.
Their money was kept in the administration building, unobtainable without medical and/or
their legal agent’s permission. Valuable or breakables, such as false teeth, eyeglasses, wrist
watches, often an integral part of body image, might be locked up safely out of their
owner’s reach. Official papers of self-identification might also be retained by the institution.
Cosmetics, needed to present oneself properly to others, were collectivised, being made
accessible to patients only at certain times. On convalescent wards, bed boxes were
available, since they were unlocked they were subject to theft from other patients and from
staff, and in any case were often located in rooms locked to patients during the day.
 If people were selfless, or were required to be selfless, there would of course be a logic to
having no private storage place, as a British ex-mental patient suggests:

‘I looked for a locker, but without success. There appeared to be none in this hospital;
the reason soon became abundantly clear: they were quite unnecessary – we had
nothing to keep in them – everything being shared, even the solitary facecloth which
was used for a number of other purposes, a subject on which my feelings became very
strong.’

But all have some self. Given the curtailment implied by loss of places of safekeeping, it is
understandable that patients in Central Hospital developed places of their own.

It seemed characteristic of hospital life that the most common form of stash was one that
could be carried around on one’s person wherever one went. One such device for female
patients was a large handbag: a parallel technique for a man was a jacket with commodious
pockets, worn even in the hottest weather. While these containers are quite usual ones in the
wider community, there was a special burden placed upon them in the hospital: books,
writing materials, washcloths, fruit, small valuables, scarves, playing cards, soap, shaving
equipment (on the part of men), containers of salt, pepper, and sugar, bottles of milk – these
were some of the objects sometimes carried in this manner. So common was this practice
that one of the most reliable symbols of patient status in the hospital was bulging pockets.
Another portable storage device was a shopping bag lined with another shopping bag.
(When partly full, this … also served as a cushion and back rest.) Among men, a small stash
was sometimes created out of a long sock: by knotting the open end and twisting this end
around his belt, the patient could let a kind of moneybag inconspicuously hang down inside
his trouser leg. Individual variations of these portable containers were also found. One
young engineering graduate fashioned a purse out of disregarded oilcloth, the purse being
stitched into separate, well-measured compartments for comb, toothbrush, cards, writing
paper, soap, small face cloth, toilet paper – the whole attached by a concealed clip to the
underside of his belt.

The same patient had also sewn an extra pocket on the inside of his jacket to carry a book.
Another male patient, an avid newspaper reader, invariably wore a suit jacket, apparently to
conceal his newspapers, which he carried folded over his belt. Still another made effective
use of a cleaned-out tobacco pouch for transporting food: whole fruit, unpeeled, could
easily be put in one’s pocket to be taken to the ward from the cafeteria, but cooked meat
was better carried in a grease-proof stash. (1968: 222–4)

The inmates are struggling against the pressures of the institution to transform their identities by
holding on to and preserving some portion of familiar objects. In doing so they are reacting to
their environment by making adjustments to their self in ways that do not challenge the authority
of the institution. By holding on to a familiar object, no matter how insignificant to the
institution, they are maintaining a hold on to their own identity by exercising some (although
small) control over their environment and the information they project. Possession of objects
comes to stand for and communicates to other inmates their ability to resist the administration of
the institution. If ownership signifies a sense of self, then even the most mundane objects take on
a sacred value and are therefore protected; inmates, if they have nowhere secure to keep their
‘things’, carry them about in their pockets. The objects are given value by the inmates, as a
collectivity. Having had control over their personal details, their information, taken away – often
by close relatives and trusted significant others (betrayal funnel) – the inmate’s progress towards
social isolation (moral career) and acceptance of different standards by which to judge oneself
and others is begun. Rather than assuming that such behaviours are symptoms and confirmation
of illness, Goffman assumes they are rational reactions, what anyone would normally do in the
situation and circumstances of institutional life.

CONSEQUENCES AND ISSUES OF GOFFMAN’S METHODOLOGICAL

BEHAVIOURISM
The way Goffman chooses to make the interaction order visible is in his story-cum-vignette-like
descriptions. His stories are fascinating and carry the reader along, but he offers nothing in terms
of proof for his observations. There are no hypotheses, research questions, inferences or a
formulation of his research as a coherent project. The different books seem to be about the same
thing, but do not provide any clear statements saying how they are related. For some people this
can be frustrating, for they want to know just what all of this means and what value it has for
research and understanding. Goffman could, therefore, be seen as providing little more than
interesting, non-replicable, insights into human behaviour. As descriptions presented in a
rhetorical style, they seem to lack objectivity and fail to meet any of the criteria of science. To go
this way would be to make a major error of understanding of what Goffman’s work is all about.
A more accurate and sensible way to view his work is as a series of investigations of his primary
interest in the ways in which the tensions between the self and society are managed in a variety
of situations.

If we focus on how he did his investigations, we can see the systematic application of a
methodological strategy. That strategy can be characterized as methodological behaviourism.
Following the naturalist, who observes birds in various settings, aiming to understand the
purpose of what seems to be chaotic behaviour, Goffman observed human behaviour – in
particular what often seemed to be irrational behaviour. Where the naturalist may use a frame of
reference derived from Darwin to describe the behavior of birds, classifying some behaviours as
mating rituals, nesting or feeding, Goffman uses a different frame of reference to classify human
behaviour. He is not interested in all human behaviour but in a specific sphere of behaviour that
displays information exchange in social groups. So, like the naturalist, his reference point is the
collective and not the individual. This is what makes his work sociological and not
psychological. Hence, his methodological behaviourism does not commit him to methodological
individualism. Calling Goffman’s work methodological behaviourism therefore includes his
choice to use ethnography as naturalistic observation to explore, from a particular frame of
reference, the order of social life.

Misunderstanding is a risk Goffman takes by electing to use a story-like and rhetorical style. Its
use would, in part, please the Popperian, who sees risk as a sign of good research. This style,
especially the use of analogies and metaphors, provides some effective ways of understanding
his stories, but there is no attempt to construct theoretical frameworks or models and hence there
are no hypotheses to be falsified. Goffman’s purpose in choosing this strategy is to provide a
series of concepts which we can use to investigate common behaviours that display/exchange
information in commonly known ways. The use of the concepts makes available for description
aspects of the observed behaviour. The analogies do not provide an explanatory framework or a
means of analysis to say what the behaviour ‘really’ means. His behaviourism is not the
behaviourism of psychology, nor is it based on any theories of the mind; this is ensured by his
observational strategy – it excludes everything that cannot be observed – and his focus on how
behaviour is used, naturalistically, in terms of responding to problems of information exchange.
This strategy therefore commits the researcher to discarding assumptions given, say by an
organization, about the meaning of some behaviours, and to seek understanding through careful
observation, often from the standpoint of those doing the behaviour. He assumes, therefore, that
behaviour which may seem irrational is the exercise of rational choices, although limited, in
order to maintain, even if tentative, a grasp on the capacity to make decisions and control what
information is communicated about one’s self. Goffman’s descriptive portrayals provide us with
understandings of how people resist the definitions imposed on them by others and thereby
furnish explanations of what often seems odd behaviour.

Studies of practical actions

Harold Garfinkel (1917–) is the American sociologist known for founding a new approach to
social science call ‘ethnomethodology’. Ethnomethodology is a composite term invented by
Garfinkel to describe how people accomplish and maintain the meaningful, patterned and orderly
character of daily life through the methods of understanding and knowledge they apply to the
multitude of encounters they are routinely a part of. ‘Ethno’ refers to people, while
‘methodology’ refers to the methods people use to routinely make decisions and inferences about
what is what. According to Garfinkel, and in contrast to traditional social science, it is the shared
methods and knowledge people use to accomplish social order that are the subject of sociology.
This means that in place of theorizing, abstraction and generalization we need to describe
carefully the methods we use, but rarely notice, to achieve the orderly patterns of social life.
Ethnomethodology is not therefore a method but a careful study of the methodology – the logic
of the methods – of a culture they employ for producing recognizable social order.

Prior to World War II, Garfinkel studied sociology at the University of North Carolina, where he
was exposed to transcendental phenomenology. From 1942–46 he served in the US armed
services before rejoining his studies at Harvard University. Among his teachers were Pitirim
Sorokin, Robert Bales and Talcott Parsons, who was also his doctorate supervisor. During this
time Garfinkel began to make visits to the phenomenological philosopher Alfred Schutz.
Garfinkel’s doctorate was entitled The Perception of the Other (1952, unpublished), which
marked the beginning of his respecification of the problem of social order. During the late 1950s
and 1960s he undertook research into medical and mental health care settings and into jurors that
resulted in a new approach to specifying the phenomena of study. It was from his study of how
jurors do being jurors that the term ‘ethnomethodology’ was born. It was also during this period
that he began his conversations with Harvey Sacks, who was to establish the study of
conversation as a means of analysing naturally occurring data. Garfinkel has published relatively
little work but what he has produced, including Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) and
Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism (2002), has had a substantial
impact on the social sciences.
GARFINKEL’S STUDY OF AGNES
Agnes is the pseudonym of a patient of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of
California (UCLA). In 1958 Agnes was a 19-year-old white woman. Garfinkel describes her as:

… a nineteen-year-old girl raised as a boy whose female measurements of 38–25–38 were

accompanied by a fully developed penis and scrotum [that] were contradictory of the
appearances that were otherwise appropriate … Agnes was typical of a girl of her class and
age … There was nothing garish or exhibitionistic in her attire, nor was there any hint of
poor taste or that she was ill at ease in her clothing, as is seen so frequently in transvestites
and in women with disturbances in sexual identification. Her voice, pitched at an alto level,
was soft and her delivery had the occasional lisp similar to that affected by feminine
appearing male homosexuals … convincingly female. She was tall, slim, with a very female
shape … She had long, fine dark brown hair, a young face with pretty features, a peaches-
and-cream complexion, no facial hair, subtly plucked eyebrows, and no makeup except for
lipstick. At the time of her first appearance she was dressed in a tight sweater which marked
off her thin shoulders, ample breasts, and narrow waist. (1967: 117–19)

Agnes was born a male and until the age of seventeen was generally recognized as a male. Her
goal was to have a sex-change operation that would change her fully developed penis and
scrotum (Garfinkel, 1967: 117) into a vagina. Garfinkel summarizes Agnes’s claim in the
following way:

… compare Agnes’ beliefs not only with those of normals but with what normals believe
about persons whose genitals for one reason or another change in appearance, or suffer
damage or loss, through aging, disease, injuries, or surgery we observe that it is not that
normals and Agnes insist upon the possession of a vagina by females (we consider now
only the case of the normal female; the identical argument holds for males). They insist
upon the possession of either a vagina that nature made or a vagina that should have been
there all along, i.e., the legitimate possession. The legitimately possessed vagina is the
object of interest. It is the vagina the person is entitled to. (1967: 127)

At the UCLA medical centre, which was involved in a study of inter-sexed persons,
psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, psychologist Alexander Rosen and Garfinkel were interested in
Agnes’s case to investigate the origins of her desire to be a women and what effects this had on
the management of her self-identity. While Stoller and Rosen were primarily interested in her
endocrinology, physiology and lifelong desire to be a ‘proper’ female, Garfinkel noticed
something else, very different, in this case. After approximately 35 hours of tape-recorded
conversation with Agnes about her life-story, prospects, problems of passing as a women and
fears of disclosure and stigmatization (by society), Garfinkel formulated an analysis of sexual
status as a ‘situated accomplishment’ and Agnes as a ‘practical methodologist’. Garfinkel
describes this in the following way:

Agnes’ practices accord to the displays of normal sexuality in ordinary activities a

‘perspective by incongruity’. They do so by making observable that and how normal
sexuality is accomplished through witnessable displays of talk and conduct, as a standing
process of practical recognition, which are done in singular and particular occasions as a
matter of course, with the use by members of ‘seen but unnoticed’ backgrounds of common
 place events, and such that the situated question, ‘what kind of phenomenon is normal
sexuality?’ – a member’s question – accompanies that accomplishment as a reflexive
feature of it, which reflexivity the member uses, depends upon, and glosses in order to
assess and demonstrate the rational adequacy for all practical purposes of the indexical
question and its indexical answers.

To speak seriously of Agnes as a practical methodologist is to treat in a matter of fact way

her continuing studies of everyday activities as members’ methods for producing correct
decisions about normal sexuality in ordinary activities. Her studies armed her with
knowledge of how the organized features of ordinary settings are used by members as
procedures for making appearances-of-sexuality-as-usual decidable as a matter of course.
The scrutiny she paid to appearances; her concerns for adequate motivation, relevance,
evidence, and demonstration; her sensitivity to devices of talk; her skill in detecting and
managing ‘tests’ were attained as part of her mastery of trivial but necessary social tasks, to
secure ordinary rights to live. Agnes was self-consciously equipped to teach normals how
normals make sexuality happen in commonplace settings as an obvious, familiar,
recognizable, natural, and serious matter of fact. Her speciality consisted of treating the
normal facts of life of socially recognized, socially managed sexuality as a managed
production so as to be making these facts of life true, relevant, demonstratable, testable,
countable, enumeration, or professional psychological assessment; in short, so as
unavoidably in concert with others to be making these facts of life visible and reportable –
accountable – for all practical purposes. (1967: 180)

Although the language may seem a little strange and difficult to understand, what Garfinkel is
saying is very radical. We can understand how by looking at what we normally mean by sexual
status. It has been traditional to treat the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, ‘male’ and ‘female’
as facts given in nature that everyone knows is determined by biology. Transition between the
two is normally prohibited except in temporary and playful situations, such as in the theatre. In
the feminist literature (broadly speaking) the categories female and male are used as starting
points for discussing the cultural, social, economic, political and psychological aspects of
discrimination, exploitation and oppression, usually of women, in a patriarchal world.
Traditional studies of gender typically select aspects from the features of sexual relationships, at
an institutional level, as a resource to explain particular cultural, social, economic, political and
psychological states of affairs – life-chances, outlooks, occupations, activities and so on in
relation to social structures. Sexual categories are therefore taken for granted as the starting point
for gender research and analysis. Garfinkel takes a very different view and starting point. Rather
than being a resource for analysis and argue the phenomenon, the categories ‘woman’ and ‘man’
become the topic for investigation. Garfinkel aimed to explicate rather than explain, or take a
moral standpoint, the features of sexual status to see how it was produced and reproduced to be
recognized by others as a fact – remember, we do not normally see a person’s genitalia in
everyday encounters. Therefore where others began their studies, Garfinkel ended his. He
distanced himself from the familiar, everyday (as used by sociologists) use of sexual categories
and made them ‘anthropologically strange’.

Agnes had a series of ever-present problems and fears, mostly due to her having a penis and
scrotum. These were:
 distinguishing herself from transvestites, transsexuals and homosexuals, to present
herself as being female all along, from the beginning and being a trick of nature;

dealing with those who knew she had been a male and had a penis; and

dealing with those who did not know and took her as a female.

Agnes was preoccupied with managing the details of the normally not noticed features which
accomplish the recognition of a person as female. For Agnes the category could not be taken for
granted; she had to work at producing and reproducing the details of the category for it to be
recognized and applied to her as normal. Garfinkel notes that for Agnes, as for everyone else, the
category of male or female is a practical achievement of doing gender work. You and I are no
exceptions, nor are sociologists or psychologists, to this work for we too are incumbents of
expected, taken-for-granted sexed categories and are taken to be normal, what we seem to be,
without serious doubt:

From the standpoint of persons who regard themselves as normally sexed, their
environment has a perceivably normal sex composition. This composition is rigorously
dichotomized into the ‘natural’, i.e. moral, entities of male and female. The dichotomy
provides for persons who are ‘naturally’, ‘originally’, ‘in the first place’, ‘in the beginning’,
‘all along’, and ‘forever’ one or the other. (Garfinkel, 1967: 116)

We may not notice the work we do to achieve this, but Agnes did because she had to. In the
myriad of everyday settings and encounters Agnes was fully aware of the practical management
of her gender category as an account (observable, recognizable, reportable) others took for
granted:

In each case the persons managed the achievement of their rights to live in the chosen
sexual status while operating with the realistic conviction that disclosure of their secrets
would bring swift and certain ruin in the form of status degradation, psychological trauma,
and loss of material advantages. Each had, as an enduring practical task, to achieve rights to
be treated and to treat others according to the obligated prerogatives of the elected status.
They had as resources their remarkable awareness and (un)common sense knowledge of the
organization and operation of social structures that were for those that are able to take their
sexual status for granted routinized, ‘seen but unnoticed’ backgrounds of their everyday
affairs. The work of achieving and making secure their rights to live in the elected sex status
[of becoming, recognisably, a woman …] I shall call ‘passing’.

… The experiences of these intersexed persons permits an appreciation of [the] background

relevances that are otherwise easily overlooked or difficult to grasp because of their
routinized character and because they are so embedded in a background of relevances that
they are simply ‘there’ and taken for granted. (Garfinkel, 1967: 118)

If sexual categorization is therefore something we routinely accomplish and take largely for
granted, then for Garfinkel the key question was what this work might consist of. Agnes
provided an excellent case for understanding this work because for two years she had been a very
sensitive and self-reflective ethnographer of ‘femaleness’ in order to furnish her own identity:
 Can you imagine all the blank years I have to fill in? Sixteen or seventeen years of my life
that I have to make up for. I have to be careful of the things that I say, just natural things
that could slip out … I just never say anything at all about my past that in any way would
make a person ask what my past life was like. I say general things. I don’t say anything that
could be misconstrued. (Garfinkel, 1967: 178)

CONSEQUENCES OF GARFINKEL’S EXPLICATION

Garfinkel’s explication of how sexual categories are accomplished has had relatively little
measurable impact on the study of sexuality and gender and even less on feminist research. Very
little has been done to systematically work out the details and implications of the Agnes study.
This may be because his work is too radical, nonpolitical and difficult to understand. The radical
element is a respecification of the phenomenon: from resource to topic. His non-partisan stance
contrasts sharply with many feminist studies: he has no academic interest in the position of
women. This does not mean he is not interested in social structure. Part of his respecification is
to look at social structure very differently from convention approaches. Sexuality is treated in
everyday life as ‘objective’, ‘normal’ and ‘routine’ – as factual. These are core features we use,
as members of society, to orientate our everyday actions. If we had to pay attention to every
detail of social life, the social would become extremely difficult: typifying, classifying and
categorizing enable us to take what we experience for what it is intended to be and sexuality is
not excluded from this. As practical methodologists we, unlike Agnes, apply our skills in ways
that are largely unnoticed, and in doing so we conform to (reproduce) and confirm (maintain) the
order of sexual categories as given, permanent and natural: as a social structure we regularly
participate in but take for granted. Therefore as members we may, like Agnes, have a realist view
of reality (believing in an objective social world), but as Garfinkel has shown it is embedded in
our taken-for-granted assumptions about what things are to be taken to be and in our historically
based practices for situating our experiences into common categories (orders). The main
consequences are then:

There are no traditional research designs for the ethnomethodologists. Hypotheses,

variables, measuring instruments and the like are all absent from ethnomethodological
studies.

Where mainstream social science mostly uses features of a phenomenon to talk about a
concept such as power, control and alienation, ethnomethodological studies pay close
attention to the details of how the phenomenon is, what it is, and do not use it as a
vehicle for explanation or argumentation.

Ethnomethodological studies do not aim to explain but to explicate the details of the
practices people routinely use, but rarely notice, to accomplish concerted social order.

Ethnomethodology is not a theory, has no clear theories and is therefore different from
mainstream social science. Its difference is often a cause for misunderstanding and
difficulty in understanding and appreciating what it is about. Understanding
ethnomethodology is like a revelation, after which the social world and research is
never the same again.
THE ISSUES
Being a non-theoretical, descriptive and empirical approach sets ethnomethodological studies as
an alternative to conventional social science and to such a degree that any study within social
science has the potential for being respecified into an ethnomethodological study (Garfinkel,
2002). Many of the arguments about ethnomethodology are generated by ethnomethodologists
themselves debating the emphases to be given to different aspects of the ways in which
competent persons go about the taken-for-granted accomplishment of social order. Conventional
social science has increasingly recognized ethnomethodology but still expects
ethnomethodologists to engage in its kind of methodological debates – nature of reality,
verification and falsification, operationalization of concepts, qualitative versus quantitative and
so on. Conventional social scientists fail to see, often because of their misunderstanding of
ethnomethodology and Garfinkel’s original studies, what ethnomethodology is about and how its
investigative programme is incommensurable with their own (Giddens, 1976). With its origins in
phenomenology and Parsons’s structure of social action, ethnomethodology is not the sum of
these. It is not looking to define an ontological position for the social sciences or stipulate an
epistemological method. Its focus is, as the study of Agnes shows, on how members do practical
methodology in their everyday lives. The problem for ethnomethodologists is to describe
adequately how members do what they do to achieve the sense of order they accomplish.

In the ‘Appendix to Chapter Five’, included in Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967: 285–8),

Garfinkel informs the reader how eight years after the completion of the study Agnes made some
revelations that she had lied to him and to others. The feminization of her body was not, she
confessed, due to a medical condition but to her continued and prolonged use of female
hormones. Agnes had at the time strenuously denied taking any such hormones; in short, she
lied. Does this revelation discredit Garfinkel’s study? Some have claimed that Garfinkel was
duped (Denzin, 1991) and comments by his co-worker Stoller (Hilbert, 1991: 266) seem to
confirm this. In essence this revelation makes no difference to what Garfinkel makes visible
about how everyday life is a matter of practical reasoning to accomplish social order. The
reasons for this reside in the way in which he presents his explication of the phenomenon.
Garfinkel’s aim was to make visible for description the everyday practices we all use to make
ourselves accountable (recognizable and reportable) and Agnes provided an ideal opportunity to
do just this. Agnes was an artful ethnographer of gender categorization and this allowed
Garfinkel to situate her as a woman in terms of the attributes commonly used to produce the
category ‘woman’ and ‘female’. This makes irrelevant the facts of her birth and yet at the same
time he problematizes Agnes’s place in the category of female by standing back, as an analyst,
from taking the category for granted. He does this to focus on the details of how Agnes
accomplishes femininity as a normal taken-for-granted category. It does not matter that Agnes
lied or that this would be a serious matter for conventional sociology. Garfinkel was not using
Agnes as a resource, as a source of data, Agnes was the data and the way he tells her story and
analyses the use of categories achieves his goal of making visible for description the very details
of how, in situ, Agnes accomplished femaleness for all practical purposes.

Matters of methodological relevance

In this chapter we have looked at only five examples of research in the social sciences. To some
degree they are comparable because they are all concerned, at a basic level, with providing
descriptions of human behaviour. As we have seen, this is no easy or straightforward matter.
There are any number of ways in which we, as inquirers into human behaviour, can approach the
aspect of human activities which we have selected for our topic. Lombroso and Goddard shared a
concern with what were then seen as common social problems and in their largely reforming
positivistic approach sought to explain the causes of what they defined as moral infringements.
Their reformist motivations and generalizing theories can be traced back to many eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century social philosophers such as Spencer and Comte and naturalists such as
Darwin. Social ideals and generalizations, from whatever perspective and whosever standpoint,
combined with confirmationalist inductive measurements, were regarded as scientific, as being in
the interests of the greater number of ‘civilized’ society. That such measurements were not
falsifiable in the closed research paradigm of searching for specific characteristics, excluding
anomalies and ignoring social and economic conditions, was not, at this stage of development in
social science, thought to be problematic. They sought to simplify the complex, undertaking
detailed measurements, classifying data to produce typifications of behaviours, placing
boundaries around what was to be taken as relevant, using the epistemology of empiricism and in
the belief that this was the scientific way to the betterment of human kind (Smith, 1998: 46–65).

In a different mode the relative work of Lévi-Strauss, Goffman and Garfinkel is no less
interesting, not for historical reasons but for their sheer complexity. Each, in his own way, has
spent most of his professional life systematically working out some of the most complex and
difficult methodological problems of the social sciences. Lévi-Strauss’s realist ontology, when
combined with an empiricist assumption of the availability of knowledge about the external
world, typifies much of the sophistication, now often suppressed by later structuralists, of French
structuralism. Lévi-Strauss’s work does, however, have some connections with that of the early
positivists. He believed it was the function of analysis to uncover the mechanisms which
regulated and gave order to social life. His methodological approach may have combined
quantification and qualitative interpretation, but it was ultimately aimed at producing
descriptions based on correspondence theory: the notion that words and ideas get their meaning
from the fact they correspond to real objects external to us. Of course, his work is not as
moralizing as that of Goddard or Lombroso, though it is moralizing. This can be seen in many
places in his writing when he advocates strongly for social science to be the protector of so-
called primitive peoples. In some ways Goffman also looked to give voice to those persons (in a
general sense of categories) who could not express their own views on their situation. Moreover,
like Lévi-Strauss, Goffman employed anthropological methods in his research. His choice to
make observational studies of persons in extreme environments expressed his value-relevance,
what he thought important to say. In many places throughout his work we can read of his
concerns for the underdog, for those persons who, for whatever reasons and biographical
circumstances, have found themselves subject to the power of others to define them in ways
which limit how they are understood and often restrict their interactions with the world at large.
Goffman’s work also looked to reveal aspects of the lives of such people which were not often
understood by ‘professionals’ (for example, psychiatric nurses). He aimed to reveal the
rationality of inmate behaviour hidden by the paradigmatic ideologies of interventionist services
to show that seemingly odd behaviours labelled ‘irrational’ were rational from the standpoint of
those doing the behaviour. His approach is one of an open research paradigm that takes into
account the multiplicity and complexity of social reality as mutually coexisting realities. His
neo-Kantian position (see the debate on internalists and externalists in Chapter 7) then has some,
though very limited, connections to that of Lévi-Strauss. Therefore, although we can say both
Lévi-Strauss and Goffman are neo-Kantians, they use the notions and assumptions of idealism in
very different ways. The point of this observation is that although two or more theorists may
have a common intellectual heritage, it cannot be assumed they will be easily comparable or can
be pigeon-holed together.

Garfinkel’s work has, on occasion, been categorized as a version of symbolic interactionism, as

work based on the observation of human behaviour in natural settings. The latter part of this is
largely the case, but Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology is certainly not a version of symbolic
interactionism or the same as Goffman’s methodological behaviourism. Garfinkel emphasizes
the need for empirical data which has been captured from natural settings. These settings have,
through a succession of ethnomethodological studies by others, varied enormously and so too
have the kinds of data captured. This has included audiotape and video recordings of people in
work situations, hand-drawn sketches on paper of people queuing, collections of print materials
such as personal advertisements and architectural designs. Ethnomethodologists do not have any
prescriptions for what is to count as measurement because they do not measure anything through
their data. Data for Garfinkel are what make the practical reasoning of people noticeable for
analysis. Garfinkel is not trying to reveal or uncover anything in the ways in which Goffman and
Lévi-Strauss are, but aims to make noticeable those methods we routinely use to determine what
is what, which, due to its utter familiarity, goes mostly unnoticed. He is therefore doing a very
different kind of social science from all the other social scientists we have looked at in this
chapter and who are the mainstay of most texts on research. His work and that of other
ethnomethodologists cannot therefore be easily categorized, but it certainly is not positivist in
any conventional sense of the term. Its origins in the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and in
normative theories of social action, both of which trace their heritages back to idealism and neo-
Kantianism, do not mean that ethnomethodology is idealist. It is, as it was designed to be, the
careful observation of the empirical details of the things people do (deciding on what is what) to
establish and maintain the facticity of social life (social facts). Dispensing with the need for
theoretization to explain social order, Garfinkel also did away with the need for a distinction
between the macro and micro, as social structure and institutions become things that are
accomplished by the sense-making practices of members. It is this respecification of the
conventional approach to social order that makes Garfinkel’s work so methodologically radical.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

In this chapter an attempt has been made to illustrate the rich diversity of methodological
assumptions and research strategies in the social sciences. The following are some of the main
points that have been made:

The work of Goddard and Lombroso show us how early researchers attempted to
incorporate the findings of experiments in biology and botany to explain human social
conditions and how they embraced the positivist assumptions and mission to improve
society through science.
 Lévi-Strauss demonstrated the logic of his neo-Kantian position in successive analyses of
a range of cultural products. His structuralist approach allowed him to construct
successive studies showing the relationships between categories imposed on nature and
culture by the human mind.

Goffman’s descriptions of human behaviour show how what people do can be

approached from the standpoint of a behavioural naturalist. He demonstrates that
behaviour can be explained by describing the conditions which give rise to that
behaviour.

Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology is a radical alternative in social science. His studies of

practical reasoning show that social reality is far from fragile and is the accomplishment
of people routinely seeking and confirming the social facts of their situations.

Further reading
Smith, M. (1998) Social Science in Question. London: Open University/Sage. Contains many diagrams and illustrations to show
the consequences of different approaches.

Hughes, J. and Sharrock, W. (1997) The Philosophy of Social Research. 3rd edn. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman. A sound
companion to Smith (1998), providing a thorough overview of the complexities of the relationship between philosophy and
social research.
 9

Research ethics and standards

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• DEFINITIONS AND CODES OF ETHICS • SOME DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS •

PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS • PROLIFERATION OF CODES • WHY ARE RESEARCH
ETHICS IMPORTANT? • ETHICS HAVE CONSEQUENCES • ETHICS AS DECISIONS •
CLASSIC EXAMPLES IN THE LITERATURE • RESEARCH WHICH HAS CAUSED
ETHICAL CONCERNS • CASE 1: GIVING ELECTRIC SHOCKS TO PEOPLE • CASE 2:
NOT TELLING PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE YOUR SUBJECTS • CASE 3: HAVING SEX
WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES AND SUBJECTS • CASE 4: THE BURT AFFAIR • ETHICS
AND YOUR RESEARCH • DETECTING UNETHICAL RESEARCH • QUESTIONABLE
RESEARCH PRACTICES • THE ETHICS OF CODES OF PRACTICE • LIBERALISM
AND CONTROL • HUMANISM AND AUTHENTICITY • MAKING ETHICAL
DECISIONS IN YOUR RESEARCH • PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND QUALITIES OF
THE RESEARCHER • SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

All research is based on a series of decisions about the nature of the topic, what research
questions to ask, how to use the literature, how to give fair play to the arguments of others, how
best to collect data so as to avoid bias, how to present the findings, what interpretations to give of
the findings and many more. Research is therefore a decision-laden activity It is also
encompassed and shaped by the values we hold about the world around us. Many of these
decisions are ethically based in that they require alternatives to be thought about and choices
made. In both the natural and social sciences decisions are routinely made which have an ethical
dimension, including: how to select a sample; what rights are to be respected on behalf of
subjects (humans and animals); what counts as valid data; whether to collect data ‘naturally’
without subjects knowing, or to tell them and get their consent; what methods and theories are
preferred; how to handle sensitive information; whether to tell subjects how the research may
affect them or others; and whether to cite all disconfirming cases of your hypothesis. The
purpose of this chapter is to examine the ethics of research by discussing the following kinds of
questions:

1 What are ethics?

2 How are ethics related to doing research?

3 What is the function of ethical codes and ethics committees?

4 What are the consequences of ethical digressions in research?

5 How do you ensure your research is ethical?

In this chapter we are going to look at research ethics from a number of perspectives and
standpoints. The aim is to develop critical awareness of the need for sound argument over ethical
decisions and why codes may be regarded as guidelines rather than mandatory regulations. The
intention is not to stipulate what counts as ethical research, but to help you understand the nature
of research ethics and how all research has several ethical aspects which need to be addressed.
This includes having an awareness of the debates about research ethics and the origins of these
debates in philosophy.

Definitions and codes of ethics

The journal, conference and report literatures of the social sciences contain many citations that
discuss, debate and define ethics. All social science disciplines have a code of ethics. How ethics
is defined and the examples used to illustrate what is taken to count as ethical and unethical
research would, one would expect, be in abundance in the literature and also in the codes. As we
will see, this is not the case. In the social sciences there is only a handful of reported cases of
what has been labelled ‘unethical behaviour’. Before looking at the philosophical origins of
research ethics and the principles to be found in codes of research, our starting point is the
definitions in the secondary literature.

SOME DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS

In the secondary research literature one tends to find attempts to define ethics in general terms or
with reference to decision-making when thinking about the use of methods and practices. Two
popular textbooks on social research give the following definitions of ethics.

Ethics is concerned with the attempt to formulate codes and principles of moral behaviour.
(May, 2001: 59)

A distinction is sometimes made between ethics and morals. While both are concerned with
what is good or bad, right or wrong, ethics is usually taken as referring to general principles
of what one ought to do, while morals are usually taken as concerned with whether or not a
specific act is consistent with accepted notions of right or wrong. The terms ‘ethical’ and
 ‘moral’ are subsequently used interchangeably in this text to refer to ‘proper’ conduct.
(Robson, 2002: 66)

It is because research is context based and one cannot foresee what ethical dilemmas will arise
that ethics in research in any generic sense is difficult to define. However, the kinds of dilemma
which often arise can be categorized (loosely) as those affecting one or more of four
stakeholders: the research itself; the researcher; the university (or sponsor); or the subjects. Some
decisions will be based on ‘expediency’ in terms of what is needed for the research to continue
as planned, others may be based on ‘principles’ you may hold about what you consider right or
wrong. It is because research has many stakeholders with potentially different standpoints that
makes it complicated and sometimes presents conflicting ethical positions to be dealt with.
Whatever the issues you are faced with, it is ultimately your responsibility to deal with them and
the ways in which you do so will say something about you as a person and as a researcher.

PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS
What constitutes right and wrong or good and bad behaviour has been a concern for most
philosophers. It is the arguments of philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Jean-
Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832),
among many others, that have shaped the ways in which we currently think about, debate and
approach ethical issues in research. Summarizing their respective positions can never be easy as
they involve sophisticated and sometimes equivocal arguments open to a range of interpretations.
I therefore recommend that you read for yourself a selection of primary writings by some of
these philosophers, in particular Kant’s work on ethics.

In this section we will focus on Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals as it provides a
way of typifying and understanding the two main positions in research, the ‘deontological’ and
the ‘consequentialist’ approaches. Kant distinguishes between two kinds of things (actions,
thoughts, sentiments and so on) – those which are unconditionally good in themselves and those
which are good because they are qualified by their consequences (effect). This distinction can be
seen in Figure 9.1.

From the deontological standpoint, ethical behaviour is that which is done out of a sense of what
is good and this comes from a deep or inner respect for principles of right/wrong and good/bad.
The ethical value of behaviour is done from a duty that expresses respect for the behaviour itself
without regard for its consequences or to produce an effect. In research terms such acts may
include: self-reflection; self-control and discipline; empathetic understanding; discretion;
honesty; and integrity. These are not qualities we get from experience (a posteriori), but are,
according to Kant, concepts we have because we are rational beings; they are therefore a priori –
concepts we bring to experience. Action that is based on principles is an action we could
commend to others, such as not consistently lying to or deceiving others. There are, of course,
situations when we are faced with temptations or opportunities in research which may be good
for us. But Kant argues that in judging, as rational beings, that something may be good for us
does not mean we will choose it, because this is insufficient in itself for choice. We know, he
maintains, from our inner sense (that acts as a kind of command) what we ought to do even when
we do not want to. Within us is this universal imperative, what Kant calls the ‘categorical
imperative’, that tells us we are rational beings and should exercise our judgements based not on
what we can gain from an action but whether such an action is morally right. If, therefore, there
is no purpose in deceiving subjects, providing false information or engaging in actions which are
not open and honest, then there is nothing contingent (dependent) on doing so, and such a stance
would be unconditional and belong to categorical imperatives. There are, however, situations
which we may need to think about because we can imagine hypothetical events when ethical
problems may arise. This is something we often do when writing our research proposal; we
conjecture what conditions might arise which could possibly create ethical problems in the
research. For example, we may be researching an online community and believe it right to obtain
informed consent from the users, but how could we do this given that most users are anonymous
or the group regularly changes its membership? Our purpose would therefore be best served by
considering the reasons for not seeking informed consent. In doing this we would construct an
argument that qualifies the situation and consequences to show how the interests of the research
and our purposes would be best served by not following a general principle.

FIGURE 9.1 DEONTOLOGICAL AND CONSEQUENTIALIST APPROACHES TO ETHICS

Consequentialism is not therefore against principles guiding actions, but recognizes that some
ethical decisions are based on the ends (outcomes) we are aiming to achieve. To achieve some
end we need to think about the possible means and how we may use these to address and
overcome the technical and ethical problems we may encounter on our research journey. ‘The
hypothetical imperative’ is the phrase Kant gives to the act of conjecturing what means may be
necessary to achieve a particular end. The hypothetical imperative has a practical force in that it
commands us to consider both means and ends together and as conditional (dependent) upon our
selves being the cause of the situation, because it is our purposes (goals) which have created the
situation and given rise to the need for the means and ends to be justified.

We also have less esoteric duties to fulfil as researchers and these include: facilitating; giving
and receiving feedback; problem definition; record keeping; political awareness; attribution of
ideas; and conflict resolution. These are some of the everyday expectations of the professional
researcher and are carried out to satisfy the conditions of proper conduct in administering and
managing a research project. They are not strictly means to achieve our ends except in that they
are conditional imperatives which express our adherence to standards in research.

Even from this brief overview of deontology and consequentialism we can see the influence that
philosophical argument has on contemporary research ethics. Principles of research, as stated by
the various professional associations, belong more to the deontological approach, while codes of
conduct lean more to the consequentialist approach. It is not necessary to see research principles
as rules or to believe that anything goes so long as the ends are achieved. It is not a matter of
either deontology or consequentialism, for most codes include statements like the following:

Guarantees of confidentiality and anonymity given to research participants must be

honoured, unless there are clear and overriding reasons to do otherwise. (British
Sociological Association Code of Ethics, 1996: 3)

Whether one applies the exception or not, Kant may have argued that you should give the same
kind of treatment to other persons as you would expect from them. This means that the
categorical imperative does not rule out treating others as means to pursue your own ends, but
that you should not treat them merely as means, as if their worth depends only on their use-value
to your ends. You might want to remember this comment when we look at experiments done by
Nazi doctors on concentration camp prisoners (we look at this later in this chapter).

PROLIFERATION OF CODES
During the later part of the twentieth century the number of research codes and the amount
written about codes and ethics proliferated. For reasons we will look at later, there has been a
perceived need by those in positions of control for codes of conduct and behaviour. The research
code has become, in itself, a phenomenon of modern research and its growth can be illustrated
using a simple comparative list such as this:

Ten Commandments = 9.5 column centimetres (3.5 inches) of the Gideon Bible.

Oath of Hippocrates = 224 words.

1969 American Sociological Association Code of Ethics (its first) = 1,200 words or
approximately five pages.

1997 American Sociological Association Code of Professional Ethics = 15,247 words.

All professional bodies have, to my knowledge, a code that states how its members ought to
conduct their professional activities and what procedures can be used to enforce the code.
Interestingly, the research codes of the major associations of the social sciences in sociology,
psychology and anthropology and the like do not include any references to the philosophical
principles of ethics to be found in the works of Aristotle, Kant or Rousseau (among others) – key
figures who made significant arguments about ethics.
What we often see in formal codes are statements of aspirations expressed as principles.
Table 9.1 indicates what these principles are for some of the major research codes.
TABLE 9.1 ASPIRATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ETHICAL RESEARCH CODES

American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of National Committee for Ethics in Social Science Research in
Psychologists and Code of Conduct Health (India)

Six general principles: Four moral principles:

• Competence: provide only those services and use only those • Non-malfeasance: research must not cause harm to the
techniques for which you are qualified. participants in particular and to the people in general.

• Integrity: be honest, fair, and respectful of others − do not • Beneficence: research should make a positive contribution
make statements which are false, misleading, or deceptive. towards the welfare of people.

• Professional and scientific responsibility: uphold standards • Autonomy: research must respect the rights and dignity of
of conduct, obligations, accept responsibility for behaviour. participants.

• Respect people’s rights and dignity: respect the fundamental • Justice: the benefits and risks of research should be fairly
rights, dignity, and worth of all people − privacy, distributed among people.
confidentiality, self-determination.

• Others’ welfare: respect the welfare of those with whom you

interact.

• Social responsibility: be aware of your professional and

scientific responsibilities; apply and make public your
knowledge to contribute to human welfare.

Source: www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html (accessed 15. 01. 04) and Aga Khan University www.aku.edu/bioethics/symp-
press.html (accessed 15. 01. 04).

While reading these you may wish to consider how they relate to your own research and research
with which you are familiar.

Why are research ethics important?

When we talk about ethics being about making decisions we need to know, in order to be
prepared, what some of these decisions may look like. The illustrations which follow attempt to
show the potential for conflict between the different stakeholders in a research project. The
illustrations are based on a distinction between you, as the private person who is also a
researcher with responsibilities to your research, and the public realm of research codes and the
law.

ETHICS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

From our discussions so far we can now begin to appreciate through reflection that our actions
when doing research can have an ethical dimension. It may be that the outcome of decisions
some researchers have made about their ethical stance has resulted in studies which are
‘authentic’ in that they are rich in detail, but which would have otherwise been difficult or
impossible to obtain had they taken a different stance. Humphreys’s covert participant
observational study of casual sex amongst men in public toilets (tearooms) is a case that
illustrates this (this is described in the next section). But this study also generated a considerable
amount of controversy over its methods and nearly resulted in sanctions on Humphreys. When
completed, his research, done for his PhD, became known to the members of the department of
sociology at Washington University. Staff petitioned the president of the university to rescind
Humphreys’s PhD. This did not happen, but the arguments it produced led to a fistfight among
some staff, with about half of them leaving the university for other posts, some of whom made
the case public by giving the details to a journalist. Humphreys’s methods were severely
criticized in the press on the grounds that he had invaded the privacy of individuals. He was
compared to a ‘peeping tom’ who takes voyeuristic pleasure in knowing what people do in their
private and secret places.

The outcome of this case (if there was an outcome) was that some of the professional
sociologists at the university brought to the fore for academic and public debate the nature of
ethics in the social sciences. As a discipline largely based on argument, Humphreys’s research
may be seen as contributing to the very nature of sociology, but in the world of careers and
making a living from being a researcher the outcome could have been very different for
Humphreys. He could have had his doctorate rescinded and therefore been effectively barred
from the profession. Like Humphreys, we too must be careful because we could also, through
carelessness, mistake or deliberate act, face any one or more of the possible consequences listed
in Table 9.2 that a professional association or university (or the media) can bring to bear on us.
The Office of Research Integrity provides a list, shown in Table 9.2, of consequences and
disciplinary actions for those proven (mostly in the bio-medical sciences) to have infringed
ethical codes.
TABLE 9.2 CONSEQUENCES OF RESEARCH MISCONDUCT

Institutional actions Personal and career

• termination of employment • removal from a research post and loss of scholarly integrity
• dismissal from school • loss of respect of and recognition by peers
• repayment of grant funds or award • possible legal proceedings
• suspension with pay • end of academic career prospects
• supervised research • debarment from profession
• written reprimand • supervised research
• retraction and/or correction • prohibition from service on advisory committees
• ethics training • certification of data
• community service • certification of sources
• notification to the relevant professional associations and • retraction and correction
regulatory bodies
• suspension from course of studies and the university

Source: Adapted from the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) http://ori.dhhs.gov/.

ETHICS AS DECISIONS
To illustrate the nature of the public versus private conflict generated by ethical problems, we
will shortly be looking at some examples. When reading these, ask yourself what you would do,
whether you would make your decision public and how you would justify your decision, if you
decided to go public, to the research committee of your university, especially when it concerned
illegal actions. You might also ask yourself about the consequences of going or not going public
and who would possibly be affected by your doing so.

These situations raise many points for debate and argument but are largely about making ethical
decisions during the course of your research. They illustrate that many of the dilemmas you will
face cannot be foreseen at the beginning of your research. It is for reasons such as these that most
universities and all professional research bodies have codes for the conduct of research to guide
your decisions.

Classic examples in the literature

Unlike in the natural, especially bio-medical, sciences (see Grayson, 1995) there are only a small
number of cases cited as raising concerns about ethics in research in the social sciences. The
concerns raised about these cases range from acts of deception (Cyril Burt on intelligence
testing) to issues about the conduct of research in terms of disclosure (Laud Humphreys’s covert
participant observation of casual homosexual sex), conduct of the researcher (Alfred Kinsey
having sex with colleagues), designing harmful experiments (Stanley Milgram on getting
volunteers to administer electric shocks to another person) and purpose of the research (Project
Camelot to destabilize foreign governments). In this section we will provide outlines of some of
the most frequently cited cases and use one of them – the Burt Affair – to look at the nature of
academic fraud.

RESEARCH WHICH HAS CAUSED ETHICAL CONCERNS

The cases that will be outlined are listed below. These have been chosen because they are among
the most cited examples in the literature and are readily available in most academic and some
public libraries and because they concern the actions of individuals. Before reading these you
need to note that no comments or evaluations are made about them. As far as possible they have
been presented in a way that is non-judgemental. The intention of this is to let you think about
them, using, if you wish, the scheme employed to assess Cyril Burt – his research and as a man –
that follows the third case. The four cases are:

Stanley Milgram (1974), Obedience and Authority.

Laud Humphreys (1975), Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places.

Alfred C. Kinsey (1948), Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male.

Cyril Burt (1966), ‘The genetic determination of intelligence: a study of monozygotic

twins reared together and apart’.

Case 1: Giving electric shocks to people

Stanley Milgram (1933—84) was a social psychologist who aimed to demonstrate the following hypothesis: Germans are
different from other nationalities in that they are more obedient and this difference explains why they obeyed orders to
systematically exterminate Jews and others such as trade unionists, Catholics, homosexuals and the mentally disabled.
Milgram’s reasoning for this was that mass extermination involves many thousands of other people to implement the actions
required and this must be based on a shared characteristic to obey authority.

Milgram developed a research design based on a series of experiments which would systematically measure obedience. His
plan was to compare the results of his experiments between American and German subjects. If he could show that there was a
difference, then he could vary the experiment to try and find out what it is that makes some people more obedient than others.
In itself this is a reasonable research puzzle to pursue, but it was how Milgram designed and conducted his experiments that
are the issue. Milgram never undertook any experiments in Germany. His main subjects came from New Haven. The reason
for this was that his first experiments showed that Americans (Milgram made this generalization) are generally obedient
people. He therefore reasoned there was no need to take the experiment to Germany.

The experiment went something like this:

Classified advertisements were taken out in a local newspaper and some people mailed direct asking for volunteers for an
educational experiment.

The job would take approximately one hour and would pay $4.50.

Interviews were held at the Yale Interaction Laboratory.

Jack Williams, the experimenter, greeted the volunteers wearing a white laboratory coat.

He told them they would be paid no matter what the outcome of the experiment.

The experiment, he tells the volunteers, is about identifying the conditions under which people learn and it will be about
negative reinforcement — being punished in some way when you do something wrong.

On a table for the volunteers to see is a book titled The Teaching—Learning Process.

Also in the room is another man who looks nervous and mild-mannered.

The volunteer and the man each select a piece of paper from a hat.

The mild-mannered man apparently chooses ‘learner’ and the volunteer ‘teacher’.

The learner is asked to sit in a chair, his arm is strapped to the chair and electrodes are attached to the arm. Care is taken to
apply a gel to the arm before attaching the electrode so as not to cause a burn or blister.

With the teacher present, the learner is asked if he has any medical condition and replies he has a heart condition and
should avoid shocks.

The teacher is asked to read out a series of paired words, for example, nice—day, fat—neck and so on. When finished they
say the first word again and the learner is asked to choose from four possible answers.

If the learner gets the wrong answer, the teacher is asked by the experimenter to administer an electric shock.

The device for shocking the learner clearly shows increments starting at 15 volts going up to 450 volts. At the high end of
the scale there are labels saying ‘intense shock’ and ‘danger: severe shock’.

For each successive wrong answer the teacher is told to increase the voltage by 15 volts.

The teacher is given a shock of 45 volts so that they know how much it hurts.

If the teacher hesitates, the experimenter tells them to continue.

This is the experiment. The objective is to find out at what shock level the teacher will disobey the command of the
experimenter. Milgram made a prediction based on talks with Yale psychology students that most ‘teachers’ would disobey on
or before they reached the mid-point of the shock scale. Milgram found in his pilot study, however, that most teachers would
obey the experimenter and increase the voltage all the way to the end of the range. Milgram therefore altered the experiment
and tried to generate disobedience. He did this by playing a tape recording of the protests from the learner ranging from ‘hey
that hurts’ to ‘I can’t stand the pain’ and included screams at 285 volts. The teachers could no longer see the learners and after
315 volts the tape was stopped so there was apparent silence from the learner.

The results showed that 65 per cent of teachers obediently kept on administering shocks to the learner — a mild-mannered man
 with a heart condition — all the way to 450 volts. Milgram continued with variations on the experiment to see just what would
reduce the levels of obedience. Even with more extreme protests from the learner and the feigning of a heart attack, some 30
per cent of teachers continued to obey the experimenter.

Case 2: Not telling people that they are your subjects

This second case of research undertaken by Laud Humphreys is easier to describe than the previous case but no less significant
in the debates it has subsequently generated about its ethics. Humphreys, an American sociologist by training and education,
started with the proposition that authorities concerned with law enforcement hold simplistic and stereotypical views and beliefs
about men who engage in impersonal sexual acts with one another. Tearooms, as they are known to these men, are public
toilets (restrooms) and tearoom sex is fellatio in the toilets. Humphreys’s aim was to study the realities rather than the
stereotypes of why these men seek quick, impersonal sexual gratification in tearooms with other men.
His research formed the basis of his doctorate at Washington State University. Humphreys’s research design was a field study
based on participant observation and structured interviews. In the first stage of his research he took the role of ‘watchqueen’, a
person who keeps watch for the police and coughs when the police or a stranger comes near. This role Humphreys played
while observing acts of fellatio in the tearooms. With some of the men he observed he disclosed his real purpose and identity
as a researcher in order to gain their confidence and to persuade them to talk about their lives and motives. Those willing to
talk to him tended to be among the better educated and more prosperous users of the tearoom trade. However, Humphreys
secretly followed some of the men he had observed and recorded the license numbers (index numbers) of their cars. In stage
two of his research, approximately one year later, Humphreys used the license plate numbers to identify a sample and obtain
their addresses. This information he obtained from a policeman. This he used and in disguise visited their homes and, claiming
to be a health-service interviewer, interviewed them about their marital status, job, ethnicity (‘race’ in the original study) and
other features of their lives.

Humphreys’s research generated a significant amount of understanding about the tearoom trade. The following is a summary
of his findings:

44 per cent of his subjects were married and living with their wives.

38 per cent of subjects were neither bisexual nor homosexual, but men whose marriages were characterized by tension.

Most of the 38 per cent were Roman Catholic or their wives were and conjugal relations were rare, hence:

– impersonal sex was an alternative source of quick, inexpensive gratification; and

– impersonal sex did not threaten their marriage or standing in the local community as
husband and father.
24 per cent of the subjects were bisexual, married, well educated, economically successful and exemplary members of
their local community.

24 per cent were single and covert homosexuals.

14 per cent of subjects were primarily homosexual and were interested in homosexual relationships.

Case 3: Having sex with your colleagues and subjects

Alfred C. Kinsey (1894—1956) was an entomologist trained and educated in biology who spent 20 years studying the
Cynipidae — a wasp. He spent a considerable amount of his time travelling across the United States collecting 52,000
specimens of the wasp. Having written a definitive monograph on it he, possibly by accident, came to teach a course on
marriage. He adapted his entomological fieldwork methods to study human biology to collect, measure and count sexual
activity among humans. He used his training and expertise in naturalism to study sexual behaviour.

The result of Kinsey’s research was an 800-page book derived from thousands of case histories made up from over 18,000
face-to-face interviews. The book, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, provided data which showed that sexual behaviours
commonly branded as wrong were widely practised in America. The results included:

90 per cent of men interviewed had masturbated;

85 per cent of men had premarital coitus;

 40 per cent of men had engaged in extra-marital affairs;

nearly 40 per cent of men had had some homosexual experience; and

17 per cent of farm hands had buggered livestock.

Few, if any, of these findings are shocking in the way they were over 50 years ago to the American media and public.
However, it is not the findings of the Kinsey Report with which we are concerned, but his relationships with his subjects and
colleagues. In a thorough biography of Kinsey (Jones, 1997), we read testimony on how for him his research was a source of
his own sexual fulfilment. From interviewing students on campus to being a participant in sex in the gay zones of New York
and Chicago, Kinsey filmed 2,000 subjects masturbating to answer the question, does sperm spurt or dribble? As participant-
observer Kinsey established the Kinsey Institute where he had sex with almost all of the staff, both male and female alike. He
is widely reported to have initiated awareness and conscious-raising by exposing himself and masturbating in front of
colleagues and encouraging bed-hopping. The only stipulation made was that Kinsey himself had to be informed and give
permission for all sexual activities.

Case 4: The Burt Affair

In this case Cyril Burt’s standing and academic pedigree is outlined before we go on to discuss
the criticisms which have been made of his work.

Cyril Lodowic Burt (1883–1971) was a leading figure in British and international psychology for
several decades. His curriculum vitae is very impressive and includes such highlights as:

Oxford graduate (1906), studied in Germany for a couple of years before returning to
Oxford to study mental philosophy as a John Locke Scholar.

From 1908 to 1913 he lectured in experimental psychology at Liverpool University and

from 1913 until 1930 was chief psychologist for the London County Council.

Between 1931 and 1950 he was professor and chair of education at the University of
London.

He was also employed by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, Industrial

Health Research Board and as an advisor to government on educational psychology.

He was the founder of educational psychology in Britain, editor of the British Journal
of Statistical Psychology and president of the British Psychological Society (1942).

He developed tests that were used to measure intelligence of children (IQ tests or 11+)
and these were used as the basis for differentiating children in order to allocate them
to one of three type of schools — grammar, technical or secondary modern.

He wrote more than 300 articles and a dozen books mainly on mental measurement,
abilities and differences in intelligence.

He reported in his articles and books that 85 per cent of intelligence as measured by
intelligence tests was hereditary.

He was knighted in 1946.

This curriculum vitae shows that Burt was productive, influential and held in such high regard by
his academic peers and government that he was widely honoured. Burt apparently had all the
academic pedigree possible for the positions and influence he was given. However, within a year
of his death in 1971 suspicions were aroused about the validity and integrity of his work. By
1976 suspicions had become accusations and he was found to have fabricated data to prove that
intelligence was inherited. But as with all accusations against the dead, new interpretations are
often brought to bear and in 1989 the case against Burt was reopened. Joynson (1989),
MacKintosh (1995) and Tucker (1997) resurrected the debate and since then the whole issue has
generally become known as the ‘Burt Affair’.

The reported research: Burt’s most famous work was on a study of twins. His aim was to show
that intelligence was due largely to hereditary factors rather than environmental ones. The
outcome of this was a series of articles and books on an increasing number of twins reared apart,
which included correlations showing a positive relationship (coefficient) between similar
intelligence levels that could be attributed to inherited genes and not to their environment
because they were reared separately. Burt reported coefficients of: 0.77 (1943) based on 15 pairs
of monozygotic twins; 0.771 (1955) based on 21 pairs of twins; and 0.771 (1966) based on 53
pairs of twins. This series suggests a very strong relationship between heredity (genetics) and
intelligence levels.

The accusations: There have been two main stages in the accusations levelled against Burt’s
reported research and the counter-accusations: the first stage from his death in 1971 until the
mid-1970s and the second from 1989 to the late-1990s. We will focus primarily on the first stage
by briefly outlining the findings of four main players in the affair – Leo Kamin, Arthur Jensen,
Oliver Gillie and Leslie Hernshaw.

Kamin, a Princeton psychologist, examined the published writings of Burt on monozygotic twins
and suspected that so many sets of twins would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find.
Between 1955 and 1966 Burt doubled his population of twins reared in separate environments.
Kamin suspected that this population was suspiciously large and non-verifiable. He concluded
these amounted to flaws in the verifiability and reliability of Burt’s findings and consequently
were unworthy of serious scientific consideration. While Kamin was giving presentations on his
suspicions about Burt, Arthur Jensen, another psychologist and like Burt a hereditarian,
published a paper finding fault with Burt’s data. In 1974, Kamin published Science and Politics
of IQ, a critique and denunciation of the hereditarian position.

In 1976 Burt was publicly labelled a fraud by the Sunday Times medical correspondent Dr Oliver
Gillie. After reading Kamin’s book he investigated Burt by trying to find two of his research
assistants, a Margaret Howard and a Jane Conway. After talking with people who had known
Burt since the 1920s and advertising in The Times, Gillie was unable to find any tangible
evidence that either existed. He concluded that both were fictions made up by Burt. Added to
this, Gillie talked with others working in the field of intelligence and hereditability and was told
that there had been suspicions about Burt’s statistics and his data. Gillie was told that Burt’s
results were scientific fraud.

In 1979 Leslie Hernshaw, who had delivered an address at Burt’s memorial service, published a
biography of Burt. Hernshaw began his readings of Burt’s public and private papers with the
intent to clear Burt’s name and to show that he was a man of integrity. Hernshaw, however,
reports that he found contradictions and lies in Burt’s work which were not mistakes but
deliberate acts to cover up research he had never undertaken.

We can summarize this by saying that the main concerns with Burt’s work are focused on three
elements:

1 The number of twins reared apart: the number was exceptionally high and not
verifiable.

2 The statistical correlations: Burt reported coefficients of 0.77 (1943), 0.771 (1955) and
0.771 (1966). As the population of twins was increased it would be normal to expect the
degree of variability between the coefficients to increase rather than stay almost the
same.

3 The research assistants: Howard and Conway could not be found and no verifiable
evidence located to prove they had ever worked with Burt.

Assessing Burt as a researcher: When we come across such widespread and damning
accusations as those levelled at Cyril Burt how can we, as researchers, assess those accusations
in order to jugde the work of, in this case, Burt? The starting point is the literature and this will
include the accusations and counter-accusations, works by Burt himself, biographical works,
editorials in the relevant association journals and newsletters and works by other significant
figures who have relied on Burt’s work to substantiate their own research. This kind of
assessment is a mini-literature review in itself. If we take the main players in the controversy –
Kamin, Hernshaw and Jensen – (excluding Gillie, but recognizing that he did confirm some of
the evidence) as representing and displaying generally high levels of scholarship, trustworthiness
and integrity, then we can begin an assessment of Burt. The tool we can use is Table 9.3
(introduced in Chapter 1).
TABLE 9.3 ASSESSMENT OF CYRIL BURT ✓ = YES × = NO
In Table 9.3 a tick has been used to indicate the skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities Burt
exhibited in his writing or personality as reported in the secondary literature, while a cross
indicates skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities Burt did not display. After reading the ‘Burt
literature’ for yourself you may disagree with some of these, which is good, but remember to
give reasons for your disagreements. As we can see in Table 9.3, Burt displayed many positive
attributes: we have given him 30 ticks. But note that these are mainly for such activities as
personal promotion (for example, sociability, networking, self-confidence) and, as a part of this,
communication (for example, writing and presenting). We have also given him ticks for being
intuitive, applying theory and being a visionary. We could, on the basis of this assessment,
characterize this face of Burt as the flamboyant academic (not gentleman scholar) who promoted
his intuitive assumptions through persuasive writing and talking rather than actual empirical
research. The negatives we have attributed, some 27 in total, increased as we moved from skills
to capabilities to attitudes and to qualities. The poor state, in terms of verifiability, of Burt’s
record-keeping and his incompetence with analytical statistics is evidenced in his articles and
books. With the higher-level attributes such as trustworthiness, self-control, honesty and
objectivity we have failed Burt. These attitudes and qualities are, we have argued throughout this
book, essential characteristics of the research scholar. Burt therefore falls far short of the
minimum standards expected of anyone engaged in research. Burt may have been convincing,
but to those scholars who praise modesty, self-reflection and debate, Burt, it would seem, was
conspicuously suspect and this in itself is an example we should remember when assessing the
work of our contemporaries.

Ethics and your research

Figure 9.2 provides an overview of the main ethical issues you should be aware of for your
research. The figure attempts to show that ethical issues can arise during all stages of your
research, from the design stage through to the reporting stage, including the authorship of articles
for journals and presentation of papers at conferences. Most of the issues included in ‘design of
the research’ and ‘implementing the research’ in Figure 9.2 are self-evident in that if you have
worked your way through his book you will be at the stage in your research to appreciate many
of these issues. The amplification that follows therefore assumes that you already have an
understanding of what would normally be right and what would normally be wrong in terms of
research. Using Figure 9.2 as our reference point, we can look at each section in turn.

Designing your research: when you begin to design your research the main issues include:
FIGURE 9.2 ETHICAL ISSUES IN RESEARCH

Have clear definitions: failure to construct a definition or critically examine pre-

existing definitions of a topic or phenomenon can compromise the validity of the data
collection instrument; and inadequate definitional scoping of the boundaries of a
 project can be regarded as disguising preconceived assumptions which inherently bias
the results.

Be open to all methodologies: failure to consider and evaluate alternative

methodologies and tools for the collection of data may be regarded as partisanship
resulting in a biased study.

Employ all of the literature: an inadequate search and review of the topic and
methodological literature is bad practice; and not giving fair and balanced
assessments of other people’s ideas and arguments amounts to bad scholarship.

Ensure a sound sample: selection of a biased sample will invalidate the findings and be
regarded as deliberate tampering with the design to achieve a predetermined result.

Be independent: failure to demonstrate a non-partisan and detached standpoint from

the topic and subjects may be a cause to question the findings and methods of a piece
of research.

Justify your methods: selecting methods without considering their ability to obtain data
with appropriate breadth and depth may be regarded, at best, as naïvety, at worst, a
deliberate ploy to avoid collecting data.

Implementing your research: when you begin to implement your research the main issues
include:

Having respect for others: failure to obtain consent for data collected from a person or
group, which may impact on them, may be regarded as a breach of human rights;
coercing subjects, colleagues or students to engage in particular behaviours is a form
of bullying and an abuse of position with potential for litigation; exposing subjects to
actual or potential stressful situations without consent or safeguards may be regarded
as infringing safety laws and human rights acts; and failure to treat all subjects
regardless of their demographicvariables in ways which are fair and consistent may be
seen as an act of prejudice.

Avoiding mistakes: not taking all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of data and
information, to check and verify the proper use of statistical calculations and the
presentation of data may be regarded either as incompetence or as a deliberate act to
allow unchecked sources to be included in the results; presenting incomplete data,
either quantitative or qualitative, as if adequate, amounts to deception; and having no
means to verify data because no detailed records exist may invalidate the value of a
piece of research or be regarded as a deliberate act to hide the source of, or lack of,
data.

Being self-reflective: failure to reflect upon your role and status as a researcher,
including your own choice of affiliations to a methodological position, may be
regarded as a form of methodological myopia; and omitting to articulate your own
methodological assumptions and beliefs while using them as the basis for
interpretation might be regarded as a deliberate ploy to present an interpretation as
 based only in the data and this amounts to deception.

Reporting your research: when you write up your research into the dissertation the main issues
include:

Full and proper attribution of ideas: presenting the words, data or ideas of another
person as your own without properly citing them, and thereby showing the attribution,
amounts, in varying degrees, to plagiarism. This is not only misconduct, but can also
be an infringement of copyright and therefore a criminal act.

Ensuring the integrity of your data: falsifying, fabricating or omitting data constitute
misconduct — any of these acts is unacceptable because to varying degrees they are
either lies or distortions of the truth; using some techniques of presentation which give
a biased impression about the significance of the data constitutes misconduct;
ownership of and access to data and knowledge generated by a research project done
in a public institution needs to be clarified before the beginning of a project; and
destroying data generated by a project within five years of the completion of a project
is bad practice as it prevents any subsequent interpretation or challenge.

Safeguarding confidential information: use of information about a person or group

without their permission may violate laws covering data protection and be regarded as
a breach of trust; revealing or selling confidential data to a third party will violate
data protection laws; and making known the identities of subjects who have been
given assurances of confidentiality is a breach of their trust and integrity.

Maintaining standards of authorship: failing to acknowledge all persons and

organizations involved in a research project constitutes bad practice; publishing
duplicate or nearly duplicate articles of the research in multiple journals distorts
citation indexes and is therefore bad practice; and including the name(s) of persons
who had little or nothing to do with the research for an article constitutes deception.

DETECTING UNETHICAL RESEARCH

As a researcher you may come across research that you suspect has involved some form of
misconduct. I cannot advise you on what to do if you do have suspicions about a piece of
research because much will depend on your own personal ethical principles and your specific
circumstances. What I can do is give an indication of some practices in reporting which can lead
you to suspect misconduct. These include:

1 The data is too perfect: the data gives perfect correlations; therefore it may have been
made up or some anomalies in it not included, as, for example, with Burt’s correlations
on hereditary and intelligence.

2 Part or all of the text is plagiarized: you have read the same article under someone else’s
name published earlier than the one you are reading, as in the case of Bettelheim’s
(1976) plagiarism.

3 There are unexpectedly high instances of the phenomenon: there are too many subjects
 with a particular characteristic than is known in reliable data, and therefore some or all
of them may be fictitious, for example, Burt’s incidence of twins.

4 The work could not have been achieved with the methods reported to have been used:
there are data which could not have been obtained using the methods reported, and so
there is a question of where this data came from.

5 The timescale is inconsistent with the work that has been done: the work should have
taken much more time than it is reported to have taken; some of it, therefore, may not
have been done but been fabricated.

6 The data sets are too large for the size of the project reported: there are far too many
returns for the size of project, and therefore some may be false.

7 The author may not be capable of this level of research: the author is not known for
research in this field at this level, and therefore it may be someone else’s research.

8 The data is incomplete: the author may have published other parts of the study
elsewhere, in other journals, and may therefore be trying to hide something.

QUESTIONABLE RESEARCH PRACTICES

There is substantial room for debate over what is and is not an intentionally criminal action.
Using the definitions of the Office of Research Integrity (US Public Health Service), the
following three-part definition has been constructed to encompass most of the major definitions
of research misconduct:

1 Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or other practices which seriously deviate from

those that are commonly accepted within the research community for proposing,
conducting and reporting research.

2 Failure to comply with statutory regulations for the protection of human subjects, their
personal information and use of that information.

3 Failure to meet regulations in the use of resources and status as a researcher in ways
which are accountable, non-discriminatory or non-exploitative.

Even this adaptation does not fully encompass the range and relative severity of different kinds
of unethical behaviour. Savan (1988), however, provides a list of questionable behaviours
arranged in descending order according to seriousness. Some of the behaviours she identifies fall
within the definition of fraud, such as the falsification of data, while some others are not
criminal, such as interpreting results so that they point in one rather than another direction.
Table 9.4 attempts to categorize Savan’s list to show the distinctions which currently exist
between questionable and criminal behaviours in research.
TABLE 9.4 QUESTIONABLE AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR IN RESEARCH

Questionable behaviour in research Criminal behaviour in research

• Suppression of projects, hypotheses or rejection of findings, • Invention of entire experiments and research, complete with
manuscripts or grant applications for personal rather than fictitious results (fraud).
academic reasons.

• Suppression or deletion of inconvenient data by omitting it • Fabrication of the data, artefacts or other research materials
from calculations, tables and graphs. (false representation).

• Designing research so that the results are inevitable. • Altering data to fit a hypothesis (misrepresentation).

• Using unwarranted or invalid methodological or other • Using the words, data and tables of another and passing it off
invalid assumptions which bias the research and its results. as one’s own (plagiarism and copyright infringement).

• Using for your own work ideas, data or arguments from a • Making malicious allegations against another researcher
research proposal or article under review. (defamation) or acting so as to sabotage their work.

Source: Based on Savan, 1998.

The ethics of codes of research

During the last two decades, most organizations and associations which have anything to do with
research have developed or adapted codes of research conduct. Most of these codes are much
more than mere guidelines because they attempt to put into place statements on how research
should be conducted and in what circumstances. From an epistemological and ontological
viewpoint, some codes influence what can be studied, by whom and how. The reason for these
codes is often to be found in a small number of examples of research which had the potential to
do harm to the subjects and the reputation of the researcher and their sponsoring organization.
Potential harm, along with the possibility of litigation, is a serious consequence for any
researcher. But if we take a step back to look at codes as ethical standpoints, then we may be
better able to understand and then engage in ethical issues. In this section we will look at two
positions on codes of conduct for research, known respectively as the ‘liberal’ and ‘humanist’
positions.

LIBERALISM AND CONTROL

What is commonly referred to as the liberal position on codes tends to hold the view that ethics
and moral behaviour are not things to be left to the individual. What is to count as moral
behaviour can and should be stated in formal codes of conduct so that all researchers can be
aware of what is and is not acceptable. Researchers ought to behave, it is assumed, in similar
ways so that there can be an assured sense of the continuity and predictability of research. There
are a number of issues about this view and most can be explored by asking why it is deemed
necessary to systematically develop and impose quasi-contractual codes on researchers. Below is
a selection of commonly available examples of research codes from some of the major American
associations:

American Sociological Association: http://www.asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html

American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html

American Political Science Association: http://www.apsanet.org/pubs/ethics.cfm

Originating in the tradition of positivism, the aim that we could have a set of procedures for
doing science is the methodological basis for most codes. We are not referring to the method of
research, but to the behaviour of researchers. The idea is that research requires standards and
these standards can be stated. Many of them are about formalizing the behaviour of researchers
so as to prevent them from committing an ethical digression that could bring themselves and
others into disrepute. Written codes of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour will, it is assumed,
standardize the conduct of researchers and provide associations, funding bodies and universities
with the means to censure digressions from the code. In support of codes, cases such as the
Tearoom Trade (Humphrey, 1975) and Project Camelot (Horowitz, 1967) are often cited as
illustrations of the potential harm some ways of, and reasons for, doing research can have. Given
that such research was done prior to the spread of codes is regarded as illustrating the need for
codes to prevent such happenings in the future. Codes therefore attempt to pre-empt intentional
and unintentional infringements of acceptable behaviour, proper use of data and legitimate
reasons for doing research.

Probably the clearest example and motivation for codes was the evidence given during the
Nuremberg War Crimes Trials following World War II. During the trials 23 German doctors
were charged with crimes against humanity for performing medical experiments upon
concentration camp inmates and other living human subjects, without their consent. People like
you and I were subjected to a range of experiments including: freezing to measure patterns of
death and effects of cold; injections of malaria, typhus and epidemic jaundice to test for
vaccines; application of phosphorus and mustard gas to the skin, causing burns, to test for the
healing value of treatments; and investigating the effects of high altitude on motor co-ordination.
Translated into the language of crimes, these doctors committed murder, brutality, torture and
cruelty in ways which were systematic in that they were planned as experiments and justified by
recourse to their ‘scientific value’.

An outcome of the trials was The Nuremberg Code (1947). As a part of this the court specified
some rules for ‘permissible medical experiments’ and these include: voluntary consent; benefits
outweighing risks; and the ability of the subject to terminate participation. What happened in
Nazi-controlled Europe is a stark reminder of the need for regulation and standards. In the codes
we have for the social sciences, what is emphasized either implicitly or explicitly are the
consequences of digression from the codes. The codes point out that infringements can have
consequences for a number of stakeholders but especially for the researcher, who could face a
range of sanctions and even criminal prosecution.

For further information see: http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/nuremberg.php3, http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/indiptx.htm

and http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu for full transcripts of the trials.

One of the core principles underpinning most research codes is judicial potential. By this we
mean that many of the codes share a common concern for the potential legal implications if a
researcher can be shown to have deviated from their intended research. It is for this reason that
many institutions require the researcher to specify in their research proposal the ethical issues
and dimensions of their intended research. To help make the researcher aware of the codes and
specific applications, the research proposal is often employed as an imaginary exercise in ‘what
if’ such and such ethical issues should arise. If we were to characterize the liberalist position, we
could do so by saying that: it is based on a standpoint that looks for possible consequences,
mostly legal; it values an openness to subjects about research; it requires researchers to be
professional by drawing clear boundaries around their research projects and not taking sides or
holding values which may introduce bias; and it believes that research and its findings can be
influential in both impact and use.

For examples of codes for research from a wide range of academic associations and professional bodies, see Codes of
Conduct compiled by J. Berleur in Further Reading to this chapter.

HUMANISM AND AUTHENTICITY

Humanists do not disagree over the need for standards of behaviour from researchers and others
who may have a stake in a research project. Where they differ from the liberalist position is that
they look at codes for research ethics (in the social sciences) as having few tangible benefits
which can be substantiated with examples. To this they add that codes in themselves, as a set of
regulations, may prevent the researcher benefiting from opportunities which may arise during the
research. We can examine the humanist position on codes by asking the question: ‘Whose and
what interests do codes serve?’ When one begins to read the contributions of the humanist
approach to codes of ethics we see that they are not about what ought to be or should be, but are
critical evaluations and arguments about the ability of institutions to control what research is
done, by whom and how. For humanists the issue of codes is about much more than
infringements of position or misuse of data. They seriously question the benefits to research of
codes and the part codes play in attracting sponsors for research (Abbott, 1983); the restrictions
codes may impose on studying the disadvantaged as well as the powerful (Duster et al., 1979);
the need for centralized control; the morality of codes themselves; and the assumptions made
about the power of research (Hammersley, 1995).

The humanists regard the proliferation of codes as part of a tendency towards greater control of
research. Control that is increasingly centralized is based on the assumption that researchers have
specialist knowledge and expertise which can, if not regulated, cause harm to others. The cases
of potential harm are questioned. Cases such as Project Camelot and the Tearoom Trade did not
cause harm. Camelot was halted and Humphreys revealed nothing about his research, subjects or
data. What such cases did was to create ‘what if?’ conjectures based on fears of litigation and
disrepute. Anticipatory fear became real in its consequences in that some research is now only
possible because the actual details are not reported. In other words, the more regulations there
are, the less what actually happens in the field is reported. Codes may therefore have ironic
consequences, in that rather than assuring openness they encourage deception. This is not to
argue for, or advocate deception in not reporting what actually happens in the course of research.
It is merely a suggestion that has its origins in classical sociology about the unintended
consequences of bureaucracy, and hence it is something to think about when considering codes
as bureaucracy (Weber, 1948; Michels, 1949).

If the cases of potential harm cannot be substantiated, it may be that their ritualistic function is
more important than their exposed role. As a researcher you have to have your research proposal
with its section on ethics approved. Your imaginary ethical ‘what ifs’ show your required
compliance with the code and its expectations. When considering your research proposal, a
research degrees committee judges your compliance and in particular your appreciation of the
possibilities of litigation from your research. In giving consent they admit you to and sign you up
to an implicit contract for the protection of themselves, your subjects and yourself.

The availability of codes and the ritualistic judgement of a researcher’s intentions (as described
in their research proposals) is, to borrow Goffman’s (1961) phrase, a form of impression
management. Having a code of ethics in the social sciences and human studies is good for
business; it attempts to say that the research ‘we’ do can have consequences and that ‘we’ are
responsible. It may be for these kinds of function that codes in the social sciences tend, in many
ways, to be similar to codes in the biomedical disciplines. They may be trying to impress upon
funding bodies and new entrants into the subject that their research is professional and can
produce knowledge that is powerful. Such an impression would have its advantages when
applications are made for research grants and other resources. Research centres and subject
associations would be better placed against the competition if it is generally believed they need
such elaborate codes of conduct so as to control what may be powerful research potential.

In addition to this, that neither Tearoom Trade nor Project Camelot caused harm may not be the
major point. What may be important is that studies such as Tearoom Trade demonstrate the
epistemological authenticity that is possible when responsible researchers take their position,
knowledge and craft seriously in a professional manner and do not reveal personal details of
subjects. What Humphreys reported on was real life, real relationships and contacts as lived by
real people in real situations. Some of it may be, to some people, distasteful, but to others a
revelation. From a research point of view the study shows the casual, almost ephemeral and
sometimes absurd comicness of this group of people. It also shows – and this may be a worry to
those who seek to control research – that social life is unpredictable as is what often presents
itself during the course of a research project. Humphreys’s work, like that of others such as
Goffman (1961), who passed himself off as an assistant to the athletic director to study inmate
life in asylums, Gans (1963), who told his respondents he was doing a history in order to
undertake an ethnography of life among residents of the West End of Boston, and Garfinkel
(1967) whose breaching demonstrations involved him being deliberately rude to people, might
not have been allowed if there had been codes for research.

Following on what we have said so far about codes, we need to reiterate that humanists are not
against open research, professionalism or the need for sanctions against those who wilfully
deceive for their own gain. What we have introduced are some of the debates about the social
organization, and through this the control, of research.

Making ethical decisions in your research

Ethics in research, as in everyday life, are a combination of socialization, instinct, discretion and
being able to put ourselves in the position of others to reflect on and see our actions as others
may do. When faced with an ethical problem that requires a decision, there are a number of steps
you can take which will help you ‘work’ the problem without making more problems for
yourself. These include:
 1 Define, as clearly as possible, the problem.

2 Determine whether it is or is not an ethical problem.

3 Isolate the ethical issue.

4 Analyse the issue, determining whether it is a problem of right or wrong or of a conflict

of interests.

5 Determine whose problem it is — is it personal or related to the sponsor, supervisor,

institution or subjects?

6 Identify who will be affected by the problem; normally the person with the ethical
problem will not be the one(s) affected by the decision to deal with it.

7 Look at the alternative courses of action; be realistic with time, resources and
involvements.

8 Assess the input required for each alternative and its consequences.

9 Evaluate the alternatives in terms of legality, moral principles, professional custom and
practice.

10 Select the best course of action for all concerned based on the kind of person you would
like others to see you as.

By following this kind of systematic process you will most likely use reasoning rather than
rationalization to explore the possible consequences of your actions. This means you should
avoid doing something and then trying to find a rationalization for having done it.

PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND QUALITIES OF THE RESEARCHER

Ethical issues in research can arise at any time and in many forms. The spread and increased use
of information communications technology has exacerbated some of the ethical problems that
we, as researchers, face, especially in terms of ‘informed consent’ (Jones, 1994). When we
discussed Humphreys’s research we saw how some decisions can be very real in their
consequences. This is because the ethics we may hold as a person and a researcher do not always
accord with those of our peers, supervisors, professional associations or institutions. There is a
great deal of potential for conflict between these and other stakeholders in research over all
aspects and stages of any research project. Figure 9.3 represents this potential, while the list in
Box A indicates what we would normally expect as a minimum in terms of professional values
for a researcher.

Box A Professional values:

pursuit of knowledge and understanding;

access to information and knowledge;

 impartiality in research and presentation of findings;

service to the community, including social responsibility;

continuing self- and professional development;

respect for standards of scholarship;

intellectual freedom, including free speech for all; and

respectful scepticism.

FIGURE 9.3 PARADIGM OF POTENTIAL ETHICAL CONFLICTS

When a situation arises that has ethical implications, your considerations and reflections are
likely to be influenced by your skills, capabilities, attitudes and personal qualities. Figure 9.3
shows one way of understanding this in terms of placing ethics within this framework. Using
these will help you to conceptualize the problem and its possible consequences within scenarios
based on likely events. In asking what you ‘should do’ you will be doing ethics in ways which
may help you to demonstrate your knowledge of the principles of ethical behaviour. Among such
principles is respect for the freedom of researchers to choose for themselves what courses of
actions they take and the range of such choices, as indicated in Figure 9.4. It is your duty, as the
researcher, to take responsibility for your choices and this means choosing well. This aspect has
a symmetry as it will also apply equally to others who have a stake in your research. If you have
the freedom to choose, then so too must others. This symmetrical respect focuses our attention,
as researchers, to see others as we would like ourselves to be seen; it emphasizes our
commonalities as rational beings rather than our differences; and this discussion has, you may
have noticed, taken us back to Immanuel Kant via existentialism – a twentieth-century
philosophy of existence that you may look at for yourself.
FIGURE 9.4 ETHICS AS SITUATIONAL PROFESSIONALISM

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

 In this chapter an attempt has been made to introduce ethical issues that research makes us
think and take decisions about. The emphasis has been on the following points:

Looking beyond codes to see ethics from the researcher’s standpoint within an
institutional context.

Explaining why an understanding of research ethics and one’s own ethical position is
important.

Showing how ethical decisions are a part of all the stages of a research project.

Arguing that all researchers need to know what integrity is in order to practise it in their
research.

Further reading
Codes of Conduct, Practice and Ethics from Around the World. Compiled by J. Berleur, and held at Virginia Technical
University. http://course.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/WorldCodes/WorldCodes.html. Accessed 03/12/03.

Grayson, L. (1995) Scientific Deception. London: British Library. An excellent and thorough research and review of the literature
(based on the natural sciences) on the definitions, nature, causes, consequences and policy implications of deception in
research. Hundreds of citations with long annotations. Also the ‘update’ (1997).

http://ethics.edu/theories/ provides on-line the books/texts of most philosophers, including Kant, along with excellent discussions.
 10

Research design

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• WHAT IS RESEARCH DESIGN? • THE METHODOLOGICAL LOGIC OF RESEARCH

DESIGN • THE PLACE OF RESEARCH DESIGN IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS •
DECIDING ON THE TYPE AND PURPOSE OF YOUR RESEARCH • DIFFERENT
TYPES OF RESEARCH • EXPERIMENTAL AND DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS
• INTERPRETIVIST AND DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN • DIFFERENT
RESEARCH CULTURES AND PURPOSES • DESIGNING IN QUALITY:
GENERALIZING, VALIDITY, SAMPLING, RELIABILITY, MEASUREMENT,
TRIANGULATION AND OBJECTIVITY • GENERALIZATION • LEVELS OF
MEASUREMENT • VALIDITY • SAMPLING: SIGNIFICATION AND CONFIDENCE •
WHAT IS SAMPLING AND WHEN IS IT NECESSARY? • THE ASSUMPTIONS OF
SAMPLING • THE PRINCIPLES OF CONFIDENCE LEVELS • WHAT SIZE SHOULD A
SAMPLE BE? • SAMPLING IN PRACTICE • RELIABILITY • TRIANGULATION:
MYTHS OF CONVERGENCE AND CONFIRMATION • OBJECTIVITY AS
CONFIDENCE • WHAT IS DATA? • COLLECTING DATA • SUMMARY OF THIS
CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

Thinking about the choices you have to make in order to undertake a coherent piece of
competent research you will have considered, amongst other matters, the literature, the nature of
your topic, definitions, methodological traditions and approaches and their consequences, and the
ethical dimensions relevant to your research idea. Research is, to repeat something we said
earlier in this book, a decision-laden activity and not something that can be done without thought
and interpretation. In this chapter we will look at how to bring together your decisions into a
design for your research. This means looking at what it means to have a coherent design in terms
of ensuring that your research has a logical strategy with tactics which are consistent with that
strategy. Hence this chapter is not about ‘how to collect data’ or ‘what to do with data’, though it
does list some methods for doing this. It will not do this because there are many excellent books
and other sources dedicated to the details of the different methods of data collection and analysis;
some of these will, as a matter of course, be cited. The main questions this chapter will discuss
are:

1 What is the relationship between methodological traditions, methodological approaches

and tools to collect data?

2 What is research design and its place in research?

3 What are the elements needed to construct a design for a research project?

4 What kinds of research need sampling, and how do I construct a sample?

5 How can I ensure that my research is valid, reliable and objective?

The purpose of this chapter is to show you the relationships between methodological traditions
and standpoints, methodological approaches, cultures and data collection tools. We will look at
how these can be arranged into a research design that is capable of producing reliable and valid
findings and from which, if required, generalizations can confidently be made. We begin,
however, with the most obvious question.

What is research design?

Research design and the methods you use to collect your data are not the same thing. Data
collection and its analysis are parts of research design. There are a number of ways of thinking
about what research design is. The first is to think of it as the structure that holds together your
research and enables you to address your research questions in ways that are appropriate,
efficient and effective (reliable and valid). The structure of your design acts, and can also be
thought of, as the scaffolding that supports the purpose of your research. As such it needs to be
put together with care so that it does not let you down by being unable to support your research
when needed. In this section we will look at the methodological logic of research design,
showing how the major parts should be linked together into a strategy for your research and at
how the tactics you decide on to implement your strategy are linked to the type of research you
intend to undertake.

THE METHODOLOGICAL LOGIC OF RESEARCH DESIGN

Achieving a methodological logic in your research design involves making coherent and
reasoned connections between the choices you have made and which methodological tradition to
follow, which approach and which data collection methods you use. Figure 10.1 shows the logic
of research design in terms of these major choices. What are implicit in Figure 10.1 are the
different research cultures often used as standpoints for approaching and framing your research
design. These include critical, ethnographic, feminist, theoretical, action, evaluative,
hermeneutic, behavioural and ethnomethodological research cultures among others (Bentz and
Shipiro, 1988). These often have their own particular histories which give them their specific
heritage, linking them to a methodological tradition and methods of data collection. They also
provide a starting point for understanding the discourse (language) that acts as the frame of
reference for defining and describing your topic and puzzle, your research design and findings.

FIGURE 10.1 THE METHODOLOGICAL LOGIC OF RESEARCH DESIGN

Source: Adapted from Crotty, 1998: 3–11.

THE PLACE OF RESEARCH DESIGN IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS

Research design is, like other forms of design, the stage where what you have defined is made
possible in a detailed specification. Producing a design specification means making choices
between a range of alternatives, some of which are not easily, if at all, comparable. Figure 10.2
shows the four Ds (define, design, do and deliver) of research that we have used in this book. In
Chapter 3 we looked largely at how to identify and define a research puzzle. In Chapter 5 we
looked at different types of dissertation (traditional, work-based and literature review) and
research (applied, theoretical, evaluative and so on). This provided a bridge to selecting an
approach to research based on our purposes (explain, describe and so on). Chapter 6 showed the
importance of using the topic and methodological literature. It showed how the literature is an
essential reference point for subsequent research and analysis. Chapters 7 and 8 took us into the
space between defining and designing, and also helped us to understand methodological
standpoints and appreciate some of their relative consequences. Finally, Chapter 9 highlighted
the importance of ethics in research. It encouraged us to think about the nature of ethics in
research and how general principles could become specific issues in our own research. Chapters
11 and 12, yet to come, will show us how to deliver some of the products of our research: the
research proposal and dissertation. It will be the essential elements of our design that will be
formulated into a single document – your research proposal. Figure 10.2 therefore represents
much of the work required to produce the proposal.

FIGURE 10.2 THE PLACE OF RESEARCH DESIGN IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS

Deciding on the type and purpose of your research

As with the design of anything, you will need to make choices by investigating (researching) the
options available to you given the constraints on your time and other resources. In this section
we will look at the broader choices in terms of different types of research.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESEARCH

One way of thinking about research design has just been outlined; another way is to ally it with
different types of research. Figure 10.3 categorizes research into three main types: experimental,
quasi-experimental and non-experimental. This threefold categorization is merely a useful device
for identifying some of the main elements you need to bring together in your design to do your
research. This categorization will also help to make clear what is involved when selecting
elements to include in a design. There are, of course, other ways of categorizing research,
including using the ‘quantitative–qualitative’ dichotomy. In some ways this simplifies
comprehension. It signals the fact that qualitative approaches often involve descriptive statistical
data and identify and isolate variables for discussion and interpretation, though of course for
different purposes from those of experimental research (Milgram, 1974). Using Figure 10.3 as
our frame of reference, we will take a brief tour around its constituent parts. The figure shows
some of the constituent choices which face researchers when thinking about their research
project. In some cases your discipline will influence which of these choices you make. For
example, behavioural psychology tends to favour the experimental and quasi-experimental type
of research, involving hypothesis testing through to the controlled measurement of variables,
while anthropology favours the descriptive and ethnographic type involving immersion in the
culture of those people being studied. Figure 10.3 also tries to show that there are overlaps
between the types of research as they have been characterized here.

This means you will sometimes find that qualitative data has been employed to make
recommendations on interventions into a situation or programme, as in the case of emancipatory
research, and that quantitative data is evident in interpretivistic studies. There are no strict rules
on which kinds of data should be collected for which types of research except that it should be
the most appropriate to address the research questions set. The other thing to note in Figure 10.3
is the discourses commonly used by adherents of the approaches. Although only indicative they
have been included to remind us that between as well as within the different traditions and
approaches there are different frames of reference researchers can use to describe what may seem
the same thing. You may remember we looked at this issue in Chapter 7 when we discussed the
different ways the contents of a woodyard could be categorized, and that such differences were a
matter of purpose based on what you intended your description to describe (for example, types of
wood, wood products, properties of different woods, and so on).
FIGURE 10.3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESEARCH AND ASSOCIATED STUDY DESIGN ELEMENTS

Experimental and quasi-experimental studies aim to make an intervention in a situation to see

what variable(s) cause an occurrence. The aim is to identify and determine the degree to which a
relationship exists between two things: the degree to which one thing, the independent variable,
causes another, the dependent variable (Field and Hole, 2002). If, given certain conditions and
processes, one thing is found to cause another, then a causal relationship has been found. The
two main types of experimental design are the randomized experiment (true experiment) and the
non-randomized experiment (quasi-experiment). Randomization refers to how cases and controls
for a study were selected and then assigned to samples from a larger population. This brings up
the matter of sampling and the degree to which a sample can be said to represent (confidence in
generalizability, also known as external validity) a population. We look in more detail at
sampling later in this chapter. Random selection and assignment works like this. Say you have a
population of 1,000 athletes and draw 100 randomly from this: you have a random sample. If you
further randomly assign 50 of these to be cases exposed to some motivational counselling and
the others, as controls, to no counselling, you have a random assignment. What this means is that
anyone in the population group has an equal chance of being assigned to either a case or control
(or left in the population).

EXPERIMENTAL AND DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

In aiming to state the variable that causes an outcome to happen, experimental approaches use
many forms of design to study the effects of an intervention. These include looking at post-
experimental outcomes, pre- and post-outcomes and at differences between a case and a control
group. In the post-experimental study, subjects who are known to have been exposed to some
variable (intervention) in the past are the source of data and information to see if the exposure
can be said to be the cause of their current state. Subjects are often asked to recall their situation
prior to the intervention and to describe the intervention. Personal interviews, questionnaires and
documentary records are often the source of data and information. The key problems with this
kind of study include relying on documents to be accurate and sufficiently detailed and the
ability of people to be able to recall past states of being and not miss extraneous variables which
may have intervened over the time period. In the pre- and post-design, the ‘before’ is constructed
and the intervention introduced, usually under controlled conditions, and its effects measured.
The time lapse between the two main measures is also a problem with this design. Subjects may
have changes in behaviour, attitudes and opinions, due to variables outside the control of the
research design. This design is, however, suited to evaluation studies where the aim is to evaluate
the effectiveness of a programme. If evaluation is built into the programme (for example, an
educational programme to raise literacy rates among a population), then the before and after can
be evaluated, but only if sufficient and accurate data was collected on a sample of the population
before the programme is implemented. With a case and control group it is normal for the design
to use at least two samples from two populations. Measurements are made on both groups to
provide base-line information on each group before the randomized cases are subject to an
intervention. The difference, if any, caused by the intervention between the case and the control
is then quantified using analytical statistics.

Descriptive non-experimental research is also interested in identifying variables and relationships

between them. There are, of course, different degrees of association and different ways of
describing a phenomenon. The most common form of statistically based descriptive study aims
to quantify the extent of a phenomenon to answer questions of ‘how much?’, ‘how frequently?’
and ‘how many on average?’. The design is usually based on a case where the subject is
measured only once; a cross-section of some behaviour is observed based on a sample from a
population. A case is someone (or thing) that exhibits the attributes (for example, behaviours)
you are interested in. Other people not exhibiting the behaviours are known as the control group.
If the attribute is measured more than once, the series is called a case series.
Descriptive studies measure the occurrence of phenomenon without intervening, that is, making
changes to behaviour. In some cases it would be difficult and unethical to intervene. For
example, Raine et al. (1997) studied the brains of people found guilty of murder and compared
them with those of ‘ordinary’ people; there was no way they could have randomly assigned
participants to groups or made any other kind of intervention. In behavioural analysis the
descriptive strategy may involve something like the following. A particular behaviour is selected,
a phenomenon, that occurs relatively frequently among a subject group in a particular setting.
The behaviour of subjects is observed for at least three sessions and in three ways, that is, whole-
interval, partial-interval and momentary time-sampling. Observations are also done by other
researchers rotating across the types of observation. When the particular behaviour occurs it is
scored on the record sheet. Each type of observation should have at least one inter-observer
whose observational record agrees with another’s to a degree of at least 80 per cent. The
observations can then be analysed and presented as a graph. Measures are often done through a
survey, interviews and observations. Ideally, comparison is made between a case and control
group over time; this is called the longitudinal study (Koluchova, 1972; Hodges and Tizard,
1989). Descriptive studies are also used to identify attitudes, needs and differences between
people. In the management literature, for example, we see studies looking at the differences
between leaders (cases) and non-leaders (control) which aim to identify what variables lead to
individuals becoming leaders. Comparison between the two is often made on the basis of testing
different theories through a hypothesis such as leadership is innate or situational. Researchers
look to see what leaders have been exposed to in the past (genes, situations), causing them to
become leaders. These are called retrospective studies because they aim to identify common
factors that may have influenced the subjects to become cases rather than controls. Alternatively
(and even at the same time), you can look to select potential variables at the start of a study (for
example, lack of exposure to sunlight) to measure the degree to which they are the cause of
something (for example, depression) after a period of time. These are called prospective or
cohort studies.

INTERPRETIVIST AND DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH DESIGN

Just as it is a mistake to say that experimental and descriptive research is wholly quantitative, so
too is it a mistake to say that interpretivist research is wholly qualitative. Much of the debate
about interpretivist research is largely from within the tradition itself (Hammersley, 1992) and is
about the methods used to capture qualitative data, the contextual and historical influences (for
example, gender, ethnicity), and how much emphasis to give to which version of idealism (for
example, Kant, Hegel). The debate over methods rather than methodology misses many of the
more interesting and productive points of what humans are about, which is their constant search
for understanding, and this means making interpretations about what something means and what
is going on (Cicourel, 1964). In many ways an interpretivist research design can be far more
difficult to construct than one based on the measurement of variables. This is because there are
many more issues and problems to be addressed in the course of doing the research than in
experimental studies. Taking an open-systems approach raises problems of data type, quality and
variety, reproducibility, validity and reliability and involvement with the setting and subjects.
However, it is the character of interpretivist research that often makes it challenging and the
findings worth the effort. While Table 10.1 summarizes two main strands of interpretivism, you
are strongly recommended to read some of the literature and examples for yourself to gain a
much deeper understanding before making any choices on whether or not to employ them in
your own research.
TABLE 10.1 SUMMARY OF INTERPRETIVIST RESEARCH DESIGNS

Empirical orientation Hermeneutic orientation

Pragmatism Wholes to parts

Taking the view that action is creative and reflexive, used Using the assumption that different cultural things are parts,
when routine behaviour is found to be problematic in and therefore accountable, because of larger meaning
pursuing everyday understanding. structures (wholes).

Ideography Underlying meaning

Careful and detailed description rather than explanation of Assumption that cultural products and processes have, and
particular cases. Focusing on individual phenomena to are a part of, underlying patterns which makes them
identify key principles of understanding; regarding the understandable and meaningful. The underlying pattern is
production of description as an achievement in itself. made visible by elevating interpretation beyond the particular
and commonsense level.

Exploration Empathy
Use of an open, flexible approach combined with Employing internal intuitive understanding to see the original
introspection and continued revision of initial concepts. intention of something, thereby going beyond the mere
Works by taking the stance that research is an interaction with external facts; but using the facts as the means to re-enact and
theory and the empirical – that any rational basis to research recover meaning.
is a question for reflection rather than a procedure of research
itself.

Sensitizing concepts Contextuality

Use of concepts derived from analogies such as the Viewing everything as existing within a context – historical,
dramaturgical frame of reference (Erving Goffman) to orient religious, political – so that particular artistic or cultural
the focus and description. The concepts guide rather than lead works are explainable with reference to the context (as texts)
investigation and exploration. of their creation. Originality of perspective is possible by
placing a text within a new context.

Social action Text

Focus on the social interactions between actors, especially Data whether quantitative or qualitative is text: it has context
their intersubjective use of symbols, gestures and behaviours in terms of its relationships to how it was produced and to
to convey information about their selves. May be contrasted larger social structures. Facts are thus the outcome (results) of
with a concern for abstract social structures. interrogating data within broader systems of meaning.

Inductive case study Metaphor

Preference for studying a particular social phenomenon Claiming correspondence between two things based on
within definite social settings, over time, among a particular systems of meaning, a feeling and an object, e.g. love and a
group of actors. Involves looking to see what categories and rose. Language provides the parameters constraining images
concepts emerge from the data rather than imposing a theory to create similarity from difference.
on it beforehand.

Empirical materials Authenticity

Extensive use of field notes, video, audio and other tools to Employing evidence to provide (convince) beyond all
capture naturally occurring social interactions in the analysis. reasonable doubt that a thing is what it is claimed to be.
Involves questioning the thing and its provenance to get to
the essential condition to establish it as genuine.

Characterizing the interpretivist approach cannot be done as simply as with the experimental
approach. This is because the characterizations tend to have recourse to the history of the
tradition, citing the Chicago School (Bulmer, 1984), and exemplars from the symbolic
interactionist (Goffman, 1961, Becker, 1953) tradition along with ethnographic studies (Geertz,
1973), to hermeneutic analysis (Ricoeur, 1981) and emancipatory studies (which aim to bring
about change) associated with critical theory and feminist analysis. A common feature of the
references used in characterizations (such as the ones just cited) is a concern for a methodology
these researchers believe produces results in ways which answer the questions of what is going
on in a situation and how people do what they do.

Researchers such as Goffman and Becker are not concerned with technical procedures such as
the operationalization of concepts or with procedural protocols such as internal validity. Their
concern is with producing adequate descriptions that answer their research questions in ways
which are a logical consequence of following through a methodological set of assumptions about
the nature of the social world and how it is able to be described. Their results are essentially
descriptions of the formal properties people exhibit in their behaviours and accounts of those
behaviours. They are not re-formulations of what people do or theorize about (Gilbert and
Mulkay, 1983). The aim is to identify and describe the knowledge people need to have in order
to do what they do and be seen to be doing what they do by those relevant to them in their
situation. An interpretivist design is not therefore a matter of ‘anything goes’, but is rooted in the
kinds of methodological assumptions and argument we encountered in Chapter 7 when we
looked at the debate Schutz and Parsons (Grathoff, 1978) had over the nature of social reality
and how it might be known for analysis. Interpretivism is not then about saying how people
‘see’, ‘understand’ or ‘interpret’ the world, but is about identifying what procedural state of
affairs (Sharrock and Watson, 1988) needs to exist in order for people to ‘see’ something like
this rather than that which gives rise to the behaviours (courses of actions) they consequently
follow (exhibit). This strategy can be used to design empirical investigations as well as critical
evaluations of theories, concepts, arguments and discourse.

Interpretivist research design therefore has, like that of experimental design, a broad remit from
the highly empirical, such as conversation analysis, to the extremely theoretical, such as
hermeneutics. The central design features of the former usually include a combination of
pragmatism, descriptive (ideographic) exploration, social action, sensitizing concepts, inductive
case studies and an overriding concern for empirical materials (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2000:
13–15) collected through data-oriented methods. The design features of the latter include
intuition, relating parts to wholes, looking for underlying meanings, empathy, contextuality, text
and authenticity (2000: 52–109). Among the empirically oriented typical approaches include
those labelled ‘grounded theory’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), Chicago ethnography (Bulmer,
1984), ‘symbolic interactionism’ (Rock, 1979), ‘phenomenological method’ (Moustakas, 1994),
‘ethnomethodology’ (Heritage, 1984), ‘conversation analysis’ (Psathas, 1995) and ‘inductive
ethnography’ (Fetterman, 1989). In hermeneutic-orientated research typical approaches are
labelled objectivist, alethic, historicist, existentialist, poetic and ethnographic (Alvesson, and
Sköldberg, 2000; Packer and Addison, 1989). What this classification shows is the many
positions and standpoints within the broad category ‘interpretivist’.

DIFFERENT RESEARCH CULTURES AND PURPOSES

The type of research you choose should be capable of addressing your research questions. It
may, on occasion, reflect your own ontological, epistemological and moral preferences, for
example for a realist or idealist ontology and for experimental, interpretivist or emancipatory
research. One of the problems you may face is the overwhelming range of research cultures and
standpoints. Few people, if any, can gain sufficient knowledge to practise all kinds of research.
Therefore try to select which kind of research orientation and culture accords with your research
questions and stance as early as possible. This will still involve substantial reading, but this can
be limited by focusing in on key studies and debates. Table 10.2 provides a brief overview of
some approaches commonly used in masters research, along with an indicative list of readings
and sources, sufficient to allow you to undertake a reconnaissance into that ‘field’ of research.

Designing in quality: generalizing, validity, sampling,

reliability, measurement, triangulation and objectivity
Quality in research can mean a number of things, including: that the tools used to collect the data
were the right ones; the data collected was the right kind and quantity; the observations made
were the right kinds of observations; and the interpretations made were clear and transparent. It
is often assumed that the experimental method can be the model for other kinds of research, in
that it sets the standards of quality all research should emulate. This is largely a myth. This
section will look at designing, to a sufficient degree, quality in your research project. We will
look at what it means to be objective and neutral, how to assure reliability and how to produce
valid findings. Before we do, however, you need to know that your methodological allegiances
and that of any particular discipline often influence understandings and practical approaches to
research quality. For instance, if you believe that an empirical world exists independently of
human reason and that research methods are able to penetrate that world, then you may also
believe as a consequence that a neutral descriptive language is a possibility. This position may
lead you into making estimates, based on statistical calculations, of the degree of reliability your
methods may have. Conversely, though not necessarily opposed, if you believe that the empirical
world is knowable through such things as the language used to describe it, then you may have a
very different understanding of what it means for a method to be valid. It follows that if language
shapes or even constitutes reality and the ways in which a reality may be known, then objectivity
and validity become matters dependent upon the particular discourse used in a research project.
Taking these two possible positions as starting points, we will now look at what is assumed
about research.
TABLE 10.2 EXAMPLES OF AND SOURCES ON DIFFERENT RESEARCH STANDPOINTS AND CULTURES

Types of research Brief description Indicative print and

Internet sources and
resources

Experimental (positivist and When the aim is to identify causality, independent and Campbell and Stanley, 1963;
post-positivist) dependent variables are identified and defined, subjects Field and Hole, 2002; Kitto,
randomly assigned to control and experimental groups and 1989; Bandura, Ross and
exposed to the independent variable and observed for effects. Ross, 1963; Lazarsfeld and
The three main conditions for causality to be established are: Rosenberg, 1955; Loftus and
(1) association between two or more variables; (2) the time Palmer, 1974; Piliavin, Rodin
and order of the effect is controlled; and (3) the effects of and Piliavin, 1969; Rosenthal
confounding variables are systematically eliminated. Quasi- and Jacobson, 1966;
experimental research can only identify relationships between Greenacre, 1993; A primer
 variables in terms of correlations. Associated with positivism on experimental and quasi-
and realist methodological assumptions. experimental design.

Ethnographic (interpretivist) Direct observation, either as participant or non-participant, of Agar, 1985; Atkinson, 1990;
the activities of a group over time, describing their routine Becker, 1970; Bulmer, 1982;
behaviours including such things as beliefs and social Center for Ethnographic
relations (culture), consists of ethnography: ‘graph’ as in Research; Center for Urban
description and ‘ethno’ as in people. Data can also include Ethnography; Clifford and
objects, art, dress, documents etc. An approach associated Marcus, 1986; Denzin, 1997;
with Malinowski, Radcliff-Brown and Lévi-Strauss. Fetterman, 1989; Fielding,
1981; Geer, 1964; Goffman,
1989; Green and Wallats,
1981; Handbook of
Ethnography; McCall and
Simmons, 1969; Stewart,
1998; van Maanan, 1988;
Whyte, 1943.

Phenomenological The structuring of experiences of the social world is Binswanger, 1967; Casey,
(interpretivist) demonstrably heterogeneous. Research approaches are very 1987; Cavalier, Lectures on
varied from the highly empirical, as with conversation Heidegger’s ‘Being and
analysis, to the more abstract, as with hermeneutic time’; Frick, 1990; Giorgi,
interpretation. The aim is to describe the essence of ways in 1970; Holstein and Gubrium,
which experiences of everyday life are structured to be 1998; Ihde, 1986; Laing,
meaningful and sharable. An approach associated with 1965; Moustakas, 1990 and
Husserl, Schutz and Merleau-Ponty. 1994; Packer and Addison,
1989; Phenomenology;
Psathas, 1989; Seamon and
Mugerauer, 1989;
Spiegelburg, 1976; van
Manen, 1990; Wagner, 1983.

Grounded theory An emphasis on achieving in-depth, initially ideographic, Glaser and Strauss, 1967;
(interpretivist) studies of particular cases firmly based on the systematic Goulding, 2002; Hutchinson,
exploration and categorization of empirical materials. The 1988; Locke, 2001; Pandit,
aim is to bridge the gap between deductive theory and The creation of theory: a
statistical abstraction and empirical data to achieve a balance recent application of the
between theory generation and verification. Categories are Grounded Theory method;
developed out of the data, are saturated with other data from Strauss and Corbin, 1990,
similar cases to test relevance, and then used to develop more 1994, 1997, 1998.
general analytical frameworks for transfer to other settings.
An approach strongly associated with Glaser and Strauss with
its origins in symbolic interactionism and statistical
positivism.

Surveys (positivist and post- The use of mailed, self-administered questionnaires and Aldridge and Levine, 2001;
positivist) interviews to gather large amounts of data on a topic from a Bourque and Fielder, 1995;
large number of people. Normally based on sampling, the Cartwright and Seale, 1990;
survey is often used to describe frequencies of behaviours Dale, Arber and Proctor,
and attitudes and sometimes to identify relationships between 1988; de Vaus, 1991; Fink,
variables (correlation) and test hypotheses. Often associated 1995; Foddy, 1993; Fowler,
with the poverty research of Booth and Rowntree and 2001; Hoinville and Jowell,
statistically based opinion generalization studies. 1987; Home Office, 1983;
Hyman, 1955; Kish, 1965;
Marsh, 1982; Moser, 1971;
Oppenheim, 1992; Petersen,
2000; ResearchInfo.com;
Rowntree, 1901; Salant and
Dillman, 1994; Sampling
guide; Sapsford, 1999;
Statistical good practice
guidelines; Statistics
Glossary; Tacq, 1997;
 Trochim; University of
Wisconsin Cooperative
Extension; Wells, 1935.

Case study (positivist and A focus on a single case (person, group, setting etc.) allows Abramson, 1992; Feagin,
post-positivist or investigation of the details, including contextual matters, of a Orum and Sjoberg, 1991;
interpretivist) phenomenon. Usually ideographic the emphasis is on Gomm, Hammersley and
explication and illumination rather than variables. In Foster, 2000; Hamel, Dufour
psychology often used to explore the exceptional case and in and Fortin, 1993; Merriam,
conversation analysis the deviant case. Historically associated 1988; Ragin and Becker,
with Freud’s psychological studies and with sociological 1992; Stake, 1995; Travers,
community studies. 2001; Yin, 1993.

Action research When a problem is faced by a group in a common situation a Action research: an
(emancipatory) researcher, who may be a member of the group, may act as an electronic reader; Argyris,
agent to encourage understanding of the situation and 1993; Argyris, Putnam and
identification of lines of action to bring about change and McLain, 1985; Carr and
improvement. Group members are encouraged to take an Kemmis, 1986; Collaborative
active (action oriented) role in the research itself, to identify action research network;
changes, implement changes and conduct subsequent Dick, 1997; Heron, 1996;
evaluation. The approach is often associated with Oja and Smuljan, 1989;
management and organizational research. Whyte, 1991; Coghlan and
Brannick, 2000; Greenwood
and Levin, 1998; Reason and
Bradbury, 2000; Action
Research International;
Center for Action Research
in Professional Practice.

Critical theory An interdisciplinary approach to social analysis and Adorno, 1991 and 1994;
(emancipatory) evaluation based on the early works of Marx and later works Braaten, 1991; Boyle, 1996;
of Freud. The premise that multiple realities are shaped by Burawoy, 1979; Calhoun,
historical, social, ethnic, gender and disabilities values as 1995; Connerton, 1976;
well as economic ones is used to suggest what ought to be Deetz, 1992; Ewert, 1991;
over what is. Focus is on places in society where forces for Fay, 1987; Forester, 1993;
emancipation can be actualized, especially in discourse which Habermas, 1984; Haraway,
is regarded as distorting and restraining. Associated with the 1991; Held, 1980; Kincheloe
Frankfurt School and Habermas. and McLaren, 1994;
LaCapra, 1989; Lasch, 1978;
Leiss, 1978; Marcuse, 1964;
Morrow and Brown, 1994;
Radnitzky, 1970; Thompson
and Held, 1982; Young,
1990.

Feminist methodology The application, using a range of methods and approaches, of Feminist research methods;
(emancipatory) women’s perspective and standpoint to explore critically and Fonow, and Cook, 1991;
document the position of women relative to men (and other Hammersley, 1992 and 1995;
women) in terms of income, health, status, career, Humphries and Truman,
domesticity etc., in order to critique and suggest what ought 1994; Jaggar and Struhl,
to be; an emancipatory and critical approach. Women’s 1978; Keohane, Rosaldo and
oppression, discrimination and exploitation are examined in Gelpi, 1981–82; Maynard
all forms of analysis including statistical, discourse and and Purvis, 1994; Reinharz,
ethnographic. Often associated with Mary Wollstonecraft, 1992; Roberts, 1981; Stanley,
J.S. Mill, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer, 1990; Sydie, 1987; Warren,
Sheila Rowbotham and Foucault. 1988; Sociological Research
Online.

Virtual phenomena (post- Studies of how people use, understand and interact with Birnbaum, 2000; Center for
positivist or interpretivist) virtual reality (software, Internet, World Wide Web), Electronic Commerce;
especially in chat groups, have established a new research Coomber, 1997; Dourish,
orientation often referred to as ‘computer mediated 2001; Hine, 2000; Jones,
communication’. Various approaches have been adapted to 1999; Murray, 1997; Journal
 unobtrusive observation and analysis of behaviour in of On-line Behaviour;
cyberspace, including network analysis, ethnography and Resources Centre for Cyber-
ethnomethodology. culture; Cybersociology;
Journal of Computer
Mediated Communication.

Evaluation (post-positivist or Specific assessment for the purposes of making House, 1993; Hadley and
interpretivist or recommendations for change to a policy, programme or Mitchell, 1995; Fetterman,
emancipatory) product. Uses whatever data collection tool and approach is 1994; Scriven, 1991; Green,
appropriate, including attitude measurement, performance 1994; Madaus, Stufflebeam
indicators, ratings scale, questionnaires and unobtrusive and Scriven, 1983; Chen and
measures. The aim of action change makes evaluation Rossi, 1992; Stake, 1983;
inherently political. Summative evaluation aims to evaluate Denzin and Lincoln, 1994;
’effectiveness and need’ so as to provide data for decisions Patton, 1990; Popham, 1988;
on the continuance, changes to, or merger of a policy or Posavac and Carey, 1992;
programme. Formative evaluation is mostly done to provide Rossi and Freeman, 1993.
evidence on design decisions during the development of a
policy or programme.

Note: Titles underlined mean Internet source or resource; URLs and full citations can be found in Appendix 3.

GENERALIZATION
Not all research is compelled to aim for, or produce, generalizations. Even in randomized
experiments and quasi-experimental research, maintaining reliable generalizations is difficult. A
generalization is a statement normally made about a population based on a study of a sample of
that population. The basic formulae are that when X then Y, or when X, your chances of getting
Y are Z times as high under conditions P and Q. In everyday life generalizations (making
inferences) are routine and normal and this expectation is often carried over into research.
Following on the critique of Fielding and Fielding (1986) of social research, Silverman (1989) in
a study of two social science journals found a tendency for authors to select data which matched
their preconception of the phenomenon and to select exciting and dramatic data for discussion
and argument. Citing Bryman (1988: 77), Silverman (1997: 153) contends that these practices,
along with the seeming disregard for validity, are grounds for concern about the
representativeness and generalizability of some social science research. In this section we will
look at the options and related issues concerning generalizations in research and at what you will
need to consider when justifying your position and choices to do with compromises between
generalization and specificity and between breadth and depth. Figure 10.4 provides an overview
of this in terms of the broad methods of data collection associated with these.
FIGURE 10.4 GENERALIZATION, SPECIFICITY, BREADTH AND DEPTH

As an initial starting point, following Ragin (1994), we will make a distinction between three
equally valid kinds of generalization in social research. The most common type of generalization,
often sought by experimental research, is statistical generalization. By statistical generalization
is meant the use of standard statistically based random sampling methods and statistical analysis
where either a causal or correlational relationship is produced, within a closed-systems approach.
Hence when X then Y, or when X, your chances of getting Y are Z times as high under
conditions P and Q. The second kind is comparative generalization, of the type often sought in
evaluation and cross-national studies. Comparative studies aim to generalize using an open-
systems approach by selecting criteria, applying them and evaluating them using comparative
cases. The outcome is usually the identification of conditions which give rise to certain
consequences. The third kind is concept generalization (or analytical generalization), of the type
sought by ethnomethodological and conversation analysis studies. The aim is to use general
concepts to analyse instances (specimens) to see if general formulations of devices, methods and
principles can be used to inform the analysis of other specimens (ten Have, 1999: 135). The
outcome is normally the replication of analysis with other, often ‘deviant cases’, instances of
naturally occurring interaction to make visible an aspect of the ‘procedural infrastructure of
interaction’ (Schegloff, 1992: 1338, quoted in ten Have, 1999: 136). Whatever kind of approach
to generalization is taken, the problem nearly always seems to be that we are expected to address
generalization in terms of the discourse of the experimental and the closed-systems approach.
The main elements of this discourse an be classified as discussions about measurement, validity,
sampling, reliability, objectivity and triangulation. It is taken as a matter of course that all
research seeks to produce learning which can be transferred to other contexts and research
problems. It is in this sense, the learning one, that being knowledgeable about the nature of
generalization is important.

FIGURE 10.5 VARIABLES, ATTRIBUTES, VALUES AND RELATIONSHIPS

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
In many cases research involves assigning a value to attributes which are variable amongst a
population. Figure 10.5 shows this in terms of affiliation to mainstream political parties in the
UK.
We have already described the relationship between concepts, definitions and variables in
Chapter 3, but it is also important to know what kind of measurement you are using and what
you can do with the data it produces. If you do not know these, then you cannot design your
research properly as you will not be able to fulfil its design purposes, know what kinds of
analysis will be possible and what kinds of relationships between variables can be investigated.
In the case of party political affiliation, shown in Figure 10.5, the values assigned are merely
shorthand. In themselves these mean nothing and certainly not that 3 is higher, better or superior
to 1 and 2. We call this shorthand the nominal level: the level at which a numerical value is
assigned to an attribute. We do this because in a typical questionnaire we may have several
dozen attributes and will need a unique shorthand descriptor for each. There are no statistical
tests you can do to nominal values and you certainly cannot rank them. Surveys and interview
schedules therefore employ other levels of measurement. In ascending order these are: the
ordinal, by which attributes can be ordered; the interval, by which attributes can be given
meaningful distances between them; and the ratio level, which allows an absolute zero to be
used. Appendix 2 summarizes what you can do with which level of measurement.

VALIDITY
Validity is not about measurement in the same way, as we will see, that reliability is. Validity is
about ensuring that you build into your research sufficient robustness to have the confidence to
make generalizations. Designing research that is robust in these terms means paying careful
attention to integrating a number of elements within your research. Although some complex
approaches have been developed for establishing validity in research, such as the ‘nomological
net’ (Cronbach and Meehl, 1955) and ‘multitrait-multimethod matrix’ (Campbell and Fiske,
1962), for most purposes such a level of design is to over-engineer and provide far more than is
usually necessary and sufficient for masters research, though more is said about this in the
section on triangulation. Figure 10.6 outlines the main elements of validity, showing the
relationships between them, and indicates which can be built into the overall research design.

Using Figure 10.6 and Table 10.3 as reference points, we can briefly explain through an example
(based on those given in Judd et al., 1991: 30–36, and van Dalen, 1979: 135–8) the main
elements and principles of validity. In educational policy research there is a longstanding
concern to be able to measure educational achievement accurately. In the UK this concern is
allied with that of class sizes. It is assumed by many parents and teachers that the higher the
number of pupils in a class (class size), the lower will be the overall educational achievement of
pupils in that class. A correlation is assumed, and can be hypothesized, to exist between the
independent variable, class size, and the dependent variable, educational achievement. Looking
at Figure 10.6 we can divide validity into three main parts – construct, internal and external
validity – which are described in Table 10.3.

What Table 10.3 shows is that validity is about carefully constructing definitions of your
concepts, hypotheses or propositions so that they can be translated clearly and predictably into
detailed operational methods, down to the level of specific questions and observations. It is about
ensuring that there are strong transparent relationships between the conceptual or theoretical part
of your research, the phenomenon you have identified for investigation and the method you
intend to use to get access to that phenomenon. Your methods operationalize your concepts and
so provide a bridge to ‘reality’ – as you have assumed it to be from your particular
methodological standpoint (remember, methods do not provide a bridge to ’truth’). The
assumption is that if you correctly integrate these elements, which include appropriate sample
construction, you will have the basis for making generalizations beyond the sample of subjects
you have researched.
FIGURE 10.6 THE VALIDITY CHAIN

TABLE 10.3 CONSTRUCT, INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL VALIDITY: CLASS SIZE AND EDUCATIONAL
ACHIEVEMENT

Types of validity Educational achievement/ Issues to be addressed

Large dass size

Construct validity Defining the meaning of the Different experts and people will have different views on
variables and deducing what counts as a large class and educational achievement. We
certain consequences which can rarely measure just one construct of a variable. A test will
should be observable if the also measure test anxiety, motivation, reading ability and
construct hypothesized does concentration levels. Test marking will measure grading
exist: using the literature, decisions (teachers’ biases) and classifications. Multi-
experts, teachers, etc., to measures are often used (multi-operationalizations) to argue
construct definitions. that the same thing and the right construct (as defined) is
being measured.
Classifying what is meant by
a large class and small class,
educational achievement and
under-achievement.

Internal validity Identifying the degrees of Identifying a relationship between variables is not sufficient
relationship between all to claim causality. A number of threats to internal validity
sensible variables on the need to be addressed. You need to know (amongst other
phenomenon (gender, weight things): how pupils were selected to be in the classes you are
of pupils, height etc.), using measuring (selection threat); what effect time has on pupils in
random assignment to select different classes (maturation threat); the effect of being
pupils for different class sizes included in the research (Hawthorne effect). To establish
and overcoming threats to causality different class sizes need observing whose pupil
accuracy and effects of cohorts have been randomly assigned. If using different
measurement. operational definitions of the concept, e.g. written tests,
testimony of the teacher and interviews with pupils, and there
is a high degree of overlap (convergence validity) between
the different measures, then it is assumed we are measuring
the same construct.
The number of agreements will give us the correlation
between them. Ideally, the same measures should show a
difference and fail to correlate with other constructs, e.g.
height of students (discriminant validity).

External validity The extent and warrant we The ability or warrant to generalize is determined by the type
have to make generalizations of research possible and the limits we place on the population
from our study to the wider we wish to generalize, too. If pupils cannot be randomly
population from which our assigned to classes of different sizes, then we cannot have a
sample(s) were selected. causal explanation but can have a test of correlation. The
Generalizations are also population, setting and behaviour should be defined as
predictions, i.e. the larger the precisely as possible. What pupils, in which kinds of schools,
class size the lower the at what ages, of which gender and ethnicity, in what kinds of
educational achievement will villages, towns or cities, doing which subjects, are the kinds
be and conversely the smaller of things that need specifying. Using a random sampling
the class size the higher the technique to select a sample increases the degree of external
educational achievement of validity, i.e. the confidence in generalizations. Using random
pupils. The extent to which assignment to select who goes in which class increases
we can extrapolate from the internal validity, i.e. confidence in establishing a causal
data depends on how we relationship between the variables.
have been able to control the
sampling process.

While an understanding of these three main types of validity is important in evaluating the
research others have done, their relevance is relative to the kind of research you intend to do. If
you are able and are aiming to undertake experimental research, then the technical details of
Cronbach and Meehl’s (1955) ‘nomological net’ and Campbell and Fiske’s (1962) ‘multitrait-
multimethod matrix’ may be relevant. If you are unable to control your research to this degree,
yet are interested in identifying relationships between variables or applications of classifications
and categories, you may wish to focus on construct validity. This means looking to examine or
test prior constructs of variables to see if replication is possible in a different setting at a different
time.

SAMPLING: SIGNIFICATION AND CONFIDENCE

One of the most common questions students ask is ‘How large should my sample be?’ The
answer depends on the type of research you are doing and the degree of confidence you are
aiming to have for your generalizations. For these reasons, in this section we will try to answer
many of the most common questions about sampling at masters level, but in a way that explains
the methodological assumptions sampling is based on. There are numerous excellent textbooks
on sampling and statistics which should be used to acquire more knowledge of the technical
details of calculations and sample size determination.

WHAT IS SAMPLING AND WHEN IS IT NECESSARY?

Sampling is a procedure for generalizing about a population (people, organizations, behaviours
and so on) without researching every unit (person, organization, behaviour and so on) in that
population. All kinds of research, not just experimental and quantitative studies, can use some
form of sampling procedure. It is, however, not a necessary requirement that all research uses
sampling as part of its design. For example, if you are studying behaviour amongst your peer
students and there are 50 of them, you could survey all 50. In which case, sample selection
would be largely irrelevant if you could show that these students were your population and that
you did not want to generalize about other students outside of your class. Sampling then, of some
type, is necessary in varying degrees if you are aiming to make inferences about a phenomenon
based on a study of instances of that phenomenon when the population is too large for all units to
be studied. If, however, you are aiming to analyse a phenomenon, say in a piece of conversation,
then generalization is not likely to be a part of your research design and sampling would be
irrelevant, though not the issues of validity of the data and reliability of your technique for
analysis (see ten Have, 1999 for a sound discussion of these issues). Sampling is an intentional
activity rather than prerequisite based on the needs of your research and is not a necessity for all
research. When used it involves applying procedures in ways which are transparent in order to
identify sufficient sources of data for the study of the phenomenon and selection of appropriate
techniques to analyse measurements. This allows judgements to be made about relationships
between values and inferences and predictions to be made about other members of the population
who were not part of the research.

Definition
Sampling is about carefully selecting a sub-set (sample or samples) of a specific population that can be shown to share the
properties or variables of the population. Findings from the sample can then be employed to make inferences, to varying
degrees of confidence, about the larger population.
THE ASSUMPTIONS OF SAMPLING
Although many textbooks on sampling and statistics fail to mention it, the methodological idea
of sampling is simple. It is based on the assumption that a population (a theoretical category of
things) will have a mean value and a deviation from this (standard deviation) will be dispersed
about its mean. It you are unfamiliar with standard deviation, its principles are easy to pick up
from most standard statistics textbooks, but you should be able to grasp the idea from the figures
and text that follow. If a sub-set of the population is carefully selected, it too will have a mean
value and a standard deviation. The assumption is that, even though there is no way of knowing
for certain about the characteristics of the entire population, there will be a correspondence
between the mean of the sample and that of the population. On this basis inferences can be made
about the population based on the sample. This basic assumption is the foundation of what is
detailed in most of the literature and one main aspect of this is the principle of confidence in
generalization.

FIGURE 10.7 APPROXIMATE AREAS UNDER THE NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

THE PRINCIPLES OF CONFIDENCE LEVELS

One of the keys to understanding sampling is to grasp the implications of the normal distribution.
Figure 10.7 shows an idealized normal distribution. Do not worry if what it is about is unclear: I
will soon explain things. The normal curve has some properties which, once you understand
them, can have some powerful uses in making inferences and predictions about a population. To
understand these properties a simple example may help. If we take 100 students whose assessed
course work has a mean (average) mark of 62 with a standard deviation of 17, then we can do
some basic calculations which will allow us to predict what percentage of students will attain a
mark within a given range. We do this by calculating the standard error of the mean by dividing
the standard deviation (17) by the square root of the population, which looks like this:

Taking our mean mark of 62, we use the standard error of 1.7 to produce a range like this:

62 + 1.7 = 63.7 62 – 1.7 = 60.3

This means 68 per cent of the sample will have a mean mark within the range of 60.3 to 63.7 and
that 32 per cent will not. That is, there is a 16 per cent chance that the mean is greater than 68 per
cent and a 16 per cent chance that it is less than 68 per cent (on Figure 10.7 this is 13% + 3%). Is
a 68 per cent probability good enough or would you need to reduce the chance of 32 per cent
falling outside this range? You can increase the range within which the population can fall and
hence reduce the probability of some student marks falling outside the range. You can increase
the level of confidence to 95 per cent and 99 per cent. You do it like this:

for a 95 per cent confidence level:

1.7 × 2 = 3.4
3.4 + 62 = 65.4 62 – 3.4 = 58.6

This means 95 per cent of students will have a mean mark within the range of 58.6 to 65.4 for a
99 per cent confidence level:

1.7 × 3 = 5.1
5.1 + 62 = 67.1 62 – 5.1 = 56.9

This means 99 per cent of students will have a mean mark within the range of 56.9 to 67.1.

You should now be able to see that what is represented in Figure 10.7 is an idealization. The
image of the curve is useful as it reminds us of the relationship between the mean value and the
standard deviation. The points showing plus or minus represent plus or minus standard
deviations from the mean (usually represented by the Greek letter μ for the mean and σ for the
standard deviations). Where they dissect the curve is where the curve changes. So –1 σ and +1 σ
dissect the curve immediately where it changes from very steep to steep and –2 σ and +2 σ
dissect it where it changes from steep to shallow. This gives us the proportion of a population
that will be below and above the mean within the values of the standard deviations. Hence plus
or minus one standard deviation from the mean covers 68 per cent of the population and means
there is a 0.68 probability of a unit (say student mark) falling within the range (one-third will be
found within the range of minus one standard deviation from the mean). It does not matter
whether the shape of the curve is tall or shallow or if the population is not distributed
symmetrically about the mean. The same principles apply to the area under the curve. In doing
these simple calculations you can extend the range to increase confidence that the mean of the
population will be within certain limits. However, it is not calculations such as these which will
give accuracy to your results, but the way in which you selected your sample in the first place. If
your sample is randomly selected and is of a relevant size (usually more than 30), then the mean
value is not likely to change significantly even if the sample size were doubled or increased even
higher.

WHAT SIZE SHOULD A SAMPLE BE?

Before you calculate what size your sample should be, it is important that you understand the
context of sampling. Figure 10.8 represents this, showing in the right-hand column the elements
of sampling and in the left-hand column what these mean for your sample design.

Although Figure 10.8 is mostly self-explanatory, the source you use for selecting your sample –
the sampling frame – must be clearly explainable. This means you must be able to show that it is
accurate, current, complete and free of duplicates and biases in the way in which it was
constructed. It must not favour a particular group over another relevant to your study. As a list
the sampling frame must also be legally usable, that is, not subject to laws covering data
protection. However, it may not always be possible to meet all these criteria fully due to the
nature of your population. If you were studying homelessness in a particular city, then whatever
lists exist will, by the very nature of the populations’ lifestyles, be constantly changing as
subjects move in and out of the area and in and out of homelessness. For reasons such as these
you need to have knowledge about your subjects that goes beyond available statistics that you
can use for gathering up-to-date intelligence about the current state of affairs. So before
determining what size of sample is needed, you need to understand the nature of your population
in general and the peculiarities of the sampling frame. Once you know these things about the
population you will be able to access, then you are ready to estimate the size of your sample.
There are various calculations you can do to find the appropriate size of sample. Some resources
on the Internet, called calculators, can help you to do the mathematics. But as a rule of thumb
Table 10.4 will give you a good indication of what you need.
FIGURE 10.8 THE CONTEXT OF SAMPLING

There are now a number of readily available references for estimating sample size, such as the
one shown in Table 10.4. The main point to bear in mind is that they work because of the
assumptions made to produce them. Most make the assumption that a 95 per cent or 99 per cent
level of confidence will be required and estimate the standard deviation. Using these resources is
easy, but remember that you will need to achieve the sample number and calculate the actual
standard deviation.
TABLE 10.4 RECOMMENDED SAMPLE SIZES FOR A GIVEN POPULATION (DEGREE OF ACCURACY 0.05)
SAMPLING IN PRACTICE
What has so far been indicated is that sampling is a purposeful activity and one which requires
some thinking about. This can be seen in Figure 10.9, which shows the logic of sampling again,
but this time in terms of the relationships between the different elements of the research process.
What you can see in Figure 10.9 is the movement from the general to the particular and back
from the particular to the general via the application of a range of statistical techniques. This
brings us back to the logic of sampling in terms of the relationship between the population and
the sample. The variables looked at in the sample, it is assumed, will be similarly distributed
among the larger population. The sample, if chosen carefully, will bring the variations from the
population with it. How this is to be achieved is dependent upon what type of research you are
doing. If you are conducting true experiments, then you will most likely need to use some form
of probability sampling technique involving random selection, then random assignment of units.
If your research is not experimental, then a non-probability sampling technique will be a likely
option.
FIGURE 10.9 SAMPLING IN PRACTICE

It is not always necessary, or even desirable, to use probability sampling techniques. The purpose
and type of research you are doing, allied with your research questions, should be the main
determining factors for which type, if at all, of sampling technique you employ in your research
design. Purposeful sampling is not, then, an inferior approach to research than probability
sampling. In many cases you will find that not using a probability technique will be far more
difficult than using one. Identifying and selecting information-rich subjects can be very time-
consuming and require substantial energies in managing the contact and relationship regardless
of what kind of people are involved. Whatever type of sampling technique you use it will, as a
matter of course, need full justification in terms of an explanation in your methodology. It may
be the case that you need to explain why and how you employed more than one technique, such
as a systematic stratified sample. Multiple sampling techniques can be used, but select which
ones on the basis of what your research needs. Figure 10.10 gives an overview of the different
types of sampling which can be used and more can be found in most textbooks on sampling, such
as Patton (1990, 182–3).

Finally, although we have only touched on some of the main issues and procedures of sampling
we would like to place sampling into the broader context of a research project. Figure 10.9
attempted to show the place and role of data produced through using samples. It takes for granted
the initial stages of formulating research questions and hypotheses and defining concepts. Once
the sample has been selected and research instrument applied, data will have been produced. For
the sample you can then start to apply a number of summations and calculations on the data
before finding the averages and degrees of variability. It is from these descriptive statistics that
relationships can be tested and identified, such as Z scores, t-tests and correlations. The
significance of any relationship is, as I have said, dependent on the quality of the data and any
inference made is similarly dependent upon the validity of the sample.

RELIABILITY
If you wanted to measure a length of a piece of paper you might use a standard ruler to find out
its length in millimetres. The same ruler will, on every occasion it is used to find the length of
something, produce consistent results. A ruler is a tool that will, if used properly, give consistent
measures of length which are free of bias and error and which are accurate within the limitations
of the degree of precision of the ruler itself and taking into account that the length of what you
want to measure is within the scope of the ruler’s normal usage. Table 10.5 shows the three main
types of reliability.

In research the tools or instruments we use to make measurements and observations need to be as
free of bias as possible within known limitations. An observation of a test can be said to be
reliable if it results in the same or very similar outcomes each time it is applied to the same unit
of analysis under the same or very similar conditions. If, for example, a student receives a score
of 99 in a test, then she should be able to achieve a similar score in a subsequent test if done
within a relatively short time of the first test. If an observation or a test can be repeated and it
consistently results in very similar outcomes, then it can be said to be reliable. Reliability is not
something that can be calculated precisely. In some kinds of research involving multiple
observations over time, however, it is possible to estimate the degree of similarity between
outcomes to give a measure of the consistency and variability of a research instrument. Such
calculations are much more prevalent in experimental research than non-experimental research.
Hopkins (2000) provides a reasonably clear introduction to the statistics of reliability in
experimental research. The key principles of reliability are, however, relatively easy to grasp and
build into any research project.
FIGURE 10.10 PROBABILITY AND NON-PROBABILITY SAMPLING

TABLE 10.5 TYPES OF RELIABILITY

 Inter-test reliability Test and re-test reliability Parallel-forms reliability

Sometimes called inter-observer This technique deals with the issue of When you have access to different
reliability, which means calibrating the ensuring that observations of the units of analysis in different
ways in which two or more observers do phenomenon are similar when done over locations, say in different
observations. This can be done in a series time. Making observations at different organizations, then it may be
of pilot applications where you calibrate, times will allow you to make possible to select samples which
bring closer together, the degree of comparisons. In quantitative studies this parallel each other. If the data
similarity between observers. In lone may mean you can make correlations collection instrument is
ethnographic studies and textual analysis between statistical data. With interviews, administered at, or about, the same
this may mean practising making notes in piloting the schedule will help to reduce time, then the results may be
different settings and keeping a research variability and equivocality. It will also comparable, allowing you to
journal with a record of issues and minimize inter-rating of categories, allow identify contextual variables for
problems, along with analysis. The idea confirmation to be perused between initial further analysis. Samples can be
being to practice explaining how one and later responses and follow-up randomly selected or assigned and
observation and use of categories (or questions to gain more depth. The time the data collected over similar time
criteria) can be treated as having been gap in between re-test (interviews) will periods using data tools which are
done in a similar way to another. This can normally be a variable; the longer the gap equivalent or the same.
be supplemented by making your data the less likely will be a similarity in Additionally, a sample may be split
available to others to see if the responses. In terms of analysis re-testing in half to see if the test, once
interpretations you have made are will allow for the researcher to test out administered to both groups, has
concurrent with what they can also see. interpretations with respondents. measured the same property. The
degree of reliability between the
halves can be estimated using
correlation.

TRIANGULATION: MYTHS OF CONVERGENCE AND CONFIRMATION

In navigation it is possible to plot location by taking measurements of distance and angle using a
sextant or global positioning system. Three measurements triangulate to give an accurate
position. Triangulation is often used as a metaphor in the social sciences for recommending the
use of multiple methods (sometimes referred to as multiple operationalism, multitrait-
multimethod matrix and convergent validation) to increase the validity of a construct and to
evaluate the accuracy of a measurement tool (Campbell and Fiske, 1962; Garner, 1954; Garner et
al., 1956).

Triangulation assumes that the use of more than one method will confirm the validity of the
concept by converging data from the different methods and give a more complete description
(Knafl and Breitmayer, 1989: 237) of the concept than can be had from using a singular method
(Denzin, 1970; Smith, 1975; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Mathison, 1988). It also assumes
that the accuracy and reliability of the different methods can be assessed and measured against
each other. Remembering our discussion of positivism and realism (Chapters 7 and 8), this idea
of convergence assumes there to be a single reality which multiple measures can corroborate to
give us a more accurate correspondence to it in descriptions of it. If one takes a realist position,
then the mechanics and the assumptions on which triangulation are based make sense. But
triangulation will not bring us any closer to ‘reality’ than a single method. If we do not accept the
realist position, then social reality is not something that may be interpreted in different ways, but
is what an interpretation can legitimately make it to be (Blaikie, 1991: 120). Hence, it is not a
simple matter of ‘if not one, then the other’ or if not convergent validity then ‘anything goes’.

In assuming that validity is essential in terms of construct definitions and operationalization, then
the purpose of triangulation is to build accurate definitions and reliability of measurements. This,
of course, is not done when we use a sextant or satellite navigation system. Using them is not a
test of them as instruments to give reliable measures of location or as tests for constructs of
position: topographers would not attempt to give the location of a feature without knowing first
that their instruments worked, how the data they give is to be interpreted and where the exact
locations are from which measurements are to be taken. The metaphor of triangulation using
notions of intersection is a poor one for the social sciences. This is because, unlike the map-
maker, the social scientist does not know the exact locations of a variable, whether their
instrument is actually measuring the concept it is supposed to and if the measurements are
accurate. From the position of a realist, we can build maps of concepts and look to measures to
identify relationships between these concepts to show convergence (and express this in
correlations) and divergence, but this does not mean we will have discovered ‘truth’ or validity
of the construct. What is at issue here is the belief that measurements from one method can
confirm those of another, and conversely that any agreement between the two methods proves
the validity of the second one, that is, mutual confirmation. The nonsense (or fallacy) of this is
like saying A is valid because B is valid and B is valid because A is valid. For either A or B to be
valid, the measurements must be assumed to be accurate measures of the construct. Showing
divergence between measures goes against the whole assumption of triangulation – that all
measures will intersect. Divergence has been seen as a strength of multiple methods (Mitchell,
1986). It has been argued that the weaknesses in one method can be off-set by the strengths in
another (Jick, 1983: 138; Denzin, 1970: 300) and enhance research strategies such as
ethnography. This entails the assumption that some methods and designs are epistemologically
better than others, but, if we do not know which, then how can comparative assessments be made
without an agreed standard? Hence there is no purposeful outcome to debates comparing
qualitative and quantitative approaches or experimental with non-experimental unless it can be
done within, and in terms of justifying, a theoretical position. Even then different kinds of data
cannot be easily, if at all, weighted or ranked – especially if they result in different ‘findings’.
The best we can hope for is that they illuminate aspects of the phenomenon each has identified or
more sensibly use them to show there are different frames of reference which can be used
(remember the example of the woodyard in Chapter 7?) to broaden the interpretive repertoire.

Triangulation may then be inappropriate if not carefully considered because each method used
will produce its own unique data. That data will not be a representation on the world as it is, but
one way of seeing it among other ways. Hence the aim for convergence and completeness should
not be taken at face value, for what is to count as convergence and completeness (or
correspondence and literal description) are beyond meaningful delimitation (see Sacks, 1963 and
Garfinkel, 1967: 24–34). This does not mean our research design should lack a concern for
validity and reliability, but does mean we think carefully about what they mean. This may help
us to avoid the trap of using mixed methods and traditional assumptions about validity which
often lead researchers to find, and thereby create, the connections between different data types so
that they fit a plausible frame of reference. Ironically, this will lead the realist further away from
the reality they are so keen to get close to.

OBJECTIVITY AS CONFIDENCE
Students are often heard to remark that one of the features that distinguish the natural from the
social sciences is that the social sciences are largely based on interpretation while the natural
sciences are based on objective and neutral methods. When asked where did they get this
assumption from, they often say their textbooks on research make a distinction between positivist
and non-positivist approaches and do so using a dichotomy between scientific and interpretivist
research. Scientific research is assumed to be that from which generalizations can be made with a
measurable degree of confidence. But not all research can employ random selection and
assignment to attract the label of science and confidence in generalization. This does not mean
that generalization is impossible and that such research will not be systematic and valid. To
dispel this myth we often point them in the direction of studies in the sociology of science,
specially ethnographies of scientists doing science (Mulkay, 1979; Latour, 1987; Woolgar, 1988;
Knorr-Cetina, 1981). This quickly shows them that science and any kind of research activity, no
matter what the popular conception or ideal type, is based largely on people (in the role of
researchers) attempting to understand and make sense of their data and at the same time reflect
on and justify the methods they use to collect that data. We will therefore begin by looking at a
definition in a popular research textbook:

There are two notions related to the idea of objectivity that, traditionally, have been very
influential on research. First, there is the idea of some external vantage point from which to
gain a better view and, second, there is the idea of approaching matters in a fair and
unbiased manner. Both facets of objectivity help social researchers to claim that their
findings are better than those based on common sense or received wisdom. (Denscombe,
2002: 160)

It would seem Denscombe is claiming that objectivity is about being detached, having no
relationship to the research topic itself or the subjects or having an influence on the way in which
the data are to be collected. He also seems to be saying that objectivity is about an attitude to
other theories, interpretations and ideas; that the researcher ought to be open-minded in terms of
being impartial, unbiased, neutral and having no vested interests. This position goes against
many of the positions taken by researchers doing emancipatory research. It also takes us back to
the debates and issues surrounding value-neutrality (see Chapter 7). There is no clear-cut way in
which non-experimental studies can claim to be able to generalize with the statistical confidence
of experimental studies. But both experimental and non-experimental research does require that
it exhibits relevance and confidence. Relevance is about showing how the research makes a real
contribution to understanding, including the development of a methodological approach.
Relevance can sometimes be associated with importance, but this should not be taken to mean
the impact on change or application such research can have. Importance is a matter for a
discipline and a particular research programme to determine, given the kinds of puzzles they are
working with. Confidence is related to relevance in that we need to be able to clearly
demonstrate that our research was done systematically, without prejudice. Confidence is about
ensuring that the procedures for designing and implementing our research are reasonable and
transparent. This extends to writing up the research, where what was done needs to be explained
and the data made available for others to read and assess the reasonableness of our
interpretations of it.

It is therefore possible and often desirable to look for functional equivalents between procedures
for ensuring reliability, validity and confidence in experimental studies and non-experimental
research. Bauer and Gaskell (2000: 342–9) recognize that some researchers reject any such
attempts by interpretivist researchers at establishing functional equivalents with experimental
research. Such researchers, they argue, reject procedures aimed at constructing measures of
reliability, internal validity, sample confidence and external validity on the grounds that they are
elements of dominance and control. In place of rejection Bauer and Gaskell (2000: 342–9) argue
for interpretive approaches to develop their own criteria for quality based on relevance and
confidence. Throughout this book a position similar to that of Bauer and Gaskell (2000) has been
advanced and in terms of actual research practice means the following:

using methods which are accountable and transparent;

being completely open about one’s relationship to the topic;

ensuring that subjects are fully aware of the nature and implications of the research
they are participants in;

taking into account alternative theories, arguments and interpretations;

not delegating the views of subjects to a form of reasoning that is regarded as inferior;

developing the ability to reflect on the research, data, your role and the research itself;
and

not using restricted frames of interpretation without first subjecting them to critical
evaluation and comparing them, where possible, against potential alternatives.

Research that lacks objectivity will exhibit such things as partisanship for a cause, bias towards
particular methods and theory, and commitment to a narrow interpretive framework. It will
therefore also lack critical engagement with the data and lead to pre-assumed interpretations.
Alvesson and Sköldberg summarize this kind of research myopia:

The particular interpretive options open to the researcher are crucial in this context. One
condition for reflection in the interplay between empirical material and interpretations is
thus the breadth and variation of the interpretive repertoire. If someone has dedicated almost
all her academic career to a particular theory, then their repertoire will be restricted. Pre-
structured understandings dominate seeing. The capacity for reflection, if not altogether
eliminated, is at least reduced. Something which strongly overlaps with such a cognitive
bias is the researcher’s own emotions. If one has worked a lot on a particular theory, one
becomes, as a rule, emotionally attached to it. The empirical material will tend by and large
to confirm the theory. Alternatively, recalcitrant data can always be dismissed by referring
to the need for more research. (2000: 250)

Alvesson and Sköldberg (2000: 251, 247–86) recommend that the problems associated with the
researcher can, in part, be overcome through the collection of rich data from multiple sources.
Like Bauer and Gaskell (2000: 345–6), they are not referring to traditional understandings of
triangulation. Their argument is that different types of data will encourage greater effort from the
researcher to produce various interpretations of the data. The researcher will need to look beyond
a simple interpretive repertoire and engage in a process of exploration and elimination that is
based on a reflective dialectic with their own preferences and methodological assumptions. This
recommendation resonates with that of Popper, who claimed that:
 What categorizes the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification, in every
conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save the lives of untenable
systems but, on the contrary, to select the one which is by comparison the fittest, by
exposing them all to the fiercest struggle for survival. (1959: 42)

It is interesting to note that, in most arguments about quality in research, a common position is
taken on common sense – it is relegated as something which needs correction. They give to the
researcher a privileged position by which and through which common sense and common
knowledge are regarded as inferior, partial and often irrational. You may wish to return to the
discussion of the work of Harold Garfinkel in Chapter 8 to remind yourself of how one major
theorist takes common sense as the topic for his research.

What is data?
All research needs data. Data can be whatever you deem necessary to address your research
questions. There are no types of data which are naturally better than others, though some may be
preferable, but not available, and therefore other data have to be used. For example, a positivist
may hold the view that consciousness and the mind are reducible to material operations in the
brain. From their materialist standpoint a range of tests could be devised to measure levels of
consciousness; what a person is able to do is used as a measure of their consciousness. It may
even be used as a measure of their intelligence. Concepts such as consciousness and intelligence,
along with behaviours such as grief and happiness, can be proceduralized into a deductive
approach using tests and comparative measures. The data in such cases would be the result of the
tests (solving mathematical problems and physical puzzles) normally undertaken in controlled
conditions. More sophisticated versions have aimed to test, through experimentation, the impact
of social expectancy and labelling as independent variables on the academic performance
(dependent variable) of schoolchildren (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1966). Some researchers hold
that there is no need for this kind of proceduralization to render such things as the mind available
for observation and analysis (Coutler, 1989). They would argue that the operations of the mind
can be observed in what people do in their natural settings. As people, researchers are able to
recognize other people exhibiting grief, happiness, surprise, anger and many other behavioural
modes. So-called subjective dispositions (as if there were also objective ones) are what people
do; they are a defining characteristic of being human and an animal. The key problem is how to
capture these as data for analysis. The method most commonly used is observation: watching
people do what they do in the setting in which they do it. Hence the approach is often called
‘naturalism’ (Kirk and Miller, 1986). This means studying people’s actions in their own
environment, which can be done using audio and video recordings, as well as examining many
other things which allow the phenomenon to be analysed, such as cinema film, television
programmes, autobiographies and fiction. One could even include in this watching behavioural
psychologists administer a test because they would be in their natural occupational setting.
Similarly, these can also be sources for the behavioural approach in that the behaviour of people
on video can be used to measure the frequency of a behaviour, personal biographies used to
construct a scale to measure stress caused by particular life events (Holmes and Rahe, 1967) and
drawings used to say what the experience of menstruation is like for adolescent girls (Koff,
1983). While the methodological tradition does have an influence on the kinds of data a
researcher tends to select, of greater influence are the research questions, the orientation of the
research design, and the kinds of data they require in order to be properly addressed. Table 10.6
indicates this in terms of the tools commonly used to collect and capture data and techniques for
its analysis.
TABLE 10.6 THE PLACE OF DATA COLLECTION TOOLS IN RESEARCH DESIGN

There is no direct relation between many design orientations, tools to collect data and techniques
to analyse it. But there are conventions. For example, experimental studies tend to use
correlational and regression analysis to ascertain the degree of the relationship between the
independent and dependent variable (Bryant et al., 1989). Correlational analysis is not always
based on experiments. Saying what data is, is not a straightforward matter, but it certainly
includes the following: letters, books, architecture, diaries, photographs, video, scripts,
advertisements, posters, signs, fashion, talk, bibliographies, jokes, plans, statistics, interviews,
questionnaire responses, software design, myths, art, stories, comics, magazines, charts,
diagrams and many other things. Data is what people produce (artefacts), what they do
(actions/behaviours) and how they do what they do with the things they produce, which include
beliefs, attitudes, opinions, customs, science and culture.

COLLECTING DATA
Having identified possible sources for the type of data you will need, think about just how the
data can be collected systematically, in sufficient quantity and of the necessary quality. In this
section we will look briefly at some of the most common ways in which data is collected as part
of masters research. There are many other books and articles and Internet sources which cover
data collection in far greater detail than there is space for here. To help you pursue possible
methods, citations to some of these sources have been provided at relevant points in the text.

Just as there are many forms of data, so there are many ways in which data can be collected for
analysis. Table 10.7 summarizes some of the methods for data collection. A useful way of
thinking about methods is that of seeing them as gateways to phenomena. Some phenomena
suggest obvious gateways. For example, if you are interested in turn-taking in everyday
conversation, you will need audio recordings of people engaged in everyday conversation. With
concepts which are more elusive and abstract, surrogates for the concept are sometimes needed
and both the methods and data are used to stand for or stand in as representing a phenomenon.
For example, intelligence is not something that can be easily defined or categorized. Tests on the
ability to perform a given range of predetermined puzzles opens up the potential to access the
concept as it has been defined for the sake of the test being applied. Therefore, the more abstract
the concept the more likely that the method of data collection acts as, at best, a surrogate gateway
to the phenomenon and, at worst, as means of demonstrating the instrument (test) can measure
the definition rather than the phenomenon.
TABLE 10.7 METHODS FOR DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Method Brief description Sources

Interviews Talking to selected respondents on a specific topic to find Arksey and Knight, 1999;
answers to research questions is the basis of interviewing. Bell and Roberts, 1984;
There are many kinds of interviewing, including structured, Bourque and Fielder, 1995;
semi-structured, unstructured or focus group interviews. Brenner, Brown and Canter,
Interviews are an obtrusive method which can generate 1985; Dexter, 1970; Douglas,
substantial in-depth qualitative information usually from a 1985; Flick, 1998; Foddy,
small number of respondents. Interviews can follow from 1993; Fontana and Frey,
questionnaires, adding depth to breadth, or be a part of an 1994; Fre and Mertens, 1995;
ethnographic study or oral history. The results of interviews Gubrium and Holstein, 2001;
are analysed by looking to find similarities and differences Holstein and Gubrium, 1995;
between responses from respondents. The researcher looks to Hyman, 1975; Kahn and
relate individual responses hermeneutically to the ‘big Cannell, 1983 [1957]; Kvale,
picture’ set by the research questions. 1996; Lavrakas, 1993;
McCracken, 1988; Merton,
Fiske and Kendall, 1990;
Mishler, 1991.

Questionnaires Questionnaires are a series of structured questions which A primer on experimental

address a specific topic or issue and are used as the basis of and quasi-experimental
the survey approach. Used to find out what, how much, how design; Electronic textbook;
many, and how often (e.g. as in what/who will you vote for PA 765; Foddy, 1993;
surveys), the questionnaire survey can be administered Oppenheim, 1992; Statnotes:
personally, via post or e-mail. The questionnaire is usually an an online textbook; Petersen,
operational instrument to measure a number of variables of a 2000; Sampling guide;
concept by sampling respondents from a larger population in Statistics glossary; Statistical
order to make generalizations about that population. They can good practice guidelines; The
be used to measure attitudes using various scales (e.g. Likert little handbook of statistical
scale) and will provide information from a large number of practice; University of
people, which can be followed up with interviews to gain Wisconsin Cooperative
more depth. As an obtrusive instrument, depending on how Extension.
the questions are constructed responses can be analysed at
nominal, ordinal and interval levels, making possible tests of
significance (e.g. chi-square) and association (e.g.
correlation) between dependent and independent variables.

Focus groups Based on interviewing, a focus group is a carefully selected A manual for the use of focus
group of people brought together in the same place to discuss groups; Agar and
a particular topic or issue relevant to them. The researcher MacDonald, 1995; Banks,
may use stimulus materials (e.g. pictures, objects, quotes etc.) 1957; Barbour and Kitzinger,
to encourage conversation on a topic, but as with all 1999; Bion, 1961; Bloor,
interview methods the interactions are artificial, obtrusive Frankland, Thomas and
and may be subject to ‘group think’. Focus groups tend to be Robson, 2000; Fern, 2001;
used in marketing research, action research and for research Goulding, 2002; Greenbaum,
on social issues. Multiple responses are usually unstructured 2000; Krueger, 1994 and
and therefore can create difficulties in transcribing recordings 1997; Locke, 2001; Market
(audio/video). Navigation; Morgan, 1993;
 Myers, 1988; Social
Research Updates; Stewart
and Shamdasani, 1990;
Using focus groups to create
excellence; Vaughn,
Schumm and Sinagub, 1996;
Wilkinson, 1998.

Delphi Technique Delphi Technique (DT) was developed by the RAND Delbeq and van de Ven 1971;
Corporation in the 1960s as a method to make forecasts to aid Fink, Kosecoff, Chassin and
corporate problem solving, planning and decision-making. Brook, 1984; Fowles, 1978;
Along with the Nominal Group Technique (NGT), it is a Gerth and Smith, 1991; Pill,
method for identifying points of consensus among a group of 1971.
people with common concerns. Respondents do not have to
be physically co-present to suggest alternatives to a problem
or make selections from a range of alternatives. The DT and
NGT can be used in action research where their aim is to get
the group to take responsibility for identifying issues relevant
to them and making recommendations they can act upon to
bring about change and address their common issues.

Document, discourse and Documents come in many formats and include official Personal documents: Cooper,
conversation analysis documents (e.g. reports, minutes, statistics), personal 1991; Malinowski, 1989;
documents (e.g. diaries, letters), literary (e.g. poems, novels) Webb, Campbell, Schwartz
and many forms of ephemera (e.g. posters, advertisements, e- and Sechrest, 2000 [1966].
mails, electronic discussions). Documents often define who Discourse analysis: Edwards
we are and what rights we have, who someone was, what we and Potter, 1992; Cazden,
take as knowledge (e.g. bibliographies) and leave traces of 1988; Faircloth, 1992;
the past. Documents can be contemporary accounts of an Foucault, 1977; Gumperz,
event, secondary reconstructions and organizing tools (e.g. 1982; Gill, 1996; Potter,
catalogues) to documents. Use of documents is usually 1996. Content analysis: Ang,
unobtrusive but involves issues of what the purpose of a 1991; Bauer, 1998; Berelson,
format may be, how it is to be understood outside its context 1952; Glasgow University
of production, and how it was constructed. Typical modes of Media Group, 1976; Holsti,
analysis applied to the contents of documents include 1969; Kaplan, 1943;
conversation, content, discourse, rhetorical and semiological Krippendorff, 1980; Leiss,
analysis. Kline and Jhally, 1986;
Neuendorf, 2002; Riffe, Lacy
and Fico, 1998; Rosengren,
1981; West, 2001. Rhetorical
analysis: Cole, 1991; Gross
and Keith, 1997; McCloskey,
1994; Meyer, 1994; Nelson,
Megill and McCloskey,
1987; Toulmin, 1958.
Semiological analysis:
Barthes, 1977 and 1986;
Gottdiener, 1995; Hawkes,
1992; Saussure, 1974;
Williamson, 1978.
Conversation analysis:
Atkinson and Heritage, 1989;
Button and Lee, 1987; Sacks,
Schegloff and Jefferson,
1974; ten Have, 1999.

Narrative/life history Personal experiences are a major source for the study of Cortazzi, 1993; Lee, 1994;
social, economic, cultural and technological events. Based on Lieblich and Josselson, 1994;
the past of a person or group, as remembered, capturing Narrative resources;
temporal experiences is the main challenge to this approach. International Conference on
Such experiences are captured using a wide range of sources Narrative; Oral history:
including diaries, in-depth interviewing, episodic techniques and procedures;
interviewing, school reports, letters, photographs and objects. Oral History Society;
 Various strategies have been developed across many Reinharz, 1992; Riessman,
disciplines (sociology, feminism, economics, anthropology, 1993; Rubin and Rubin,
psychology, biographical literature) to systematically record 1995; Spradley, 1979; Weiss,
and analyse the processes of remembering and structures of 1994; Werner and Schoepfle,
experience, including oral history, narrative studies and 1987; Yow, 1994.
biography. Topics are wide-ranging, including experiences of
immigration, poverty, adolescence, schooling, motherhood
and war.

Note: Titles underlined mean Internet source or resource; address and full citations can be found in Appendix 3.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

This chapter has attempted to give an overview of the main standpoints and cultures available
to you for your research. The main points which have been made in this chapter are:

Research can be categorized into three main types — experimental, quasi-experimental

and non-experimental — and each has an equal place in understanding the social world.

Generalization is, but does not always have to be, the goal of valid and reliable research.

Sampling can be a part of all types of research, but not all types of research require
sampling techniques to be included.

Triangulation is a much misused metaphor in the social sciences and should only be used
if the methodological assumptions on which it is based are fully understood.

Designing a research project is about making choices from many alternatives that are not
always comparable, and so methodological assumptions play a major role in shaping
those choices.

Further reading
Bentz, V.M. and Shapiro, J.J. (1998) Mindful Inquiry in Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Useful chapters on
positivism and interpretivist and different research cultures.

Mertens, D.M. (1998) Research Methods in Education and Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative and Qualitative
Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Very competent and clear instructional text on all the approaches mentioned in this
chapter.

Judd, C.M., Smith, E.R. and Kidder, L.H. (1991) Research Methods in Social Relations. 6th edn. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace
Jonanovich. An older textbook, but still packed with details on many approaches to research.

Seale, C. (ed.) (1998) Researching Society and Culture. London: Sage. Provides a clear introduction to a range of approaches.

AAPOR Resources on the Web, http://www.aapor.org/. This has resources on public opinion research.

Statistical Calculators, http://www.calculators.stat.ucla.edu/. This site contains almost every conceivable calculating tool for all
levels of analysis.
Internet Society for Sport Science, http://www.sportsci.org/resource/stats/. Comprehensive resource on choosing statistical tests.
 Part Three

Doing the Writing

 11

Writing your research proposal

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• WHAT IS A RESEARCH PROPOSAL? • WHAT ARE THE FORMAL REASONS FOR

WRITING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL? • THE ELEMENTS OF A RESEARCH
PROPOSAL • HOW LONG SHOULD A PROPOSAL BE? • DIFFERENT TYPES OF
RESEARCH PROPOSAL • THE VOICE OF YOUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL •
CRAFTING YOUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL • THE TITLE • THE INTRODUCTION •
THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS • JUSTIFICATION FOR THE RESEARCH • THE
INDICATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW • THE METHOD SECTION • THE ETHICS
SECTION • THE TIMETABLE • SHOWING COHERENCE • ASSESSMENT OF A
RESEARCH PROPOSAL • TYPICAL CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE PROPOSAL •
READER’S QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN YOUR PROPOSAL • SUMMARY OF
THIS CHAPTER • FURTHER READING

The development and writing of a proposal is an essential part of all research. Research
supervisors and research committees, along with research funding bodies, often insist that before
you begin your research you develop, over a short period of time, a proposal for your research.
Often this developmental period consists of you examining ideas for research, analysing
possibilities and drafting a research proposal. An important part of this stage is consulting with
and taking advice from your supervisor. Remember that your supervisor will have more
experience than you with research and will therefore be able to guide you, in ways which will
save you time and effort, to a workable topic for research. The purpose of this chapter is,
therefore, to look at the following questions about research proposals:

1 What is a research proposal and why is it necessary?

2 What does a research proposal look like?

 3 What are the contents of a proposal and how should they be arranged?

4 How is a research proposal normally judged?

Your research proposal will be based on your suggested design for your research (Chapter 10).
Your research design will have been based on defining your topic, stating the research questions
(Chapter 3), a search and review of the literature (Chapter 6), selection of an appropriate
methodological approach (Chapters 7 and 8), identification of the possible ethical issues
(Chapter 9) and selection of tools to collect, and techniques to analyse, your data (Chapter 10).

What is a research proposal?

A proposal is a plan that you have chosen to follow in order to achieve your intended outcomes –
the completion of your research. A proposal is like a map that will help you navigate your
journey along the research process. It will:

give directions on what needs to be done, when and how and in what order;

show you what transport is best suited for your research journey in terms of which
methodological assumptions to use and which data collection techniques will be
reliable; and

provide milestones for measuring how far you have gone with your research and how
far you have to go to complete it.

You research proposal is therefore a working document that shows to others what decisions you
have made about:

defining your topic to limit its scope (definitional analysis);

what methodological assumptions you intend to use and those you have rejected
(argumentation analysis and argument construction);

what approaches to research you intend to employ and those you will not
(methodological analysis);

your choice of data collection techniques and how they will result in reliable and valid
findings (instrument analysis);

the existence of the data and its accessibility (source analysis); and

potential problems and ethical issues (risk analysis).

Your proposal will have argumentative and persuasive elements because you are required to
demonstrate that you can analyse a topic (topic analysis) and argue for the need to study that
topic (justification) in the ways you have suggested (methodological assumptions and
approaches). At this stage in your research this argument is largely based on an indicative
analysis of the literature (current research and theory) on your topic. In Chapter 6 I showed your
how to do a search and review of the literature.

WHAT ARE THE FORMAL REASONS FOR WRITING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL?

There are a number of very good practical, personal and intellectual reasons for writing a
proposal for your research. Your research proposal will help you to:

explain to your supervisor and research committee what you intend to research, why
you believe the research needs to be done and how you intend to research the topic
(research design);

demonstrate to your supervisor that you have developed the necessary skills of
literature analysis and argumentative analysis to analyse a topic and find a gap in our
knowledge requiring research (skills and capabilities);

construct a plan for your research that will enable you to imagine the process as a
logically interconnected series of tasks which are based on reliable and valid research
techniques, recording of activities and analysis; and

understand the importance of ethics and risk analysis and provide a justifiable,
workable position and contingency plans.

The what, why, how, when, where and who of a research proposal:

What you intend to research

Why the research is needed
How the research will be done
When the research will be done
What resources are needed
Who you will talk to
Where the data is
How to access the data
How the data will be analysed
What the outcomes may be

Your research proposal should reflect the thought and analysis you have done to pose questions
capable of being answered by the research you are proposing, in the ways you have identified.
As a map it is your guide, and as the reader and creator of this map you are responsible for its
implementation. This means using it properly in ways which do not compromise your integrity
and honesty. It also means adapting it to accommodate the circumstances and opportunities you
encounter on your research journey. Like all maps there is a certain amount of latitude for
changes in the route; alternative ways of reaching a destination, even for changes in the
destination itself. All research proposals are open to change, change that is often demanded by
the realities of everyday life. Any change must, however, be thought about and the opportunities
weighed against what will be lost and, importantly, must be justified not only in terms of your
personal objective but of the ethical standards expected of a professional researcher. Hence we
can say that a research proposal is a document that explains to others and yourself what you
intend to research, how, why and when you will research it, and what you will do if something
goes wrong.

THE ELEMENTS OF A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

All research proposals demand time to ensure that they exhibit a coherent, integrated and
structurally sound argument to answer fully the ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’ and ‘when’ questions. My
approach to the research proposal is one of construction through reflection, analysis and
discussion with others. This approach involves looking to identify what elements are required,
working on them, arranging them and then integrating their contents to ensure the whole has
coherence. Figure 11.1 indicates the main elements of a typical research proposal. It attempts to
show the interrelatedness of the elements and the ways in which you should aim to link the
contents to achieve integration and coherence.

Achieving coherence in any kind of writing in no small achievement. A research proposal is

constructed incrementally and is a process of collecting materials, drafting, writing, editing and
rearranging. This in part explains why this chapter is where it is in this book; you need to know
about research and methodology and have done some analysis, thinking and reflection before
you begin your proposal. You may note that there are some elements not shown in Figure 11.1,
such as ethics, risk analysis, a timetable and resources. This is because I want to get across the
relationships between the elements shown in terms of the justification and title. You may want to
add boxes on ethics, risks and a timetable for yourself to see what kinds of relationships they
have with the others. In the sections which follow we will look at these, providing examples
from research proposals. Before we do, however, something needs to be said about the common
questions often asked about research proposals.
FIGURE 11.1 THE INTERRELATED ELEMENTS OF A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TABLE 11.1 INDICATION OF LENGTH FOR A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Criteria Length
 Introduction 1 page

Aims and objectives Half page

Topic justification 1–2 pages

Scope and limitations Half page

Literature review and citations 3–6 pages

Methodology and data collection 2–4 pages

Ethical considerations 1–2 pages

Risk analysis 1–2 pages

Schedule Half page

Resources Half page

References As required

HOW LONG SHOULD A PROPOSAL BE?

The question of how long your proposal should be depends on the requirements of your
university. Table 11.1 provides an indication of how much in page space using 12-point type and
single-line spacing can normally be expected from a research proposal. As you can see from the
table, and from some of the extracts included in this chapter, you have very little space to
communicate clearly, coherently and succinctly the pre-research and analysis you have been
doing for two or more months.

Table 11.1 presupposes, for the sake of clarity, a typical structure for a proposal. The thing to
notice is that the contents should be as brief as possible, without the loss of meaning.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Although I have said that the research proposal you write will depend on your topic and the
conventions for your university, there are some working structures you can use to get started. In
some of the chapters in this book, and in some tables and figures, ideas for structuring your
writing can be found. In Table 11.2 two typical structures for research proposals are outlined.
They represent ideal form and content and should therefore be used as you deem best to suit your
topic and intention.
TABLE 11.2 TWO QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH PROPOSALS
The structures shown in Table 11.2 are based on the typical content for proposals that are
strongly quantitative or strongly qualitative. In the boxes attached to Table 11.2 there are
reminders of the kinds of purposes, intentions, orientations, methods and the like often associated
with the two main approaches. It is quite possible to have content from both approaches.
Qualitative research can have a hypothesis, while quantitative research can have in-depth
portrayals based on capturing the understandings of those being researched. Similarly, it can be
useful to include an indicative outline of your dissertation if doing quantitative research.
Whatever final structure and content you decide on, however, must be a coherent expression of
your overall research design.

THE VOICE OF YOUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL

As you work on your research proposal, writing and editing it (often adding more text than you
take out!), you may find that you and your research become ‘one’. What I mean by this is that
you begin to see how to do the work. There is a certain pleasure and excitement in being able to
see what you can achieve and this gives you ownership of your research, often in ways which
become, for the time being, a means of defining yourself – a masters research student. You
become a part of the picture that you have drawn, that is, of your research proposal; you too are
in the frame. The voice you give to this position and relationship may become a problem. As a
piece of writing crafted by you, do you write in the third person, divorcing yourself from the
very thing you are creating, using such phrases as ‘the researcher’, or do you use ‘I will’? The
choice is not, in practice, an either/or. Using the first person, especially ‘I will’, can be repetitive
and uses up valuable space. Using the third person often adds a sense of the ridiculous and
certainly does not make a proposal ‘scientific’. The problem is often caused by explaining where
your research topic originated in the past tense, and combining this with saying what you intend
to do in the future tense. When explaining the origins of your topic, especially if it is based on a
personal observation, then some use of the first person is, I suggest, legitimate. There are many
famous examples of this, but one of the most famous is that given by Albert Einstein on how he
thought up a theory that changed the world. Einstein did not develop his theory of general
relativity by careful observation, experimentation or testing of hypotheses, but while lying back
on a hill on a summer’s day. Looking up at the sky with half-closed eyes, he noticed that the
sunlight broke into thousands of tiny beams through his eyelashes. He wondered what it would
be like to take a ride on one of those sunbeams and imagined himself taking a journey, at the
speed of light, through the universe. Of course, you cannot travel on a sunbeam at the speed of
light, but his imaginary journey was one of his starting points for the mathematics he
subsequently worked out to describe the physics of light and time. Einstein could do little other,
if he wished to tell the truth, than say, ‘I imagined …’, to explain the origins of his theories. In
other sections of your proposal a neutral tense can be employed. Here is an example to illustrate
this:

Popular romantic novels may not be literary fiction but those who dismiss them often do not
recognize that there is more to them than a love plot and happy ending. Jay Dixon (ex-
employee of Mills and Boon) argues that popular romance ‘come out of the oral storytelling
tradition rather than the tradition of the written word … literary style is irrelevant … this
kind of writing is, for the most part, intuitive’. (Smullen, 1999)

The voice here is relatively neutral and is being used to imply the nature of the argument for the
research. The same kind of voice can be used in the title to give a strong indication of any
argument or methodological position. Figure 11.2, for example, indicates a possible bias against
popular romantic fiction by public librarians, yet has a sense of research to find out, even test, if
the statement in the title has any validity:

FIGURE 11.2 PUBLIC LIBRARIANS’ POSSIBLE BIAS AGAINST ROMANTIC FICTION

It is a matter of using a little common sense to achieve an appropriate balance between sounding
ridiculous and sounding egotistical. Words and phrases to avoid therefore include ‘I hope to …’,
‘the research …’, ‘in my opinion’, and ‘I wish to …’.

Crafting your research proposal

Some university research committees hold to the belief that a research proposal ought to follow a
definitive structure explaining a methodology based on hypothesis testing and written in the third
person. The only reasons I can give for this imposition is the belief that a certain structure,
methodology and style is equated with ‘science’. Such beliefs may be traced to the academic
research socialization of members of research committees, but such an imposition is a belief and,
from my own experience, can exhibit all the restraints and closing down of critical and creative
thought of a fundamentalist religion. If you intend to use a methodological approach that is not
common to a department, be prepared for resistance. Hybrid approaches, adding some qualitative
elements to a predominantly quantitative approach, are usually accepted but again, from my
experience, there are serious gaps in knowledge among the social science community of the
spectrum of methodological debate and positions; the emphasis is still, in some institutions and
disciplines, on maintaining a belief in the methodology of positivism, especially hypothetico-
deductivism and its variants. This often manifests itself in simplistic renditions of the
objective/subjective, quantitative/ qualitative dichotomies and criticism of proposals which do
not adhere to the formula. If these comments are taken as criticism, it may also be taken that
there is something to criticize. In this section I will outline typical arrangements for two kinds of
research proposal, but I want to make it clear that, whatever arrangement you decide on, it
should be appropriate for your topic and research methodology. It is your research and your
research proposal and therefore your responsibility to craft it and defend it against preconceived
notions. For these reasons I emphasize that a research proposal is crafted, rather than written to a
formula. In what follows, some of the key sections, not covered elsewhere in this book, have
been selected for further explication.

THE TITLE
From the title ‘An investigation into attitudes of public librarians to popular romantic fiction’ we
can tell ‘what kind’ of librarians and ‘what kind’ of fiction. The title might also have an added
sub-title to say from what country and possibly region the librarians would be selected – for
example, ‘A questionnaire survey of West Midlands branch librarians’. This says there will be a
questionnaire survey, presumably postal, of public librarians working in branch as opposed to
central libraries. The reasons, it will be expected, will be found in the main body of the proposal.
The aim is to arrive at a title that describes what your research is about in the fewest words
possible. To some degree your title is a ‘working one’; one that at this stage in your research
works to describe what you are intending to do. Whatever title for your research you start out
with may, of course, change by the time you finish your research and have written it up into your
dissertation. It may be the case that any change in title has to be approved by your supervisor or
research committee.
THE INTRODUCTION
All research proposals should start with a short introduction giving the proposed topic for
research. This may seem obvious, but so many sections labelled ‘introduction’ often fail to do
just this. An introduction should be a broad overview of your main argument, hypothesis (if you
have one) or problem, and show, establish or define the problem, give examples of it and its
extent, say what solutions were tried and why they failed, and indicate what research might be
done and how. In Table 11.3 you can see an introduction to a traditional dissertation based on the
analysis of information content in popular women’s magazines.
TABLE 11.3 INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR A TRADITIONAL DISSERTATION

Introduction Comments

Women’s magazines have been traditionally regarded as The summary of the gap in the literature is not always
ideological ephemera which have little or no information possible at the beginning. The topic ‘information’ is implicit
content (1). Magazines aimed at women have been published at this stage. The scale of the phenomenon is shown through
for over 300 years and approximately 7.4 million women’s basic statistics. The Vancouver system of numerical citing of
magazines are sold each week, with about 150 different titles ideas and sources is used. Lack of understanding of the
available each month. It is not surprising that they are one of phenomenon is stated again and backed by reference to the
the most significant yet least studied social institutions of our literature search. The assumption that there would be
time (2). An indicative search of the literature seems to differences between pre- and post-feminist movement
confirm that the informational role of women’s magazines is magazines is introduced as a framework for comparison and
almost wholly ignored and this is despite titles such as as an assumption to be investigated. What is meant by
Cosmopolitan (3) and Red being aimed at working women. It ‘information’ and ‘verifiable’ will need clarification. The
could be proposed that women’s magazines post-feminist final sentence states that this is historical comparative
movement (4) would be less ideological and more research. Note that we are being asked to consider looking at
informational. This research will, therefore, aim to examine something familiar in a new way.
the proposition that women’s magazines are devoid of
verifiable information content and examine, through a
sample-based comparison, the assumption that women’s
magazines prior to the late 1960s were more ideological than
are current titles.

Source: Adapted from Oliver, 1998 (‘Health information in women’s magazines’).

The arrangement you use for your introduction is a matter for you to decide but, as we have just
indicated, it needs to have a logical sequence. One way of determining an appropriate sequence
is to think about and decide on what kind of problem you are researching. Are you trying to
show that some problem exists and are therefore attempting to argue for research into it, or
attempting to say that solutions to an established problem have, in some ways, failed and
therefore require a different kind of approach, or claiming that definitions of an existing problem
or phenomenon are inadequate, and therefore a different definition (respecification) is required?
There may be elements from each of these in your research and in such a case you will need to
distinguish them from each other. In Table 11.4 you can see an introduction to a work-based
dissertation that argues for the need for reliable evidence in clinical decision-making. Although a
little too brief, it combines elements from two of the orientations by referring to an existing
problem and focusing attention on a possible solution. The need to make choices between
competing priorities and forms of treatment are identified and a solution is suggested in the form
of information which is accurate, timely and valid.

THE SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The degree of breadth and depth you intend to include in your research is a part of your scope.
This means weighing up what you can do with how much time you have – include in the
calculation your own skills development needs. In a piece of masters research you will only have
time to do a limited number of things, so therefore you must acknowledge the constraints of time
and your skills. In order to do these, think about including a short section on the scope or
parameters you have identified for your research. This may mean you limit your research to a
particular sample, geographical region, language, or time-frame and in particular set the themes
you identified in your research questions. By setting out the scope of your research you are
letting your reader know what you will and will not include in your research. In different parts of
your proposal you will be able to explain further the reasons for the limitations you have placed
on your research. Your scope should answer, as a minimum, the ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions.
The extract in Table 11.5 is an example of a scope that says who will and who will not be
included, where the research will be done and on what topic.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE RESEARCH

The research you are undertaking is being carried out for a primary purpose and this is to
contribute to your masters degree. But as a piece of research, what is it you want to achieve? We
have already said that masters research is not strictly about making a discovery or adding new
knowledge, but there is, for many masters students, a clear conviction that their research should
do something. Clough and Nutbrown (2002: 6-14) looked at this commitment research students
have to their research. They grouped the reasons given by their students for doing research into
the following:
TABLE 11.4 INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH PROPOSAL FOR A WORK-BASED DISSERTATION

Extract Comments

It is acknowledged (1) that one of the main problems The scale of the information problem confronting medical
confronting health care professionals remains the huge body practitioners is established through a series of illustrations
of available evidence and the lack of time to read, and the from the literature.
skills to assess the value of, this information. For example, a
general physician would currently need to examine 19 The literature is used to show common agreement about the
articles a day, 365 days a years, to keep up to date with his or nature and cause of the problem.
her speciality. In a nationwide study of 600 clinicians and
100 opinion leaders in the United States (2), only 5.3 per cent The illustrations are grounded with reference to actual groups
searched computerized information sources regularly, of practitioners.
although more than a third said they searched occasionally. In
the United Kingdom (3) general practitioners may see an An example of the effects of the problem is given, which is
average of 125 patients per week and, during each effective. It indicates the consequences for other advances if
consultation, several queries concerning diagnosis, prognosis nothing is done.
and treatment might arise. Thus a practitioner could make
A recommendation is made to address the problem. The
some 25,000 clinical decisions each year. However, because
benefits of this proposed solution are outlined for
of lack of time, GPs generally fail to keep up with the
practitioners and patients alike.
research literature and change their practice as a result (4).
For hospital medical staff, reading time per week has been
reported as 90 minutes for medical students, zero minutes for
house officers, 20 minutes for senior house officers, 30–45
minutes for registrars, 45 minutes for consultants and 30
minutes for older consultants (5). As a result, it has
sometimes taken many years for important new research
findings to become established and for patients to see the
benefits. One example is the long delay before the proven
advantages (in the late 1980s) of thrombolysis following a
 heart attack were recognized and the treatment became
established practice. Even once this treatment became
established, and despite definitive and confirming results,
several studies in the 1990s found that many eligible patients
still failed to receive thrombolysis (6). Clearly, if doctors are
to keep up to date, information must be clear, succinct and
easy to access from their workplace. This will necessitate a
change to the delivery and form of research information to
medical practitioners. What is needed are bulletins, in text
and electronic formats, of statements and evidence supporting
them which will give succinct information on the benefits of
new practices. This may provide health professionals with the
confidence to change established practices in the light of
proven research findings so that patients can benefit sooner
rather than later from research.

Source: Adapted from Weightman, 1998 (‘Evidence into practice: A study of the professional attitudes to the “Health Bulletins”
in Wales’).

researching to bring about change;

researching for self-development; and

researching for understanding.

What we are looking at here is an important part of any research proposal, and this is answering
the ‘so what’ and ‘for whom’ questions. These questions mean: ‘What is the point or purpose of
your research and who may benefit and how.’ The students Clough and Nutbrown talked to have
a clear sense that their research should answer questions about the relevance of their research.
The core feeling Clough and Nutbrown bring out of their discussion is that research students
want their research to bring about some changes to practice, policy, professional development or
to doing research itself.
TABLE 11.5 STATING THE SCOPE OF YOUR RESEARCH

Extract Comments

The project will focus on library and information services for The range of occupations which could possibly be included in
qualified information agents working within the NHS such a study are wide, due to the complex structure of health
community Trusts, general medical practices and dental services. The focus for inclusion is allied to services to
practices in South West England. Services to postgraduate specified and identifiable practitioners within the NHS trust
medical and dental practitioners are also included. Where in the region.
acute and community trusts have merged only the library
services to community staff will be included. Library and An explanation somewhere else in the proposal may be
information services to nursing and medical students will be helpful to map the structure of services within the health care
excluded as will be services to primary care professionals sector in order to show its complexity.
funded directly by local authorities (e.g. psychologists).
Medical information services for patients are also excluded.
Source: Adapted from Fowler, 1996.

In Table 11.6, Evans’s justification for her research attempted and succeeded in saying a lot
about her intentions in a very limited space. Her argument is fairly clear due to its structure and
the use of conventional devices to establish a situation. That situation being the need to do more
if a current policy initiative is to be successful. Her purpose is to do research to develop an
understanding among professional information workers of the key concepts on which major
national and local policy developments are based. If this is done, she argues, her profession will
be better placed to implement effective change through better informed interpretations of policy
for organizational strategy. Notice there is a political element in Evans’s justification. Her intent
to bring about change is essentially political: she aims to make an impact on how a group of
professionals ‘see’ something and therefore change how they may devise and enact courses of
action based on their changed understandings. Therefore the management of this project would
require careful consideration and sensitivity not only to avoid overt bias, but also to ensure that
all relevant ethical matters are clearly accounted for. So we can see how Evans employed a
structure to establish a problem, identify some attempts to deal with the problem, find fault with
those attempts, identify a cause of the fault, state what would need to be done and what the
benefits of her research might be. She does all of this and also manages to place her research into
a contemporary organizational and political context.
TABLE 11.6 IDENTIFYING THE RELEVANCE OF YOUR RESEARCH

Extract Comments

The public library system in the United Kingdom is one of The size, scale and importance of the public library system is
the most extensive and developed in the world. Visiting the established.
public library is the fifth most popular activity in the United
Kingdom, making it much more popular than visiting the References to recent research literature provide the
other cultural institutions such as museums and art galleries. foundation for the argument that an opportunity is being lost.
However, a number of high-profile pieces of research and
government reports agree that public libraries and The changing and increasingly complicated nature of the
information professionals have missed many opportunities problem is indicated.
relating to the library’s role in a sophisticated, complex,
multicultural country. The research shows that the advent of What is missing to address change is stated.
information communications technology, changing industrial,
Developments already in place are mentioned but found
commercial, and educational patterns, has not been addressed
insufficient. The insufficiency is attributed to a lack of
by the public library. In particular the research suggests that
understanding of a major concept, that is culture.
public libraries have an insufficient strategic direction
because of the absence of a National Steering Organization, The benefits of a focus on the understandings of culture are
given the primacy of the cultural and educational role they outlined.
are generally expected to fulfil. The sector has, it is agreed,
benefited from the formation of the Library and Information The reasons for the research are formulated and the context
Commission in 1995. In the same year the review undertaken given.
for the Department of National Heritage reported an
improved sense of purpose and direction and status of the The benefits are reformulated in terms of national, local and
public library system. The cultural role, however, has, professional outcomes.
arguably, received very little attention and in particular lacks
clarity and definition yet it is considered extremely important
by many professional librarians and government bodies.
Government policy on the cultural role of the public libraries
will have an important influence on the future of the library
system and professional librarians’ understanding of their
role. This research will explore the understanding and
interpretations professional librarians have of the present and
future cultural work of public libraries in the West Midlands
in the UK. This will be placed in the context of the national
government agenda for public information. This research will
make a timely and relevant contribution to understanding the
ways in which a major government centralized policy is
understood and interpreted by a local library system during a
time of transition and change both within the organization of
the public library system and in the status of professional
information workers.
Source: Adapted from Evans, 2000 (‘The cultural role of public libraries’).

One way of thinking about your justification is to examine what you intend to achieve by doing
your research. Evans wanted to bring about change to professional practice through
understanding an important concept. Change is a common element of most justifications. You
may intend to bring about a better or a different understanding of a theory or concept, or bring
change to certain actions and behaviours. These two general intentions are not mutually
exclusive, as though the former is characteristic of the academic dissertation and the latter of the
work-based dissertation. The example in Table 11.6 shows that the understanding and
investigation of interpretations of a concept often have a direct impact on the implementation of
an organizational strategy. The key questions for your justification include:

What is the nature of the problem?

How extensive is it?

When and where did it begin?

What will happen if nothing is done about it?

What are its possible causes?

What can be done about these causes?

What will the benefits be of doing something?

You are attempting, in addressing these questions, to make a persuasive case which establishes
that you have a real problem for your research and that the research you suggest will have
benefits. These benefits do not, of course, have to be practical. Intellectual outcomes are equally
legitimate and in many cases are the foundation for many others.

THE INDICATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

In Chapter 6 we looked at reviewing the literature on your topic. In this section I want to show
you three examples of indicative reviews from the main types of dissertation. The first extract
(Table 11.7) is from a literature-based research proposal. The researcher, Kellie Snow, had a
deep and longstanding interest in the legend of King Arthur. She took this interest to identify her
general topic, turning it into an analysis of the bibliographic sources on the legend. As you can
see, this kind of research places high demands on the researcher. Knowledge and familiarity with
an extensive and sometimes difficult literature is required and this sometimes means, as in
Snow’s case, having the ability to read and translate from a number of languages. But as you can
also see from Table 11.7, the elegance of her knowledge is more than adequately expressed in
her indicative review of the literature.

In Table 11.8, the second extract is from a review of the literature for a traditional dissertation.
Ellen Smullen, who wrote this review, turned her pre-existing attitudes on popular romantic
fiction into her topic and looked to survey her peers on their attitudes to the genre.
TABLE 11.7 LITERATURE REVIEW FROM A LITERATURE-BASED RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Extract Comments

The earliest recorded mention of an Arthur comes in The As with many pieces of research that involve an analysis of
Gododdin by bard Aneirin, which probably dates back to the biographies, this one is also a chronology. An attempt is
seventh century. However, it only mentions a great British made to identify key historical works and to say, briefly,
warrior, and as the earliest manuscript still in existence is what each contributed to the development of the myth.
from the thirteenth century, the true value of this is debatable.
The first significant mention comes in the Annales Cambriae It is common also with this kind of research to state the
(The Welsh Annals) and Historia Brittonum (History of the names of authors and their publications. Most of these works
Britons) in the eighth or ninth centuries, but in both cases yet will not, of course, be available for consultation in your local
again he features only as a leader of battles, who ‘perished’ at academic library. It is more the case that you would have to
Camlann along with Medraut (Mordred). The bard and make special arrangements with organizations like the British
prophet Merlin also appears in these, but is not related to Library to consult such rare documents. However, it is
Arthur in any way. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum increasingly possible to consult these kinds of documents in
Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain, c. 1136) is the electronic format.
first work to portray Arthur as a king, and also to feature
other characters which are still popular in the myth today. He To some degree the writer expects the reader to know
wrote the first ‘story’ of Arthur, claiming to have gained the something of the legend or myth. In a similar way, some of
information from an ancient book given to him by his patron, the characters and authors are also expected to be known
and from the Historia Brittonum. Geoffrey followed this about.
work with Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin, c. 1150) focusing on
the bard’s adventures from Welsh literature and further Although the purpose of this research is not stated, its
developing his character. The degree of historical proof in indication is present in the review − being to map and analyse
these works is debatable because, as Snyder remarks, the development of the myth in what has become a
‘Geoffrey’s writings rely on an immense body of vernacular substantial corpus of writings.
tradition and outright fable which is impossible to date and
authenticate’, plus there are his own probable frequent
exaggerations. However, his works make Geoffrey key to the
development of the Arthurian ‘myth’.

The focus of this project is English language literature, but in

these early cases others must be included as they are
fundamental to the origins of some of the features of the
myth.

The French writer Wace was the next significant author of

Arthurian material. His chronicle Brut (1155) follows that of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, but the Round Table and the hope of
Arthur’s return from Avalon are also introduced. Layamon
translated this into English between 1199 and 1225, but made
his own additions by bringing the focus back to Arthur’s
struggle against the Saxons, probably to appeal to the British
audience. Various Welsh and Breton works exist from around
this time also, recording the oral traditions of their people and
providing references for writers such as Geoffrey and Wace.
Stories related to that of Arthur such as Culhwch and Olwen,
Tristan and Iseult and particularly Merlin emerge from these.
The characters Guinevere, Mordred, Bedivere and Kay also
first appear in Welsh writings, though not in the specific
guise in which they are now known. French romance writers
added more episodes and angles to the Arthurian story,
turning its appeal to tales of ‘love, magic and manners’ as
well as military accomplishments. However, in this group of
writings Arthur becomes a benevolent leader who fades into
the background to allow for the stories of other characters,
and his problems are also no longer foreign invasions, but
enemies that are within. Chrétien de Troyes, the most
significant of the French writers from this time, tells in
particular the stories of Eric and Enid, Lancelot and his affair
with Guinevere, and the story of Perceval. He is also the first
 writer to mention Arthur’s court, ‘Camelot’, and the ‘Grail’
that the knights went in search of. All of these stories bring
out the idea of chivalry that later writers would focus on.

Source: Adapted from Snow, 2002 (‘Structural analysis of sources on Arthurian legend’).

TABLE 11.8 AN INDICATIVE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE FROM A TRADITIONAL RESEARCH

PROPOSAL

Extract Comments

Arguments expressed in the literature against public libraries This review begins by stating a common argument and
stocking romances are numerous and complex, but mainly position against popular romantic fiction. It also highlights
focus on their literary quality, formulaic style and the fact some contrary views against this argument. Positions which
that they are mass-produced commodities, belonging to a have a positive attitude towards popular romantic fiction are
‘consumer society, not to a truly Literate and Literary society succinctly summarized.
(1)’. Romance novelist and former librarian Jane Anne
Krentz believes that to criticize romances on these grounds is The notion of high and low culture is introduced as a basic
to criticize them for all the reasons that they work (2). Krentz cause of prejudice against this genre. The case of Dickens is
argues that many who criticize romances have never highlighted to show the historical origins of popular fiction
attempted to read one, so their assumptions and bias are not and that he was quite well aware of its popularity.
based on a sound understanding of the conventions and
complexities of the genre (3). Librarian Kristin Ramsdell has
done a great deal of work on romance fiction in an effort to
legitimize the genre and encourage greater understanding
among the library profession (4). She believes that romances
are often judged as substandard because of their immense
popularity, and because they differ from literary texts which
place importance on language, characterization, and thematic
complexity (5). Mosley et al., (6) in their award winning
article in defence of the romance novel, state that many
librarians conveniently overlook the fact that classic authors
such as Charles Dickens produced serialized novels
specifically aimed at the lower-paid masses, novels that in
our culture are considered to be great literary works:

Sometime, somewhere, somehow, someone drew an

imaginary line and created ‘lowbrow’ and
‘highbrow’. Occasionally, an author who’s been dead
long enough can cross from ‘lowbrow’ to ‘highbrow’,
as is the case with Charles Dickens, who wrote
serialized novels in his day (7).

Individual taste in novels and perception of what accounts as Key words and phrases are introduced to indicate the
cultural enrichment are very subjective, and are subject to problems of making judgements about any kind of literature
change. Supporters of the romance genre believe that it is not and implicitly about readers of popular fiction.
the place of the librarian to ‘judge cultural relativity, but …
to provide a service relative to our culture’(8), and that to Further examples from literature of positive attitudes to
judge romances against literary works is ridiculous, as popular fiction are now introduced and show there is a
romances, such as those produced by Mills and Boon ‘have research literature that runs counter to the popular view that
never claimed to be classical literature’ (9). Jay Dixon (10), popular fiction is sub-standard. A number of points and
in her text, The Romance Fiction of Mills and Boon 1909– observations are briefly mentioned, which can form the basis
1990s, believes that it is unfair to dismiss series romances as of further detailed argument.
trash purely on the basis of their literary style, and that
romances should be judged by their own criteria rather than Famous cultural critics are introduced and their competing
compared against literary novels. Frances Whitehead, ex- arguments summarized in terms of the high and low culture
editorial director for Mills and Boon agrees, asserting that the debate.
novels do not need to apologize for what they are, and that
they keep countless women amused and happy regardless of
their apparent lack of literary merit (11).
Criticism of romances on the basis of their literary style
originates from the belief that these types of novels, if read
exhaustively, could limit people’s knowledge, moral outlook
and language skills. Social historian Richard Hoggart agrees
with this criticism, and has stated that it is a common myth
that readers of romances will move on to reading more
‘improving’ literary texts, as they are far more likely to keep
reading more of the same (12). Hoggart is strongly in favour
of libraries returning to their educational role and increasing
their stock of literary texts (13). Politician Roy Hattersley is
not so convinced, and has expressed the concern that if
libraries exclusively stocked literary and ‘improving’ texts,
they would lose the accessibility that they currently enjoy
(14).

Public library borrowers would ultimately vote with their feet The role of the librarian is now introduced. Based on initial
and go elsewhere for the books that they want to read, and it statements in this review, librarians are seen as holding the
will be the public library that would suffer. Hattersley also high-culture position.
believes that public libraries should be working towards ‘…
demolish(ing) the myth that books are the preoccupation of a Given that popular romantic fiction is the most borrowed of
cultural elite. Reading was meant to make us glad … all of items from the library, librarians’ reasons for stocking it are
us’(15). Librarians tend to protect works of classic fiction, indicated. Further research on reading is now introduced. The
and concentrate cutbacks on popular fiction, but Hattersley focus librarians have is shown to be on developing readers’
believes that there is danger in this logic, as the popular reading abilities. This implies that readers of popular
genres do a great deal in keeping communities reading and romantic fiction are unable to read high-brow fiction.
turning the pages (16). Peter Mann (17) has conducted a lot
of research into books and their readers/borrowers, and his
research reveals that there is a great deal of misconception
about the readers of romances and that the novels play an
important part in keeping people interested in reading:

The fact that while we all declare the way TV has

ousted the printed word, it is Mills and Boon with
their print run of millions who are in the front line of
keeping people reading and off the breadline. (18)

Part of the justification for stocking popular fiction in public

libraries has been that it brings in borrowers who can then be
encouraged into reading other types of fiction (19). This is an
important point, especially in an age where libraries are
actively involved in reader development schemes (20), and
are aware of the important position they have in encouraging
literacy among their communities. Rachel Van Riel’s
consultancy firm Opening the Book has been particularly
important in this area, helping librarians to encourage
borrowers to explore beyond their usual reading, and
diversify tastes beyond genre and brand loyalty (21).

Opening the Book has also been influential in helping The emphasis therefore from the library, librarians and
libraries recognize that readers of popular fiction are not government is to encourage reader development. The general
passive, but are voracious readers with very specific needs view that popular fiction is sub-standard has therefore been
and tastes. Stuart Hannabus (22) has commented on the reiterated and shown to be institutionalized.
dangers of librarians overlooking the complexity of the
romance genre in his article Resources for Love, and Kristin A number of dissenting voices from within the library
Ramsdell has worked towards raising awareness of the profession are identified, but not before the general attitude
importance of stock selection and reader advisory work when of the library profession has been reiterated.
dealing with romances and their readers (23). Concern has
been voiced in the literature about reader development
schemes that librarians will be tempted to promote only
‘good’ literature, but Van Riel (24) insists that the
manipulation is not to shape individual tastes, only to open up
access to a greater variety of books. It is still up to the reader
whether they like the books recommended or not. Culture
Secretary, Chris Smith, also believes that libraries are well
 placed to encourage reading, but should be careful in their
approach, avoiding condescension and paternalism and
opting for encouragement:

If the library or librarian is wagging a metaphorical

finger at the reader saying: ‘you are reading rubbish,
you really shouldn’t be. Here is a good, improving
book — we think you ought to be reading this’, that is
the worst possible way of getting people to appreciate
the wonders of great literature. (25)

Librarian attitude has been pinpointed as vitally important The critical view of a popular romance is developed by
when advising readers on their choice of fiction (26). Kristin looking at sources from outside the library and information
Ramsdell notes that the condescending attitude of librarians profession, at critics who see the genre as promoting serious
can seriously affect their borrowers, and that despite unwanted outcomes in readers.
disparagement of romance being a ‘time honoured tradition
in many library circles’ (27) this is no reason to continue
unethical bad practice. The romance novel is still hugely
popular and is unlikely to disappear (28), despite the
suggestion that many librarians would like to see
‘bibliographic euthanasia’ for the genre (29). Cathie Linz,
Mary K. Chelton, Kristen Ramsdell and Shelley Mosley, are
just a few of a growing number in the library profession who
believe that it is time to legitimize this outcast genre, and
give dignity to the reading choices of romance readers (30).
However, some criticisms about stocking popular romances
in public libraries go beyond concerns of literary merit, and Such critics see librarians as actively promoting sexual and
are much more sinister in nature (31). Series novels, such as racial stereotypes and homophobia because they stock
those published by Mills and Boon, have been criticized for popular romances. The ‘popular’ from the point of view of
promoting sexual stereotypes (32), and are acknowledged as such critics is equated with rubbish. Popular romances are
being racist and homophobic (33) even by those who enjoy said to be rubbish because they are not considered to reflect
them. In recent years there have been attempts to rectify these real life (whatever that is). Ironically, the critics are calling
problems, and new sub-genres have emerged (such as ethnic for popular romance to be censored. The basis for the
and multicultural series) to reflect more realistically today’s research is therefore established: to examine the views of
society. Supporters of series romances insist that the books public librarians to popular romantic fiction.
are very important in communicating the changing values of
society to people who would read very little else, and that as
a medium of communication, this is justification enough for
stocking them in the library (34). Some disagree with this
point, insisting that by stocking series romances, libraries are
legitimizing and reinforcing the dubious values that such
books include:

Rubbish is popular, and it is necessary to state why it

is lethal: it provides an escape from the real and
actual world. It depicts a two-dimensional world in
which there is no poverty, unemployment, vandalism,
drug dependence, failing family relationships and
injustice before the law. It is an opiate; it positively
undermines the determination to change the status
quo. (35)

This statement reveals that, for some, popular romantic

fiction has had an all too convincing victory over the censors,
and that a stronger line in stock selection is believed to be
necessary and justified.

Source: Adapted from Smullen, 2002 (‘Survey of librarians’ attitudes to popular romance books’).

TABLE 11.9 AN INDICATIVE REVIEW FROM A WORK-BASED RESEARCH PROPOSAL

 Extract Comments

The existing structure of library support for the NHS has This review begins by giving a brief chronology of
developed over the past 30 years (1). Many of the regional information service provision within the NHS.
library services were put in place to support postgraduate
medical and allied education during the 1960s (2). Health It attempts to show that NHS library services developed in an
service libraries were furthered by the government ad hoc way and that funding for them has been provided from
recommendation (3) which stated services should be multi- within and from other programmes.
disciplinary and available to all professional groups. At this
point libraries were funded by hospitals as part of their
contribution to a postgraduate and continuing medical
education of their staff. Education, training, research and
development in the NHS are funded by a 17 per cent levy on
health authorities and postgraduate medical education, and
the funding for libraries has been largely derived from this
route.

Library services in the South Western regions developed The nature of the problem is to look from a regional
largely along parallel tracks, in line with the national perspective based on the researcher’s place of work.
initiatives just described. The first postgraduate Medical
Centre librarians were appointed in the early 1970s. Very Some of the key issues and problems perceived in the
early on the libraries in each region joined to form inter- workplace are listed and seen as general issues and problems
lending networks, and document-supply mechanisms were facing health care libraries at a national level.
also established. These mechanisms resulted in semi-formal
arrangements which were based on reciprocal need for access
to extended resources. Since the original merger in 1994 the
two major library networks have begun to integrate some of
their activities. Eight joint operating frameworks combined to
form the South and West Regional Library and Information
Network in 1996. This merger has highlighted a number of
ongoing issues and problems in the provision of library and
information services. These include information for research
and development, information for non-medical education
and, training, resource sharing, and, most importantly,
financing of information services.

A number of independent, NHS-generated and government The problem is then summarized, with an additional point
reports have also highlighted these major problems, not least being made that solving the problem will have difficulties in
those of providing and financing a co-ordinated information itself in terms of conducting the research.
service within the NHS and to those working in public health,
social care, and other professions related to health care. To
date very little detailed information has been gathered on the
resource and management issues related to specific library
and information services, in order to identify responsibilities
for funding and management of services. The situation today
is one of general confusion over which department, unit or
sector within health care is ultimately responsible for library
and information services. This is exacerbated by the problem
of how this information can best be obtained, given the wide
variety of libraries and their geographical spread.

Source: Adapted from Fowler, 1996 (‘Library and information service provision to NHS community-based staff’).

In the third extract, shown in Table 11.9, you can see a literature review for a work-based
dissertation. Christine Fowler, an information worker in the NHS, took as her topic the provision
of information by NHS information services to health practitioners. Her basic premise was that
all organizations need information and that those based on research need it even more. The
literature review she did for her proposal was long and complex, looking at the literature on
recent changes in the NHS, government policy and at the arguments for the role of information
to health care professionals. The extract in Table 11.9 shows the literature related to health care
libraries.

THE METHOD SECTION

The purpose of this section is to demonstrate the reasons behind your choice of methodological
tradition, approach, procedures and tools for the collection and analysis of your data. There is
often some confusion over what some of these terms mean and how they should be used. In this
book I have used the following terms and phrases in the following ways:

by methodological tradition I mean the choice you have made between positivist and
non-positivist traditions;

by methodological approach I refer to a choice and balance between experimental and

non-experimental and qualitative and quantitative;

by research culture I refer to choices between historical, feminist, comparative and

other cultures of research;

by technique of analysis I refer to types of analysis such as content, discourse, category

and other forms of analysis.

The problem with writing this section is attempting to describe your overall approach, the
methods and procedures you will use and at the same time show how you arrived at the decision
on which combination to employ. This is often called the logic of justification. If you go back to
Chapters 7 and 8 where we looked at the logical assumptions and the consequences of
methodological choices, you will see just how important it is to explain the reasoning behind
your choices. It is not sufficient simply to describe what you will do; you need to explain how
you elected to take one approach rather than another and at the consequences this might have for
the research. This involves looking at the design of your research as a whole and not just at the
collection of data but at what kinds of data you have, and how it can be managed, sorted,
analysed, presented and interpreted, in terms of your overall methodological approach. It is often
your research questions which guide the inquiry process and not the data or data collection tools
or analysis itself. Your research questions are the hub or the centre of your research and of your
research proposal; the ways in which they are worded give direction to your methodological
assumptions, methodological approach, kinds of data you deem necessary and form of analysis.
Your research questions form a frame or skeleton which hold the rest of your research proposal
and research together. In the extract shown in Table 11.10 you can see the part of the section that
deals with how the data is to be collected.

We looked at research questions along with hypotheses and propositions in Chapter 3.

TABLE 11.10 METHODS SECTION OF A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Extract Comments

It is proposed that this research is based on a survey Three main sources of information and data are identified,
approach: a survey of the relevant literature, a questionnaire including the literature. The issues of balancing breadth
of key decision-makers and follow-up interviews (1). The against depth is mentioned.
combination of these three techniques is designed to get an
appropriate balance between breadth and depth in order to
achieve a valid description of the current state of
understanding and interpretation of the concept of culture (2).
The organization and execution of the postal survey will be
undertaken in July and responses are expected within four Timing and reasons for a structured questionnaire are given.
working weeks. The use of a standardized questionnaire will Note the citations, which will presumably be used in the
avoid the problem of varying quality of interview data (3). dissertation with others to provide fuller explanations for the
They will also provide an opportunity to gather some method.
quantitative data which can be used to construct questions for
follow-up interviews (4). The literature on questionnaire
surveys (5) is generally agreed that questionnaires alone are
an insufficient technique for gathering valid data even though
they may be reliable if properly constructed and conducted.
There is no need for a sample of key decision-makers
because at the national and the local level all relevant persons Access to subjects is explained along with who they will be.
have agreed to take part in this research. This includes all the
senior management teams of public libraries in the West
Midlands region, chief executive of the Library Association
and his senior management team, and a representative from
the policy formation unit of the Department for National
Heritage. In this respect the population will be a purposeful
sample and will require the techniques developed to
interview elites (6).
Having established, from the literature review, the subject
areas to be explored, the postal questionnaires will allow a Sampling issues are dealt with and the nature of the status of
close examination of the subject based on a combination of subjects is mentioned – possibly to indicate that certain
specific and general questions. Questions would be either of techniques may have to be employed.
the closed or open type and based on the guiding questions
for this research project (7).
A pilot questionnaire (8) has already been tested in the field
and a final design of the questionnaire is nearly ready. Given The form of the questions is stated along with the pilot. A key
that the chief executive of the Library Association will be person for the research is identified by post and organization
acting as my sponsor for this research and has already because they are important for gaining sufficient access to
contacted the subjects it is anticipated that the questionnaire subjects.
will have a high if not 100 per cent response rate. A coding
frame for the questionnaire has been constructed and is Levels of response rate are mentioned and there is therefore
appended to this proposal (9). The total number of no need to explain what will be done if the rate is too low.
questionnaires expected to be completed is 24 therefore it is When the subjects will be interviewed is stated, but the
not expected that software will be required to analyse the problems this may create are not mentioned.
results.
Based on three pilot interviews (with staff from my
department) it is feasible to conduct interviews with all 24 Reasons for using interviews are indicated and relate back to
subjects in the time available. An opportunity to conduct the need for depth, which is augmented by the mention of the
most of the interviews over a week period has presented itself possibility for further interviews.
in the form of a national conference for public librarians.
Twenty of the respondents will be attending the conference
and have agreed via my sponsor to set aside up to two hours
during the conference. The final version of the interview
schedule will not be prepared until all questionnaires have
been analysed (10). The interviews will be, however,
structured, to allow some control of the course of the
conversation, to maintain the focus on the relevant issues and
problems surrounding the concept of culture (11). It will be
possible for respondents to explain their understandings and
interpretations, and will be encouraged to base these on their
own organizational policies and courses of action (12). There
will also be an opportunity for a second round of interviews,
should this be necessary, with a much smaller group (13),
 approximately six subjects, to follow up further issues raised
in the questionnaires and the first round of interviews.

Source: Adapted from Evans, 2000 (‘The cultural role of public libraries’).

The extract in Table 11.10 is a paraphrase. We could reasonably expect the actual dissertation to
run to about four pages and include summaries of, and citations to, debates about the pros and
cons of the survey approach, the validity and reliability of questionnaires and interviews, along
with political sensitivity when using senior persons in organizations as a source of your data. In
your dissertation you will have an opportunity to amplify on your methods and to discuss the
methodological approach you chose to use. In your research proposal, however, you will only
have the space to give an indication of what data collection tools you intend to use, how you will
get access to the data/subjects, what some of the technical problems might be and how you will
analyse the data.

THE ETHICS SECTION

In Chapter 9 we looked at ethics in terms of doing research and emphasized that an analysis of
your personal ethical standpoint and the needs of your research are important parts of the whole
research process. Your proposal should include a set of brief statements on how you intend to
conform to accepted ethical codes, and should detail what particular ethical issues and problems
you will need to deal with in your research. In Table 11.11 you can see such a statement.

There is, as you can see in Table 11.11, a certain number of ‘usual ethical issues and problems’
and this represents the basic contents to be included in your ethics section. The main point is to
state what the specific ethical issues are in terms of your research. More details could have been
included in this statement, linking each problem to a specific part of the research. You may want
to look back to Table 11.6, where we introduced Ceri Evans’s research, and think about what
kinds of ethical issues and problems might emerge from her research.

THE TIMETABLE
In Chapter 2 we looked at how you can begin to identify the tasks and estimate the time needed
to complete your research. This timetable or schedule should be included in your proposal to
show your supervisors that you have made a realistic estimation of the time your research will
take you. Your schedule should also include time for writing up your dissertation and,
importantly, time for unforeseen happenings – like illness, relatives visiting and holidays. A
typical way of presenting your schedule is shown in Figure 11.3.

There are other ways to present your timetable, such as in a Gantt chart or by using various kinds
of software such as Project Manager. But whatever way you choose, it must indicate the
sequence and relationships between the major groups of tasks to be achieved to meet the target
dates.
TABLE 11.11 STATEMENT OF ETHICAL ISSUES AND PROBLEMS

Extract Comments
 This research will need to attend to the following ethical The key issue and problems are stated. These may become
issue and problems: confidentiality of subjects and protection problematic in the course of the research or change
of their identities and places of work; maintaining altogether. Therefore they are largely the ‘obvious’ matters
independence from possible attempts by interested for attention. Using the university’s or a professional
parties/bodies to bias results; ensuring security of data during organization’s formal code can be an effective way of
and after completion of the research. These key issues and conforming to accepted standards.
problems will be addressed by: using the university’s formal
procedures including sending standard agreements and letters How you ensure non-disclosure needs to be determined in
of consent on confidentiality to all subjects; sending a copy advance.
of this research proposal to all parties so that they are fully
informed about the intent of this research; ensuring non- The rights of subjects are indicated, but so to are your rights.
disclosure of subjects by using numbers in place of names, Is it ethical for a key informant to withdraw near the end of
and of their respective organizations by using letters in place your research, perhaps making it impossible to complete,
of names; only myself and my dissertation supervisors will when you have not infringed any ethical code or agreement?
have access to the data. Subjects will have the right, as stated
in the letter of consent, to withdraw from this research but
will not have the right to edit or censor the final dissertation
so long as their identity/organization has not been revealed
nor has there been any other breach of the agreement.

You may have noticed that the schedule in Figure 11.3 allows time for slippage, when you take
more time than expected on a task, and allows ample time for writing up and doing production
jobs in the three to four weeks prior to the handing-in deadline. A key piece of advice I annually
give to my masters students is to expect the unexpected – whatever can go wrong has gone
wrong for your predecessors. Moreover, do not think you can print off your dissertation in an
afternoon. The pagination, printing and checking page numbers and all the other minor jobs take,
on average, about three days. Plus, of course, you will have to get at least two copies bound and,
if you do not hand them in yourself, you should allow plenty of time for the post – twice the
normal delivery time.

FIGURE 11.3 SAMPLE TIMETABLE FOR YOUR RESEARCH PROPOSAL

SHOWING COHERENCE
If your proposal has been carefully crafted, then it should have a logical structure; this means it
will have coherence between the different parts and their contents. The discourse is the language
and vocabulary of your methodological approach, your research design, and your approach to
specifying a topic or problem. The discourse (or vocabulary) is not an empty shell of phrases and
words (buzz terms) to be included, but a set of tools to be used in ways which can demonstrate
your proficiency at applying them appropriately. To do this is to display your reasoning in a way
that allows the reader – and you – to see the flow, sequencing and logic of your overall approach.
One way of achieving this is to lay out your initial proposal as shown in Table 11.12.

TABLE 11.12 shows a logical sequence of questions about a puzzle. It shows three chapters of a
dissertation in outline form. Each chapter attempts to attend to a related problem through the
guiding questions which you have stated to help you construct a topic or problem for your
research. The fourth column on process and product highlights the kinds of skills, capabilities,
qualities and attitudes you will need to synthesize ‘doing–thinking–doing’, in order to make
decisions on how best to move forward and further into your research. Although this practice is
not common in all universities, envisioning your dissertation in this way can be very useful. It
can give you a clearer idea of the dissertation you will be taking to your research committee and
the research journey you will be undertaking. In summary it will help you to:
TABLE 11.12 SHOWING COHERENT THINKING ABOUT YOUR PROPOSAL
identify what things and tasks you may encounter on your way;
 arrange the literature into sections to deal with different issues, concerns and
problems;

narrow down your research to make it manageable;

identify key landmarks and risks;

identify key stakeholders and groups; and

identify different approaches and specify the logical connectivity of your approach.

Assessment of a research proposal

In most cases the research proposal is part of the assessment for an accredited course of study.
For this reason the ways in which your research proposal will be assessed need to be taken into
account when you prepare your document. This has certain problems, not least that the assessor
may have preconceptions as to what structure should be used. I have already said, quite strongly,
that the structure should be a matter for you to decide. This means there is potential for conflict
between what your supervisors expect and what you deem necessary. The main way to address
this is to be clear from the outset with your supervisors about what kind of research you intend to
do. As you work on your proposal, consult with them on a regular basis about the reasons for the
structure you are intending to use for your proposal. This should encourage you to explain and
justify your choices in ways which help you to incorporate all the necessary elements to meet the
assessment criteria.

TYPICAL CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE PROPOSAL

In this section I want to suggest some criteria that are often used to assess a research proposal,
my purpose being to orient your work towards meeting them in ways which suit your research
and the bureaucracy of a research committee. Table 11.13 provides a snapshot overview of the
formative criteria that could be used for the overall assessment of your proposal.
TABLE 11.13 OVERVIEW OF CRITERIA FOR A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Criteria Description

1 Aims and objectives Aim(s) and objectives form a coherent set. Aim(s) show clear
intention and can be actualized by the objectives which are
logically sequenced.
2 Literature review and citations Identification of key sources, authors and arguments to place
the topic in an historical perspective. Summarizing and
evaluating different ideas and arguments. Showing a
command of the subject/topic vocabulary. Citations are
consistent, correct and detailed.
3 Topic rationale Use of argumentative structure with sufficient evidence and
data to justify and provide a rationale for the topic. Use of the
 literature to provide authority or/and indicate direction of the
topic.
4 Methodology and data collection Overview of methodological approach with identification of
appropriate data collection techniques which are briefly
assessed. Justification is provided by reference to the
literature and the definition and scope placed on the topic.
5 Argumentation and critical awareness Argumentation analysis shown in rationale, literature review,
scope set for the topic and justification of methodology and
data collection techniques.
6 Presentation and succinctness Clear, systematic and structured with very good grammar,
spelling and clear arrangement.

READER’S QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN YOUR PROPOSAL

Another way of approaching this problem is to think about it from the standpoint of a person
assessing your proposal, asking yourself whether it answers the basic questions the reader will
raise. Using your peers as proxi-assessors can be a useful way of gaining the kind of insight and
understanding of assessment necessary to meet the criteria set. It will also provide you and your
peers with an important learning opportunity from which you can acquire a much broader and
deeper understanding of what makes for a good research proposal. Here are some possible
questions to help you begin this exercise:

Title: Does it indicate the topic, approach and key concept?

Introduction: Does this seem complete? Is the topic established, are facts given and the
approach justified? Is it clear and succinct?

Statement of the problem: Is the problem clearly stated and its parameters defined? Is
the background clear and used to show the nature of the problem?

Research questions: Are these clear and systematic? Are they fully related to the
problem statement? Are they answerable with research?

Justification: Is this clear, well argued, using evidence and data? Are the research
questions logical outcomes from the justification? Is the problem statement consistent
with the conclusions of the justification? Is it appropriate for the definition of the
problem?

Indicative literature review: Is there a clear structure? Are citations correct? Are key
concepts, theories and findings identified? Does it make logically, justified conclusions
for research?

Feasibility: Is there enough time to do the research? Has the student the necessary
skills and abilities? Is the data accessible and able to be analysed appropriately?

Risk analysis: Have the risks been identified? Are contingency plans identified? Are
these realistic?
These are the kinds of questions most readers would address to a research proposal even though
the criteria for assessment may be expressed as shown in Table 11.13 or Table 11.14. What you
need to try and achieve is an assessment of your proposal in terms of seeing if it ‘hangs
together’. This means looking to ensure that the different elements are integrated and all focused
on researching the topic/problem.
TABLE 11.14 ASSESSING THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE TOPIC

Topic justification Grade

Excellent use of argumentative structure and evidence to demonstrate, through analysis, Excellent
the importance of the topic, the need for research, kinds of questions requiring answers
and what benefits such answers may bring. Effective and efficient use of the literature
to provide authority and backing to claims.

Good justification of the topic but may lack full use of argumentative structure or Satisfactory
evidence to demonstrate a thorough topic analysis. Importance or benefits of the
research may require a small amount of clarification. More or better use should have
been made of sources to provide authority and backing.

Relevant topic identified but lacks convincing argument to link analysis with research Poor
questions or hypothesis stated.

Little use of sources to provide authority and backing.

The proposal should be:

rational, to show the research has been reasoned out;

informative, in that it provides enough detail for the reader to understand the
proposal;

persuasive, to gain support for the research;

demonstrative, to show the appropriateness of the work proposed; and

realistic, to show that it is capable of being achieved.

In Table 11.14 a particular element of a proposal has been selected for attention – the
justification of the topic. There may be similar tables of criteria for ‘argumentation’,
‘presentation’, ‘risk analysis’ and so on. The problem for assessors is that the more specific the
criteria, the more mechanical the assessment is, leaving little latitude for interpretation and
exercise of professional judgement – something some people see as an advantage. The more
formative (open) the criteria, the more scope there is for innovative and creative research
proposals.

Using the various assessment criteria can be a way to constructing a good research proposal. It is,
however, very difficult to interpret and meet formative assessment criteria in any literal way. The
various tables of criteria in this chapter will help you express the vision you have for your
research. Use them to give substance to how you have envisioned your research. In this way you
will have a better idea of exactly what it is you will be doing, what tasks, issues and problems
you may encounter on your way, how to manage what you produce, including developing
contingency plans for what may go wrong and, of course how to specify the logical connectivity
of your research design.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

The purpose of this chapter has been to bring together many of the elements required for
designing a research project. The focus has been on constructing a proposal for research. The
key points which have been made include:

A research proposal is the map which will help you to navigate on your research journey
because it contains all your analysis, preparation and pre-emptive planning.

There is no definitive structure or content for a research proposal. Each proposal is a

unique document crafted by an individual; your proposal says something about you as a
potential researcher.

A good research proposal is clear, structured, succinct and answers a series of key
questions. To achieve some of this you need to think about the reader of your proposal.

Most research proposals require several drafts, edits and re-writes before a satisfactory
one is ready. There is no such thing as the perfect research proposal.

Further reading
Clegg, B. and Birch, P (2000) Imagination Engineering. London: Prentice-Hall. An introduction to using your imagination to
make imaginary journeys like those of Einstein.

Piantanida, M. and Garman, N.B. (1999) The Qualitative Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin. Two good chapters on crafting the research proposal with examples of anticipated portrayals.

Walliman, N. (2001) Your Research Project: A Step-by-Step Guide for the First Time Researcher. London: Sage. Chapter 8 is a
useful introduction to writing a research proposal.
 12

Writing your dissertation

CHAPTER CONCEPTS

• THE UNIVERSITY AS THE CONTEXT • REPORTING OR WRITING YOUR

RESEARCH? • DIFFÉRENCE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE • OBJECTIVIST AND
CONSTRUCTIVIST DISSERTATIONS • WRITING LONG DOCUMENTS •
PREPARATION AND PLANNING • SETTING UP TEMPLATES • VERSION
MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL • SAVING PAPER AND INK WHEN PRINTING •
WHAT STYLE OF WRITING TO USE • USING THE PERSONAL PRONOUN • AVOID
INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE • CONSTRUCTING A PLAN AND MAP FOR YOUR
DISSERTATION: THE MACRO-LEVEL • THE HYPOTHESIS GENRE • THE
ANALYTICAL GENRE • THE MYSTERY GENRE • ORGANIZING CHAPTER
CONTENTS: THE MICRO-LEVEL • PLANNING THE STRUCTURE, CONTENTS AND
EVIDENCE OF A CHAPTER • USING QUOTATIONS AS EVIDENCE • THE
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER • THE LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTER • THE
METHODOLOGY CHAPTER • THE FINDINGS CHAPTER • THE ANALYSIS AND
DISCUSSION CHAPTER • THE CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CHAPTER • OTHER PARTS OF THE DISSERTATION • THE TITLE • THE ABSTRACT
• THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • THE CONTENTS PAGE
• FIGURES AND TABLES • APPENDICES • FINAL THOUGHTS • FURTHER
READING

Writing a dissertation is a major undertaking, but because many people manage to produce
masters dissertations each year it is an undertaking many of us are capable of. Successful
dissertations are not, however, products which can be done without much thought, planning and
time. A masters dissertation is a long document. Being somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000
words, a dissertation will take time to write. During this time a considerable amount of thought
and sometimes anguish will be spent working through just how it should be constructed.
Architecturally speaking, a dissertation needs to have an appropriate structure so that as a whole
it has sufficient coherence to hang together. This is because it has to do many things in many
places and some simultaneously and not always in linear sequence. A dissertation has to tell the
reader why, how and when the research was done, what was found and what this means, and
show how it relates to previous studies in the literature. A dissertation is more than the sum of its
parts. Although usually made up of individual chapters, a dissertation is not a bound collection of
these chapters. Each chapter should be part of an integrated whole, providing a coherent account
of a research project. Each chapter should be grounded in making a logical and evident
contribution to addressing the research questions set for investigating a specific puzzle. The task
as a whole can be summarized in these general questions:

1 How can you write a dissertation that has a logical structure, is clear, and demonstrates
that you have acquired and put into practice the range of skills, capabilities, attitudes
and qualities expected of a masters student?

2 How do you do all of this in a way that is explicit, provides justification for the
definition of the topic, selection of methodology and research design, shows all relevant
findings and relates them to previous research and theory?

3 How can all of this be done in a way that communicates what and how you did your
research, demonstrating that you understand the process with all its problems?

You will appreciate from this list that a dissertation has a number of tasks to perform. How you
go about doing these is a matter for you to decide. Of course, your supervisor will help, as will
examples of other dissertations done in your field of study. A key factor in this will be showing
particular audiences that you have been on a research journey and have come back with a good
story to tell. This normally means addressing your research questions in ways that match the
expectations of more than one audience (Fish, 1989). It is this appreciation with which we start,
before moving on to look at some of the technicalities that can be employed to meet the
challenges of writing your dissertation.

The university as the context

The research you have undertaken will have been done within the context of an academic
institution, usually a university or similar institution of higher education. As such, your course
will be subject to a set of formal regulations which govern quality through written procedures.
There will be a number of professional expectations particular to the institution and to the
academic discipline in which you have undertaken your research. At the beginning of your
research journey, like most masters students you will have been eager to establish just what is
expected and just what a masters dissertation should look like for this university and department.
This is a normal and natural part of the process on the journey to becoming a master. Your
university and academic department is the cultural environment, maintained by staff and students
together, to provide the impetus for doing your research in the way that is expected (Said, 1982).
This means doing research that is in line with how research in that university department has
evolved, usually over several decades. Your research will normally be expected to embody the
standards, modes and look of research previously done in the last five to ten years. This is a
reality for most research students. As such, your particular ‘habitus’ is a major resource for you
to use. It will provide you with much of the information and guidance you will need to produce a
competent dissertation. By the time you have reached the major writing-up stage, you should
have already immersed yourself in the ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1990/1980: 52) of the department
and in the particular position and approach you have taken within your subject discipline. Your
course of study should have shown you (through a process of exposure to examples) what your
department expects and regards as an acceptable format for a masters dissertation. In practice, at
the technical level, this often means meeting the stipulated standards of presentation, which may
include such things as the typeface and type size to use. It will also mean, at the academic or
scholarly level, that you understand the options available to you in terms of maintaining
coherence between the methodological assumptions you employed in your research and the way
in which you present that research.

REPORTING OR WRITING YOUR RESEARCH?

When thinking about the dissertation as a large document it may, at first, seem that your main
problem is how to write such a large document. But looking at and thinking about the kinds of
questions below, you will soon realize that a 12,000–20,000- word document may not be enough
to say all the things you think are relevant about your research.

How do I provide sufficient information so that another researcher could do what I

have done in my research?

How do I show the link between my choice of methodological position regarding

positivist/objectivist or constructivist/interpretivist approaches to show the rationale of
a quantitative or qualitative method of data collection?

How do I explain how the data was collected or produced, and how much actual data
should I make available to the reader?

How do I make a convincing argument for the interpretation of the data and its role in
addressing my research questions?

These questions may seem general, but when writing a dissertation they become important
starting points for deciding on what kind of dissertation to write. How you approach these
questions is a matter for you to decide. If you believe that your research has uncovered facts out
in the world, and that the means you used were free from values and merely found ‘truths’ about
your phenomenon, then you may well have used an objectivist approach. Alternatively, if you
believe your research and the methods you used have engaged with and shaped the way you
understand your phenomenon, then you may well have used a constructionist approach. The
objectivist approach is an epistemological position which holds that meaning exists apart from
consciousness. A tree in a forest exists objectively, regardless of its being seen and categorized.
Its ‘tree-ness’ is intrinsic to it as an object. When seen by humans its treeness is available for
them to see empirically, categorize as such and take to be a tree. Many of the features of a
positivist position on the nature of reality (ontology) are linked to the epistemology (ways of
knowing) of objectivism. If you have taken a position within these traditions, it would most
likely be that your dissertation ‘reports’ on your research. By this is meant that it may take a
realist approach to reporting your research as ‘the research’ in a way that separates it from you as
a conscious subjective person. This typically involves using the third person to represent the
research as being objective, having found the truth about facts out in the world, through methods
that were presented as reliable, valid and able to be replicated by others. Alternatively, if you
hold the view that reality is inseparable from the mental categories we use to understand it, by
taking a position within the idealist (ontological) approach, and regarding your methods as
constructing the data, then it is likely you will be taking a constructionist approach to
epistemology. Believing that theory cannot be separated from observation, nor facts from values,
it is likely your dissertation will be written as an experience of doing research. In both of the
main ontological and epistemological positions just sketched out there are many variations which
give differences of emphasis. The main point, however, is that the format and style of your
dissertation may be strongly influenced by the choices you made in the design of your research.
Whatever design you used for your research, it will have been based on a position within the
main methodological positions regarding reality and how that reality is knowable.

DIFFÉRENCE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

In terms of style and expression there are two main choices. One is to use an objectivist style.
This may mean writing your dissertation in the third person, distancing yourself from your
research. The typical format (shown and discussed in Chapter 4), consisting of chapter headings,
is used of ‘introduction’, ‘literature review’, ‘methodology’, ‘findings’, ‘discussion’ and
‘conclusions’. Within this the research is reported from a distance, as if separated from the
person who did it and from those involved. Little contextual information is given or discussed,
and findings are presented as facts. This is a characterization and I do not claim that all realists
would have no problem with this format and style. But in its presentation and style this
characterization is the most common one used in masters dissertations. An alternative approach
might be to acknowledge that reality is not predictable or able to be subject to unproblematic
mechanical research. Your dissertation might acknowledge or make a virtue of regarding social
reality as constituted through interactions; as a phenomenon made meaningful by the place and
time in which a particular person-researcher applied the research methods they had constructed
(Derrida, 1987/1980). This may mean you construct an account of your research as a journey
written, when necessary, in the first person and past tense. The aim, by doing this, is to get across
to your reader how you experienced your research and describe to them just what the process
actually involved.

Being aware of this choice means that you can decide on how to write your dissertation. This
choice will be shaped, as I have just said, by the ontological and epistemological positions you
take and also by your willingness to tell your reader just what really happened during your
research. In practice even the most detailed research plan will need minor (sometimes major)
adjustments once the research is underway. Research is an activity that is rarely unproblematic or
transparent (Bingham, 2003: 148), but is an experience highly contingent on solving a successive
stream of problems and dealing with ethical issues. It is also the case that any kind of writing is
problematic for most of us. There are, regardless of the type of approach we take with our
dissertation, numerous and continual problems and decisions to be made. You will find yourself
asking: In what tense should I write this section? How much should I include? How can I express
this as a graph? How much detail is needed? Should I mention the hunches I had at the beginning
of the research? – and so on. Some of these are technical questions concerned with how to do
something, like a graph. Others are questions about how much of ‘yourself’ you reveal as having
been a part of your research. Whatever decisions you make will mark the ‘différence’ (Derrida,
1987/1980) between your dissertation and others. This will be seen in the ways you balance
description, explanation and discussion of your research as a managed performance of your
skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities.

OBJECTIVIST AND CONSTRUCTIVIST DISSERTATIONS

The distinction between the objectivist and constructivist dissertation is merely a useful contrast.
It is borrowed from Michael Crotty (1998: 8–9), who uses it to help organize his exposition of
the many ontological and epistemological positions in social research. Its use here is an
adaptation that can allow us to understand the relationship between the methodological strategy a
researcher has used and the way in which this is embodied in how they have written-up their
research. Table 12.1 attempts to encapsulate the main differences between the objectivist and
constructivist dissertation. The example I have chosen to illustrate the objectivist approach is that
of a work-based dissertation. Other kinds of research characteristic of this approach would
typically include experimental, quasi-experimental and correlational studies.

The objectivist example in Table 12.1 is produced in more detail in Chapter 5. Its contents listing
shows the apparent flow from the introduction and aims through methodology, data collection to
conclusions and recommendations. Comparisons between the two library services and the
methods used to collect data on the phenomenon of ‘change’ are reported as if unproblematic.
That is unproblematic to the research. As a consequence, conclusions are reached and clear
recommendations made. This is possible because, on the one hand, change is treated as
something external, ‘out there’, able to be measured and thus reported about. On the other hand,
this contents page also illustrates the process model used by the student. What is meant by this is
the way in which practices and processes have been applied that have allowed the main issues of
the research to be highlighted. There is a strong inference that the student has paid close attention
to the procedures believed necessary for producing the research to look like research done
according to conventional expectations. This is what Bruno Latour terms ‘circulating reference’
(Latour, 1999: ch. 2). This kind of chapter arrangement and sectioning allows for appropriate
references to be made at appropriate places. This has involved many operations which have
transformed the practices and processes and data collected into ‘findings’ about the phenomenon
(1999: 60–71). There are no alternative standpoints or frames of reference employed to give
different descriptions. Nor is there any indication, except in the student’s name, of why this topic
was chosen; why they felt sufficiently committed to it for masters research.

In the other example (provided by Maria Piantanida and Noreen Garman (1999) in their excellent
book on qualitative dissertations) of a contents page in Table 12.1 we see a different kind of
approach. Some familiar chapters can be seen and the arrangement of them is conventional. In
many ways this also exhibits as a performance the kinds of procedures and processes of the first
one. But in the sectioning we see the differences. Initially these can be seen in the vocabulary
where such words and phrases as ‘intent’, ‘as subject and process’, ‘contexts’, ‘narrative genre of
the study’ and ‘picture’ are used. Further differences are observable in that multiple descriptive
frames of reference are used based on differing standpoints to drama. There are five main
standpoints given sections in Chapter 5. Finally, the last chapter does not have conclusions or
recommendations, but observations. There is a strong inference that this dissertation is based on
an interpretivist approach and that the student has constructed it to embody this and to achieve a
sense in which findings are definitely not to be seen as ‘facts’, but as understandings.
TABLE 12.1 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVIST AND CONSTRUCTIVIST DISSERTATION

Objectivist dissertation Constructivist dissertation

Chapter 1 Chapter 1
Introduction Introduction
Setting the scene Intent of the study
Aims and objectives Importance of the study
Benefits and justification
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 Drama definitions: a selected review of the literature
Background information Definitions of drama in education
Structure of academic libraries in Romania Drama as subject and as a process
Current state of development of academic libraries in Types of educational drama
Romania Classroom drama situated in educational contexts
Problems in academic libraries in Romania
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 Drama data, the study process
Literature on Western/UK academic libraries Narrative inquiry
Literature on Eastern/Romanian academic libraries Description of the school setting
Conclusions The children
Duration of the study
Chapter 4
The data collection process
Methodological overview
Data analysis procedures
The literature − Delphi Technique − the panel −
questionnaires vs. interviews − questionnaire design The narrative genre of the study
Conclusions Chapter 4
Chapter 5 Drama depictions: the narratives of our classroom
Implementation Drama as pedagogical practice
Response rates A dramatic picture
Round 1 Dramatic teacher performance
Round 2 The drama of daily classroom routines
Drama and plans – the beginning of the drama process
Chapter 6 Drama and unexpected events
Results Drama and the home–school connections
Priority areas of change in your library: targets Drama in the elementary content areas
Major ways forward: how to achieve targets Dramatic thinking
General strategy
Chapter 5
Chapter 7 Drama disclosures: drama as analogy
Discussion and analysis Drama as knowing
The current state of developments in Romanian academic Drama as discourse
libraries Drama as narrative
Priority area of change in your library: targets Drama as synectics
Major ways forward: how to achieve targets
General strategy − general library environment Chapter 6
Drama as pedagogy, observations for the elementary school
Chapter 8 educator
 Conclusions and recommendations for change A final observation
Priority areas of change in your library: targets
Major ways forward: how to achieve targets
General strategy
Recommendations

Source: Adapted from Piantanida and Garman, 1999.

Writing long documents

Although you may find, once you start to write, that 15,000 words is not enough for all you want
to say, a dissertation of this length is a long document. In this section we will briefly look at
some basic things you can do to make this more manageable and relatively risk-free. For more
guidance on the technical skills of the production process and standards stipulated by your
university, see your supervisor and course handbook. The handbook, in particular, should specify
such things as page size (margins and headers), font size, line spacing, title pages and how to
bind your dissertation. The following is therefore some basic advice derived from what my
students find useful and what I use when writing chapters for books.

PREPARATION AND PLANNING

Whatever software you use, make sure that you know the basics of what it can do. This does not
mean reading the whole manual or obtaining lots of books on it. It means knowing your way
around the menu screen and how to do such tasks as setting up a page, making words bold or
italics, drawing tables and inserting figures. Do not be afraid to ‘play and experiment’ with your
computer. Also look back to Chapter 2, where you will find guidance on setting up a document
management system for your research.

SETTING UP TEMPLATES
Your university will have standards for how wide margins should be for their dissertations. Use
these to create a set of standard blank documents. Using pen and paper, roughly sketch out the
number and titles of the main parts of your dissertation. These can be the chapters. For each
chapter create identical templates on separate disks or memory sticks. The standard template
should save you time because you can specify the font and size so that it will be the same
throughout your dissertation. It is usual to use Times New Roman or Arial, with a 12-point size
for all text and 14 or 16 for main headings. Do these things to save time later on. You want to
avoid having to go back to each section of each chapter to do formatting. Near the end of your
research time you will be under pressure with other tasks, and re-doing headings, sub-headings,
line spacing, quotations and the like will take a lot of time.

VERSION MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL

Most people generate a number of versions of a document. This is normal. No one I know can
start off with a blank page and write a perfect (or even acceptable) chapter in one go. Writing
chapters is about arranging the contents, deciding on the contents and re-working sentences,
paragraphs and whole sections once you have had time to reflect on them. This book, largely
thanks to development editors, went through a number of revisions and changes. Doing changes
is more than correcting grammar; it is about looking to say things as clearly as possible without
losing the sense of your intention. In some cases, you may want your readers to ‘think’ about
what they have read.

For feedback you have your tutor and peers. Showing your tutor what you have written, no
matter how rough it may seem to you, is usually an effective way to obtain regular feedback.
This will mean, of course, revisions. One way to manage these is to be very clear and precise in
the use of names for your document files. Have separate document files for each chapter and part
of your dissertation. Keep a notebook on what these are. Keep all your files in one folder so you
will know where they are. If you need to keep more than one version of a document file, then
give it a consecutive name, for example, ch1v1, ch1v2. Your word-processing software will also
help you keep track of versions. Most will tell you when a file was created and last used.

Do not rely on your hard drive to store your work. Keep multiple copies of your files on other
devices. Memory sticks are becoming very useful for this, given how much you can save on
them. For information on such things as endnotes and footnotes, page numbering and the like,
refer to the help facility on your word processor.

SAVING PAPER AND INK WHEN PRINTING

If, like me, you like to handle what you have written, then you will be doing a lot of printing.
Whether you use an ink-jet or laser printer, the cost of doing this can be high. There are two
effective ways of saving ink and paper. One is to set your print command to the ‘save toner’
mode. You can save up to 50 per cent. The other is to print two or more pages on one sheet of
A4. Two pages are still readable and useful for identifying where corrections are needed. More
than two pages per sheet is useful for checking margins and page layout. It is also useful to put
the date on your printout to avoid mixing-up different versions of the same document.

What style of writing to use

Among the main issues which often arise at this initial stage in dissertation writing is the matter
of academic style. The purpose of academic writing is to present the research clearly and
succinctly and this includes constructing argument, providing evidence, citing sources and
avoiding pompous use of technical and obscure terminology. You should aim to develop a
preciseness in your writing so that your expression is as clear, coherent and as systematic as you
can possibly make it. The goal is to write in a straightforward style that uses unadorned English
and avoids cliché, colloquialism and informality. Remember that academic writing is not meant
to be entertaining.

Some of the materials and arguments you encounter will be complex and some will be poorly
expressed. Others, however, will be expressed clearly in a style that makes them comprehensible.
Look out for examples of clear writing in the books and articles you read and make notes on any
useful stylistic techniques you can employ to make your own work clear. In particular look at the
purpose of the writing you think is good – is it an argument, an analysis, a description,
explaining a point, criticizing an idea, examining evidence, providing an introduction? Collect
examples of good and bad writing which have been used for different purposes, so that when you
have a problem expressing yourself you have some examples to inspire you.

USING THE PERSONAL PRONOUN

In some disciplines it is expected that the personal pronoun is not used. The exact reasons for this
are not usually stated, but some institutions believe that not using ‘I’ somehow gives greater
objectivity to the research reported. Not using ‘I’ does not add objectivity to academic writing –
it is merely a convention. In many parts of a dissertation the issue rarely arises, but in an
introduction where you are explaining the impetus for your research, the use of ‘I’ often seems
more appropriate than using the words ‘the author’ or ‘the researcher’. If it is the convention not
to use ‘I’, then try not to substitute its use with ‘us’ or ‘we’, and strictly limit the pompous
circumlocutions such as ‘author’ and ‘researcher’. In this book the ‘we’ and ‘you’ have generally
been used because I, as the author, see doing a dissertation as a collaborative task. Because you
are reading and using this book it means that we have a relationship. It also acknowledges 20
years of working with other people, masters students and colleagues, and much of what has been
said echoes conversations we (our community of shared interests) have had.

AVOID INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE

A dissertation is a formal document and as such is normally written using a combination of the
formal and middle register. The term ‘register’ refers to the style, tone and language a document
uses, given its purpose and audience. The formal register is used for legal, official and scholarly
documents. The middle register is used for articles in newspapers, magazines and ephemeral
publications. There is also the informal register, which is used in documents where the normal
standards of grammar and tone can be largely ignored. For the formal and middle registers the
conventions of standard grammatical English are expected. Words should not be used in an
abbreviated form, for example, ‘ain‘t’; clichéd expressions, for example ‘drunk as a Lord’, sexist
language, for example ‘old wives’ tale’, or offensive terms, especially expletives, for example
‘moron’ should be avoided. Do not worry too much if you believe your written English could be
better. Many people believe this about their writing. We could all write better if we had the time.
There are now many excellent and accessible guides to grammar and writing. The more you
write, the better your writing will become.

Constructing a plan and map for your dissertation: the

macro-level
There are two broad levels on which a dissertation, like most other documents, is planned. One is
the macro-level and the other the micro-level. At the macro-level you make a map and a plan.
Your map should determine what kind of dissertation you intend to write. We have already seen
that there are two broad approaches, the objectivist and constructivist, which will give you a
guide to the overall structural arrangement of your dissertation. Looking at the examples shown
in Table 12.1, both of these approaches tell a story. They are both accounts telling the reader the
‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ of the research. You can do this using a range of
genres, including the hypothesis, analytical, and mystery genres. These genres are patterns or
conventions for organizing what you have to stay. All of them should be considered as the basis
for telling the story of your research journey. It is not the case that a particular type of research
corresponds with a particular genre or that only one genre should be used. The choice of genre
should reflect, on the one hand, the way in which your puzzle was set up, research questions
framed and research planned. On the other hand, it should be capable of telling what actually
happened during the research.

THE HYPOTHESIS GENRE

If you have tested a hypothesis as your research, then a conventional structure may be
appropriate for your dissertation. This could consist of three main parts: the hypothesis and
concepts; the data and analysis; and the discussion and conclusions. The conventional structure is
shown in Chapter 4. It consists, as shown in Figure 12.1, of chapters which sequentially focus on
a presumed relationship between an independent and dependent variable.

FIGURE 12.1 TYPICAL STRUCTURE OF THE HYPOTHESIS DISSERTATION

This genre usually uses a ‘report’ template to present the research. As a research report it is
written in the third person, in the passive voice. The first chapter is usually very short, providing
only a brief description of the phenomenon and statement of the hypothesis. The second chapter
is usually long; it examines the major concepts relevant to the phenomenon from previous
studies. The third chapter is short’; the methods, sample and measurements are described. The
forth chapter presents the data and calculations without comment. The final chapter presents the
calculations on the degree of relationship between variables and discusses the relevance of this.
This is usually related to previous research and generalizations are suggested based on the degree
of external validity.

THE ANALYTICAL GENRE

Most research involves looking at something complicated and then breaking it up into its
constituent parts. This process of analysis is therefore a generic part of research. How you
approach and frame your analysis will give you a particular story to tell. That story will tell and
show why (rather than just tell how) you selected the properties, features or characteristics of a
phenomenon for attention in your analysis. This means that you need to achieve a number of
things in your story. One is to make an assertion that is your own about the phenomenon. You
may be asserting that previous approaches have failed in some respect and you are therefore
arguing for the need to respecify the nature of the phenomenon. This implies that you have a
justifiable alternative approach. You will also need to show why your proposed alternative is
relevant by answering the ‘so what?’ kind of question. This implies that you have a sound
knowledge of previous analyses of the phenomenon, what assumptions they used and what their
results were. You will need to tell and show what is going on in previous analyses, what they
sought to achieve, and how the issues you are raising are an effect of previous forms of analyses.
Once you have shown the consequences of previous approaches and reached some justifiable
conclusions about how an alternative may be constructed, you then have an analytical thesis
statement. This should explain what you are to analyse, the main parts of the phenomenon you
will analyse, and the general order in which you will present the analysis. Your analytical
statement is usually the starting point, stated in Chapter 1, for your dissertation. Figure 12.2
provides an indicative structure for the analytical dissertation.

FIGURE 12.2 TYPICAL STRUCTURE OF THE ANALYTICAL DISSERTATION

Figure 12.2 is based on the assumption that the analytical dissertation can be used across the
social sciences, employing most traditions, approaches and research cultures. It can be used for
making detailed arguments, evaluations and expositions. However, it is usually associated with
theory and concept-led research, in which research is undertaken to explore or investigate the
power of a concept to contribute to an approach or research tradition. The ‘report’ template is not
always used. In place of ‘telling’, the dissertation aims to show the reader, through the use of
evidence, the relevance of the concepts analysed.

The presence of the researcher is much more evident in many forms of analytical story. This is
because the assertions made about relationships and contexts for understanding why concepts
work in the way they do are personal. Hence an active voice is often used to show why you made
the statement and why you chose to examine related concepts in the ways you did. However,
avoid over-use of the active and first-person voice. Only use the personal pronoun when strictly
necessary, or you will distract your reader from your main points and the evidence you are
offering to support them. Also avoid doing too much analysis. Keep the number of concepts and
categories you use to a minimum. Use the same categories, when possible, to examine different
aspects of your phenomenon. Use of too many concepts can often lead to confusion and a very
‘bitty’ and incoherent story.

THE MYSTERY GENRE

According to Alasuutari (1995: 183), research starts with a set of questions pointing to a mystery
about some phenomenon. The mystery, or what is not known about the phenomenon, is framed
by a series of questions that form the basis of the first chapter. These questions are usually based
on some phenomenon you bring to your reader’s attention; something you find a puzzle. These
questions are then used as the main reference point and developed through investigation in
succeeding chapters. The relevance of the mystery is further shown as a problem of
understandings, data or methodology. Hence you could: tell and show how the problem in a
corpus of literature is due to the general methodological approach used; or tell and show the need
for concepts to explain a behaviour; or tell and show the need to explain a process. Whatever the
purpose of your research, the dissertation will normally proceed by developing questions and
possible answers. Figure 12.3 provides a generic overview of the mystery dissertation. It shows
the progression from the puzzle (mystery) through the collection of data, its categorization and a
gradual process of elimination until only one explanation seems possible.

Notice that the arrangements shown in Figure 12.3 suggest an inductive approach to research.
The mystery genre can be an effective one when an inductive (rather than deductive) approach
has been used, but it is not always necessary.

The mystery genre is not the easiest to use to tell your story. Like all mysteries the telling and
showing how the puzzle was solved requires the skills of a storyteller. This means you will need
to be able to show how the questions framing the puzzle are related not only to each other, but
also to the evidence you collected. Keeping focused on the puzzle is necessary to ensure
coherence throughout the different chapters. Finally, the ‘solution’ to the puzzle needs to be
shown as logical and evident, especially when there is conflicting evidence.

FIGURE 12.3 TYPICAL STRUCTURE OF THE MYSTERY DISSERTATION

Organizing chapter contents: the micro-level

You already know a great deal about what a dissertation can look like and about writing. We
looked in Chapter 5 at different types of dissertation and in Chapter 11 at writing a research
proposal. In this section we will look in a little more detail at what the different chapters may be
used for, how to structure them and what should be included. The headings used are ones of
convenience; they are not recommending any particular arrangement for your dissertation. As
you already know, there are different kinds of research including theoretical, action, applied,
evaluative, ethnomethodological (Mertens, 1998); different methodological positions including
interpretivist, positivist, realist, idealist (Crotty, 1998); different research cultures including
feminist, critical, postmodernist (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2000); and different types of
dissertation including, empirical, literature review, work-based, methodological and theoretical.
This means your dissertation will have a quality that is unique. This will be an outcome of
making choices from the possible alternatives and it is the resulting synthesis that will make your
dissertation unique.
PLANNING THE STRUCTURE, CONTENTS AND EVIDENCE OF A CHAPTER
Although you may spend some time deciding on the arrangement of a chapter and writing the
contents, it does not mean your reader will spend the same amount of time reading what you
have written. A well-structured and clearly signposted chapter will help you convey to your
reader the essence of what you have done. Figure 12.4 gives an overview of what to do before
you start to write. Begin your planning by stating what you need to achieve in a chapter: this is
its purpose. Use no more than a few short sentences for this. When you start to write the initial
drafts, these can be expanded a little to introduce the chapter. Next list the points you want to
make in the chapter. This can be done by saying to yourself, ‘I need to tell them about this, this
and this …’, and also by asking yourself, ‘What else will they need to know to fully understand
my points?’ Your answers to these questions will help you to see your writing from two
standpoints: from yours, as the researcher-cum-storyteller, and from that of the reader. It is
important, therefore, to tell your reader what a chapter is about, what it aims to achieve and how
it is arranged. All of this can be done in a short introduction. In the main body of the chapter
follow the agenda you have set out in your introduction: your reader will expect this. Clear side-
headings will allow your reader to see the sequence you have set out in your introduction. Before
you get to this stage, draft out the main sections for the chapter. For each section identify what
point(s) you will make in it. Then allocate your evidence to each point. This may include
references and quotes from the literature. Every statement or claim you make needs as much
substantiation as possible.

FIGURE 12.4 THINKING AND PLANNING THE WRITING

Among things to avoid is having too many sections and sub-sections. As you only have between
2,500 and 3,000 words for each chapter, five sections means about 600 words per section. Sub-
dividing a section with only 600 words into further sections may mean you create a very
fragmented chapter. This will distract from your points and may negate any coherence you were
aiming to achieve.

USING QUOTATIONS AS EVIDENCE

Some of the evidence you use will be quotations from the literature and from respondents (if an
interview schedule was used to collect data). Quotations are normally used to give backing to
what you have to say, especially to an argument you are aiming to make. Using your sectioning,
select the most appropriate quotation for your purpose. Do not over-use them or it may give the
impression you are ‘padding-out’ your dissertation, hoping to disguise the fact you have little to
say. Quotations would normally make up no more than one quarter of a chapter unless there are
very good reasons for doing otherwise. The remaining three-quarters should be your own
analysis and argument. As general ‘rules of thumb’ the following points about quotations should
be used as a guide.

Use quotations to support, not make a point.

Select quotations which are clear, distinctive or authoritative.

Do not use quotations which summarize what you have already said.

If someone has said something better than you can, or in a way that paraphrasing would
only reproduce the essence of the quote, use the quote.

Always cite, giving proper attribution, to every source you quote or paraphrase.

Never quote out of context; distorting another’s sense is unethical behaviour.

Quotations which are less than four lines long should be set out in the text. Longer quotations
should be separated from the main body of the text and indented. Use quotations marks for
quotes used in the text, but not for those indented. For guidance on which method of attribution
to use, see Chapter 6 and the style manual of your university.

THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Many masters students often claim that the introductory and concluding chapters are the most
difficult ones to write. It is common to find that they leave both chapters until the very end of the
writing period. It is not necessary to do this with either chapter as you can make observations on
possible points you may want to make as you write other chapters. This way you will have
thoughts already written down to get you started. With the introduction, your first chapter, you
already have your research diary and your original research proposal. Both of these will also be
of use, as we will soon see, for your conclusion.
TABLE 12.2 HEADINGS FOR ARRANGING THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Objectivist approach Constructivist approach

Chapter title Chapter title
Introduction Introduction
Rationale Rationale
The intent of the study The intent of the study
Guiding questions Guiding questions
Hypothesis Indicative review of the literature
Objectives Objectives
Concepts Research procedures
Operationalization of concepts Nature of portrayals
Ethical issues Ethical issues
References References

The basic structure of your research proposal can be recycled to construct the introductory
chapter. This chapter is not, however, your research proposal. Some things will have to be
changed for this to be the case. Where your research proposal would have been written in the
future tense, the introductory chapter will be in the past tense. The examples used in Chapter 11
should, however, still be useful as guides to what to include in your introductory chapter. The
main headings a reader will expect to see are shown in Table 12.2.

How you arrange this chapter is a matter for you to decide. The two templates shown in
Table 12.2 are merely suggestions. You may also want to include a section on reliability and
validity or give an outline of the chapters to follow. Your reader, however, will need all the help
you can give, in determining the answers to the following questions:

What is this dissertation about?

What are the reasons for this research?

What kind of research is it?

How was it done?

Where was it done?

The introductory chapter therefore has a particular purpose. It provides the reason for your
research and an overview of what the reader can expect to find in more detail in the succeeding
chapters. It may therefore be appropriate to begin this, as with the other chapters, with a brief
paragraph on the purpose of the chapter and what it contains.

While your primary purpose is to provide information, this is normally done in terms of an
argument from within a particular frame of reference. The aim is to let your reader know from
the outset your methodological position and preferred research culture. The language you use
will indicate some of these things, especially your methodological approach. Another indication
will be the side-headings you have used. Within this analysis there will be the argument from
your proposal. This is a combination of information, claims backed by data and some discussion.
The introduction usually provides information in the form of the terms of reference, what the
research is about, followed by the identification of a puzzle or problem situation.
The rationale section builds on this, using a structured argument to say what the need for the
research was. It may be appropriate here to look back at your proposal to see how, now that you
have the benefit of having done the research, you can comment on the justification you gave
some 9 to 16 months ago. Various kinds of support and backing are usually used here, such as
statistics, quotes and brief examples. Hence you will find yourself using sources which may not
have been available to you when you did your initial proposal. The structure you use to do this
needs to be logical. Table 12.3 shows some examples of possible structures.

The templates shown in Table 12.3 illustrate the suggestion that a recognizable argumentative
structure is used to construct a logical rationalization for your topic. The problem-awareness
template aims to make the reader think about something they may not have previously noticed or
understood in a particular way. Methodologically it may consist of showing that a particular set
of assumptions can be used differently or that some data can be seen as the outcome of some
social process. A ‘problem’ is thus identified and possible consequences inferred. In the cause
and effect rationalization, the cause of some phenomenon is hypothesized. Possible alternative
causes and/or relationships with independent variables are criticized, usually on the basis of
inadequate data. A preferred and measurable relationship between independent and dependent
variables is identified for experimentation. In the possible solution rationalization of the
implementation of an intervention is critically evaluated and alternatives are considered for
failures in performance. Recommendations are then made for a possible change to the
intervention. These approaches are not mutually exclusive. Elements from any of them can be
adapted to suit the particular needs of your type of research.
TABLE 12.3 STRUCTURES FOR CONSTRUCTING A RATIONALIZATION

Problem awareness rationalization Cause and effect rationalization Possible solution rationalization

Describe the character of a problem Establish the existence of a behaviour (or Evaluate approaches to a situation
(or behaviour): problem): (behaviour, problem):
• Give examples of its properties • Give examples of the behaviour. • Outline the situation.
(prevalence, variables, locations,
structure). • Define the behaviour, identifying key • Give examples of approaches already
concepts. applied.
• Develop a definition.
• Propose potential independent variables as • Identify an aspect not addressed by
• Show the relevance of the problem the cause or as related to it. existing approaches.
for a situation, understanding or
methodology. • Provide evidence for preferred potential • Show why they have failed in this aspect.
relationship between variables.
• Explain the consequences if nothing • Identify relevant factors requiring action.
is done. • Suggest a hypothesis for investigation.
• Recommend an alternative approach to
• Recommend a course of action to those already tried.
examine the problem.

Finally, do not use (unless absolutely necessary) diagrams in your first chapter. Reserve
diagrams for the other chapters where you may need to illustrate your thinking.

THE LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTER

Depending on your research, you can have one or more chapters dealing with the literature and,
in some cases, none. It is not necessary to have only one literature review chapter or to see it as a
precursor to the methodology chapter. What you have taken from the literature, what issues you
have with previous research and how it was done should be made clear throughout your
dissertation. The literature on your topic may be the basis of a literature review chapter; it should
also be used in your introduction, discussion and conclusions. Similarly, the methodological
literature will form at least one chapter, but also be a source for discussion. The literature on your
topic and methodology is therefore an essential part of your research. Searching, selecting,
analysing and evaluating what has already been done on a topic is, in itself, research.
Regrettably, it is only recently that some of the major research councils in the UK have
recognized this, while many respectable refereed journals rarely publish reviews. What they
seem to overlook is the fact that the synthesis you create from bringing together different
elements of the literature can often bring a new and unique understanding to a topic.

You started the process of searching and evaluating relevant publications during your initial
analysis of your topic and for your research proposal. Your evaluations then may or may not be
what you finally include in your dissertation. This is because you will be writing evaluations of
publications in different chapters of your dissertation almost up until the final few weeks. The
most significant part of these evaluations will not be done until after you have collected and
analysed your data. Your data will help you to identify what, from the literature, is actually
relevant to you. It is an iterative process of going back and forth between your data and your
literature to identify connections, similarities and differences. In this way you will produce much
more than a description of what is in the literature. This process will encourage an interrogation
of theories, concepts, definitions and findings already published.

Hence there are a few major mistakes to avoid. One is writing your literature review chapter
before you collect any data. There is the danger of getting bogged down with searching and
reading, meaning you lose time to collect data. This will also mean that you produce a literature
review that ‘stands largely alone’, and no matter how thorough it is may not all be relevant to
what you find. Identifying ways in which your phenomenon has been defined, researched and
what has been found out about it are all necessary requirements prior to doing your data analysis.
They form the current knowledge base on your topic. Thus it is your notes and initial evaluations
of these which can form the resources for looking to see where your research stands in relation to
what has gone before. A second point to note is that it may be your research which stands in
direct contrast to the traditional literature; that it is too different to say anything meaningful in
terms of the existing treatment of the topic. In which case the literature will be of little use to
you. This is mostly the case with studies using an ethnomethodological approach.

What I have so far said means that you look to see how your research relates to what has already
been done. This will give you an opportunity to make sound inferences on how your research has
contributed to further our understanding of a phenomenon. In this way you will be producing
specific knowledge which contributes to a general knowledge and understanding of the
phenomenon. Following this line of reasoning, Wolcott (1990: 17) argues that the convention of
having a literature review chapter before the data chapter should be dumped and that research
thought to be related be discussed after the data chapter. For many kinds of research, especially
ethnographic, Wolcott’s suggestions make a lot of sense. But going against convention would
take a lot of nerve and determination.

You have then a number of choices to make concerning where to place the bulk of relevant
literature in your dissertation. You can have a literature review ‘chapter’ before or after the data
analysis. As a general guide, there are two sets of questions we can pose; the first set relates to
justifying your topic and approach, and the second to assessing the relevance of implementing
your recommendations:

How has the phenomenon been defined?

What are the main concepts which have been used?

How have these framed the approaches to the phenomenon?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of previous studies?

How does your research propose to address some of these?

What difference will doing your research make, and to whom?

This first set of questions are the kind which you would normally aim to address in your
introduction to justify your research. They can also form the basis of an initial literature review
chapter if you follow the conventional format. The second set of questions is more suited to an
assessment of the relationships between your research and what has already been done by others.

How does your definition of the phenomenon relate to others? What differences did
you find?

What are the similarities and differences between previous research designs and
yours? What are the consequences of this?

What problems and issues did you face that were not mentioned in the literature?

What do your findings say about claims made in the literature? What support do they
give (or not) to previous findings and how do prior findings support yours?

The templates we looked at in Table 12.3 can be adapted to structure your review of the
literature. The pre-data-collection literature review would, as indicated by the first set of
questions, be concerned to deal with the first two or three points given for each type of
rationalization. The final part of the review chapter could draw conclusions based on the
problems identified in terms of a gap in our knowledge of some phenomenon.

THE METHODOLOGY CHAPTER

In the methodology chapter (or chapters) you describe how you did your research and explain
why and how you did it. The number of chapters, structure and contents of the ‘methodology’
will be unique to your research. The main factors shaping your methodology chapter(s) will be:

type of dissertation, for example, traditional, literature review or theoretical;

methodological approach and culture, for example, feminist, action oriented, critical,
 ethnographic and so on;

type of research, for example, experimental (correlational, causal), nonexperimental

(descriptive, analytical);

methods, for example, qualitative, quantitative: and

type of story, for example, hypothesis, analytical and mystery.

All but the last of these influences represent the choices you made when designing your research.
By type of story is meant the overall structure you use to ‘tell’ others about your research – your
dissertation’s macro-structure. Within the main types of dissertation most approaches and types
of research are possible. The main difference, from the student standpoint, is epistemological: it
is likely your research will be predominantly either qualitative or quantitative in use of methods.

While the empirical dissertation normally has one main methodology and methods chapter, the
theoretical dissertation may have two or more methodology chapters and the literature (or
methodological) dissertation may have three or more such chapters. In the empirical (traditional
and work-based) dissertation you tell and show the reader how you planned to do your data
collection and analysis and how it was actually done. Having only 2,500–3,000 words means you
can only provide a brief account. Much of your thought about alternative courses of action and
showing your reasoning are formulations of what you actually did. In the theoretical dissertation,
because you have more space, possibly two or three chapters, you are able to reveal more of the
methodological basis of your analysis. In the literature review dissertation, where most chapters
are focused on analysing related corpuses of literature, you are able to display many more of the
details of your methodology and reasoning. In many cases the theoretical and literature review
dissertations make the methodological reasoning and analysis on which they are based much
more visible than the empirical dissertation. This is not a failing of the empirical dissertation, but
a constraint imposed by its structure.

Whether you have one or more chapters for methods, one useful way of arranging your materials
is to address your readers’ questions. Initially, the main things your reader will want to know are:

What data did you not collect (type, scope, problems)?

Why this data and not other types (alternatives, relevance, issues)?

How was it collected (methods, tools, levels of measurement, sampling procedures)?

How reliable and valid were the methods used (reliability type, construct and internal
validity)?

What are the limitations of the data and methods (scope, quantity, depth)?

What were the techniques used to analyse the data (content, semiology, conversation
analysis and so on)?

What claims (inferences) can be made about the data (external validity,
 generalization)?

You need to provide enough information for your reader to be satisfied that you have a thorough
understanding of research design and its implementation. They will be looking to see if you have
sound reasons for your design and for the claims you make for it. In many ways your
methodology tells and shows what you have done, whereas your research design and research
proposal told what you intended to do. Hence methodology chapters are often written in the past
tense, using hindsight gained from experience. This may mean that you include in the telling
what actually happened, letting the reader know the problems you faced (technical, ethical) and
how you overcame them. You can do this in all types of dissertation.

Your institution and discipline will have expectations about how you write up your methodology.
Check these out before you start and discuss your ideas with your supervisor. With the report
style it is usual to use the third person and describe as briefly as possible the research design.
With the constructivist dissertation it may be expected that you provide a developmental account
of the research from your standpoint. This may mean highlighting some of the main problems,
saying how you felt about these, how you solved them and how this affected your research and
learning. The latter element, what you learnt, can form a section in your conclusions in which
you reflect on your research experience.

In practical terms you will be restricted by the word limit. This may mean you adapt a
conventional template to meet your particular needs. Table 12.4 shows a conventional template
for the single methods chapter of a dissertation based on quantitative methods. The order in
which you present your account is a matter for you to decide.

TABLE 12.4 can easily be adapted to meet the needs of researchers using qualitative methods. In
Chapter 10 we looked at some of the functional equivalents to procedures used to assure
confidence. These can be used, substituting, where necessary, the procedures normally
associated with experimental and quantitative methods. Depending on your institution and
disciplines, how much is needed to justify your methodology will be a matter for you to
determine. In many of the enlightened institutions the use of qualitative methods is as acceptable
as quantitative ones. Such institutions generally acknowledge that neither is better than the other
and that there is no need to make a special case for a qualitative approach. In both cases,
however, it will be expected that your reasons refer to the methodological literature. Use
previous discussions and arguments on methodology, method and techniques to show how your
design is a continuation of and contribution to an existing corpus of research.
TABLE 12.4 GENERIC TEMPLATE FOR THE METHODOLOGY CHAPTER

Method Description

Introduction, purpose and outline of the chapter Let your reader know what the chapter is about, what will be
covered and in what order.

Research questions, proposition or/and hypothesis What research puzzle the methodology, as designed, was
intended to address.

Key concepts Statement of key concepts and frame of reference; reasons.

Definitions of concepts Statement on what the concepts are taken to be; reasons.
 Indicators of concepts Attributes and properties corresponding to the concepts;
reasons.

Measures/observations required Measures of the attributes and properties; levels of

measurement; reasons.

Data required Type, scope, access, sources, quantity, issues and reasons.

Sampling procedures Population, sample frame, selection, issues and reasons.

Research instrument What will be used to collect the data; issues and reasons.
Piloting of the instrument.
Full copy of the instrument administered.

Reliability checks Inter-test, re-test and parallel forms; issues and reasons.

Validity procedures Construct, internal, external validity, issues and reasons.

Analysis techniques Type of analysis to be used on the data, issues and reasons.

THE FINDINGS CHAPTER

Depending on what kind of research you have done and the nature of your data, there may not be
the need for a separate ‘findings’ chapter. If you have conducted interviews or analysed a text,
then your findings may be combined with your analysis and discussion chapter. If you have
administered a questionnaire survey, then a findings chapter may be appropriate. Always consult
with your supervisor, who will guide you on this.

A findings chapter should present your data and nothing else. This means presenting the data you
collected from your questionnaires in tables. The responses from each question of your
questionnaire should be tabulated. These should show how many respondents answered this
question, how many are missing and what the range of responses was. If you had a 20-question
questionnaire, you will have 20 tables. Each table should be numbered consecutively, using
whatever coding you assigned to the responses. Your reader should be able to identify which
table reports responses on which question. Some brief notes can be attached to a table explaining
why the data has some feature. Other than these, no comment or observations should be made
about the data. As far as possible include all the data which was collected. This will allow the
reader to make an informed assessment of how you analysed it and came to the interpretations
you did. While most books on statistics will show you how to construct tables, here are some of
the key things to follow.

Use tables not graphs. Graphs such as pie charts should only be used in the discussion
and interpretation chapters.

Use whole numbers and not percentages. The use of percentages can distort the power
of the data, making a low response rate seem more significant than it really is.

Number each table consecutively. The tables and figures in this book follow the
expected standard for those to be used in a dissertation.

The above are recommendations and are not universally adhered to by all institutions or
disciplines. As a supervisor and researcher, I always recommend that the research student
include, either in their dissertation or in an attached volume (including electronically), all of their
data. This may mean submitting audiotapes of interviews, videos or full paper copies of texts
analysed (this can now be done on CD-ROM). The reasons for this are transparency and
confidence. By being able to look at all the data collected, especially before it has been
repackaged in tables and the like, others can see for themselves and understand just what was
collected, under what conditions. They can also see more of the processing done by the student
to make their data presentable and understandable to their readers. Providing such data may be
an added task, but it will ensure a greater degree of confidence in what you say about your
findings than would be the case if you only selected extracts as illustrative.

THE ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION CHAPTER

In broad terms your research will have one of three outcomes: what you predicted in your
hypothesis or proposition will have been found; what you predicted will partially have been
found to be the case, but there are anomalies; and what you predicted will not have been found.
Each one of these three outcomes demands discussion. Do not worry if your research results in
the latter of these outcomes. Negative outcomes are also findings, in that you will have largely
eliminated a possible relationship or approach to a puzzle.

Your analysis or interpretation chapter should be based only on the data you have collected. This
means no extraneous data or evidence or assumptions should be used to bolster your data. The
data, however, will not ‘speak for itself’. The interpretation of all data needs a frame of
reference. The research method (quantitative or qualitative) and research culture and approach
you have employed will give you a frame of reference. It will enable you to make particular
sense of specific and aggregated data. Meaningfulness is therefore a product of your frame of
reference and standpoint, constructed in your research design, which you bring to your data. It is
not, then, a mechanical process of merely ‘writing up’ your data. Analysis and subsequent
interpretation means a process of iterative cogitation. The more of an open-systems approach you
have taken, the more time is usually needed for interpretation. Conversely, the more of a closed-
systems approach you have taken, the more straightforward the analysis. This is because
statistical correlation calculations are routine and made easy with the use of statistical software.
Saying what the result means and implies can be more difficult. All kinds of research have this
interpretative element.

It is very difficult to explain what interpretation is and how one does it. At the most general
level, interpretation is a cognitive process consisting of making sense of something, in your case
your data in relation to your research questions and research puzzle. By doing interpretation you
are aiming to employ a frame of reference known to your readers that they can also use to
understand your intention and to assess your interpretation. This process is normally one of
elucidating the significance of the data in terms of your research questions. This may involve
translating your data and its analysis into probabilities, generalizations and/or explanations.

Your interpretation will not ‘come from nothing’. It is not a matter of merely looking at the data
to see what it says. From your research questions and the way in which you framed your research
puzzle, you have a substantial amount of ‘material’ for constructing your interpretation chapter.
In the three possible structures for constructing a rationalization (shown in Table 12.3) you have,
for example, points of reference from which you can begin an assessment of your data. If your
aim was to evaluate a policy, then the possible solution pattern could act as your template. You
could examine the ways in which a policy and situation could be changed, given what you have
found. To do this the interpretation of your data should show: how it is valid and relevant to the
situation; how it is different from existing data; how it has addressed or made visible behaviours
or effects not otherwise noticed or subject to adequate explanation; how and why it addresses
your research questions; and, importantly, what the limitations are to your findings.
Interpretation is therefore a systematic process of using the data to assess your research
questions, hypotheses or propositions in a way that is progressive.

It begins with a pen and paper. Initially it is good practice to sit with your data and research
questions. Whether or not your data has been analysed and presented using a computer package,
having it on pieces of paper has the advantage of allowing annotations and scribbling down of
‘first thoughts’ to be made. Successive sweeps and mining of the data soon build into stories to
be told. Some of these may be routine, others may be exciting. Whichever, it progresses from
presentation of the data to arranging it into ascending levels of abstraction. The lower levels
consist of ‘actuals’ – concrete examples of what was found, along with basic relationships
between variables and categories. Intermediate levels normally look to explore relationships
within the data and to identify interesting issues. This may be based on posing successive
questions to the data and using extracts to explore in more detail the implications of those
questions. Higher-level interpretation will normally look to make inferences based on the data
sample about the situation as a phenomenon and its explanation in terms of theoretical
constructs.

THE CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS CHAPTER

In the final chapter there are many things still to do. The problem usually faced, however, is one
of little time or energy to write a good final chapter. By this stage in your research and writing
your creative energy will probably be nearly exhausted. It is for this reason I recommend to our
students that they keep a reasonably detailed research diary. The entries in it often provide many
observations that would have otherwise been forgotten. Such observations are usually generated,
ad hoc, as you work on some task. They can be problems you encountered, possible
recommendations you would make to others doing similar research, and ideas for further
research. It does not mean that they will be used, just that they may be useful aide-memoires
when you are mentally tired. Do not introduce anything new in your conclusions chapter.
Everything you have to say in it should be based solely on the contents of the preceding chapters.
If you have a section, therefore, on further research, such research should have been alluded to in
other parts of your dissertation, such as the scope, literature review and methodology.

The purpose of this final chapter is to demonstrate to your examiners that you have done research
worthy of a masters categorization. It is the part of your dissertation where you can tell your
reader what you have achieved and point to the places in your dissertation where the evidence of
your achievements can be found. The sections often found in the conclusions chapter are:

Main findings of the research; a series of statements evaluating the degree to which the
research objectives have been fulfilled. This includes saying what changes to the
original research design were necessary, and why.
 The relationship of your research to the literature; saying how your research findings
contribute to understanding and/or explaining the phenomenon. This may include a
brief critique of the interpretations given in the literature, and the concepts or theories
used as the frame for explanations.

Further research; identification of other research questions and puzzles revealed by

your research. This may mean identification of concepts, practices and behaviours not
within the scope of your research but which you consider relevant to a more
comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

Recommendations for policy or practice; brief systematic statements on courses of

action for an organization or researcher. This may include constructing
recommendations for an organization saying, on the basis of your research, what they
could do to improve a practice or address a problem. Recommendations should state
what could be done, what benefit it would bring to whom and what resources would be
needed. You can also make recommendations or observations about existing
recommendations and about the research on which they are based.

Reflections on the learning experience; statements on your experience of doing the

research. This is often said by students to be a difficult section to write. It consists of
making a few points about your research as a learning experience. It is the part where
you can look back on your research journey and say a little about the skills,
capabilities, attitudes and qualities which were demanded of you. Consider also
including a few points on your role as the agent constructing the knowledge that is in
your dissertation. As a subjective-interpretative being, what assumptions did you have
prior to doing your research, how did these change during it, and how did this help
you to understand the process of knowledge creation?

The final chapter is much more than conclusions about your findings; it is a systematic set of
informative observations on what you have done. It therefore aims to tell and show that your
research is credible, has integrity and makes a contribution to knowledge and understanding.
These are the kinds of things which will constitute your performance – a performance that shows
you have acquired the necessary skills, capabilities, attitudes and qualities expected of the
masters candidate.

Other parts of the dissertation

In terms of the overall presentation of your dissertation, you should aim to produce a clearly
organized document. This means using your title, abstract, acknowledgements, contents page and
other labelling to ensure a clean, professional look for your work.

THE TITLE
Deciding on the title for your dissertation can be a challenge. This is because you have only a
limited number of words to formulate what your research is about. Although some people may
believe titles should be entertaining, humorous or even eye-catching, I believe they should be
none of these. A dissertation is a serious piece of work and as such demands a title that embodies
this. Titles are also important for other reasons. Your title will, along with your abstract, contain
words and phrases which may be used by professional abstracting and indexing services. This
means that if you want other people to be able to find your dissertation on electronic databases
such as Dissertation Abstracts, then you need to give it a title that is a description of it. Different
types of publication tend to employ different kinds of title to indicate what kind of publication
they are and what they are attempting to achieve. This is something you can explore by looking
at the references in this and other books. Table 12.5 shows examples of what is meant by this.
TABLE 12.5 TITLES AND DIFFERENT KINDS OF PUBLICATION

Form of publication Title Purpose of title

Conference paper ‘“By gum pet, you smell gorgeous”: To grab attention; be mildly humorous;
representations of sexuality in perfume play on local vernacular; announce the
advertisements’. British Sociological topic; show relevance to conference
Association Annual Conference, theme; indicate data sources and form of
Sexualities, Preston, March 1994. analysis.

Textbook Dissertations from Start to Finish: Topic; process; practicality; relevance to

Psychology and Related Fields. Cone, audience; academic discipline.
J.D. and Foster, S.L. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association,
1999.

Monograph Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Methodological approach; theoretical;

out Durkheim’s Aphorism. Garfinkel, H. argumentative; origins; relevance to
Oxford: Rowan & Littlefield, 2002. audience.

Conference papers are ideal vehicles to play with ideas in order to elicit feedback from the other
delegates. In the case of ‘“By gum pet, you smell gorgeous”: representations of sexuality in
perfume advertisements’, my intention was to use a phrase from a popular television commercial
for Boddington’s beer. The expectation was that most people attending the conference (if from
the UK) would know this phrase and want to come along to hear my paper. You can, of course,
turn your dissertation into a conference paper and do likewise. For the novice scholar this can be
a way of getting your research noticed. ‘By gum pet, you smell gorgeous’ worked very well and
was even used by a daily broadsheet to comment on the conference. Textbooks, as you can see
from the one in Table 12.5, usually employ a practical title to communicate their purpose and
relevance to a specific audience. Monographs sometimes come out of dissertations and theses.
Garfinkel’s Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working out Durkheim’s Aphorism (2002) is a very
descriptive title. Knowing only a little about ethnomethodology means you will probably know it
is an approach invented by Garfinkel. Therefore a book by Garfinkel will be important and is not
likely to be a textbook. Significant theorists are not usually known for writing textbooks.
Garfinkel’s title is the kind most closely associated with that suggested for a dissertation. It is
descriptive, non-sensational, announces the theory, and then its purpose.

Writing a title is about playing with words and phrases. A good place to start is by writing down
on separate pieces of paper all the words and phrases which could be used in a title. Look to
assemble a collection that covers your topic, purpose, methodological orientation, theoretical
position, subjects, place and time of the research, and type of dissertation. Only choose words
used in your dissertation, especially in your statement of aims, hypothesis and research
questions. This collection will probably be large, possibly in excess of 50 words. The next stage
is to sort your words into categories. Place words that are theoretical, conceptual and analytical
into one category. Words that are empirical, about subjects and the time and place of the research
can be placed into another category. The next thing to decide is whether your research is
predominantly theoretical or empirical. If it is predominantly theoretical, then words from this
category can be used to construct possible alternatives for the first part of your title. The words
designating the empirical element and scope of your research can be used to construct the second
part of your title. In this way your title will be in two parts.

The words you select from your two sets can now be arranged to form alternative titles. Play
with the words to see how many different titles you can make, looking at each for clarity and
succinctness. You may want to ask some of your peer students and tutors what they think of your
titles. Whichever one you finally select, ensure that it encapsulates what your research is about. It
must use the same words as the reader will find in your abstract, aims and research questions. In
this way you will be adding to the coherence of your dissertation.

THE ABSTRACT
In order for abstracting and indexing services to make your dissertation available to others, you
need to provide an abstract and set of key words. You will have come across abstracts during
your literature search and should look to some of these for further guidance as to what an
abstract consists of. It should attempt to provide a summary of the research. It must say
something about the purpose, literature, methodology, data, findings and conclusions of the
research. There are two main types of abstract you can use: the indicative and the informative.
Indicative abstracts are usually, though not always, written by someone else to convey the
intention of an author. The purpose is to provide a reader with sufficient indication of the nature
of a piece of research for them to decide if obtaining and reading the full document is
worthwhile. An informative abstract is usually written by the author of a piece of research. It
attempts to provide a summary of the principal elements of their research and will usually follow
the structure of the original dissertation by:

stating the purpose of the research: saying what the author was attempting to achieve;
their aims, hypotheses, research questions;

stating the methodology employed: mentioning which research tradition and culture
were used;

stating the methods: outlining what data collection tools were constructed and applied;
and

stating the findings: brief sentences on what was found, normally with little or no
evaluation of the relevance of the findings, as matters of relevance and interpretation
are for the reader to determine.

In other publications you may use a combination of indicative and informative abstracts.
Conference papers often use a combination to state what the author has done and how they see
its relevance to a topic or issue.

THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In many work-based dissertations it is becoming more common to see an executive summary in
place of the conventional informative abstract. The executive summary is commonly regarded as
a tool for management. It is usually placed at the beginning of a document to state the main
findings from a research project. The facts, as found by the research, are simply stated without
interpretation or comment. Table 12.6 shows two executive summaries; one from a survey of
historic vehicles and the other from a survey into the needs of local community groups. In both
cases the executive summary gave the terms of reference for the research. This included saying
briefly what the research was about and why it was done, followed by the main findings.
TABLE 12.6 EXAMPLES OF EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES

Local community groups and facilities at the library Historic vehicles in the UK

Terms of reference. Terms of references.

38 groups in the area hold on average three to four meetings £1.6 billion is generated by the historic vehicle movement in
each month. the UK.

Thimblemill library is the second busiest in the borough – it In excess of 25,000 people earn their living providing
issued 150,000 items last year. services to the historic vehicle movement.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough is the seventh most deprived More than 650,000 vehicles made before 1977 still exist.
in England and this has worsened since 1981.

An average of 27.3% of pupils in Smethwick attained 5+ Over 64% of vehicles owned by members of historic vehicle
GCSE grades between A and C. The average for England was clubs are roadworthy and licensed.
43.3%.

15% of the local population are from ethnic minority Libraries and archives in the UK were visited over 270,000
backgrounds. This excludes persons of Irish descent who times by historic vehicle owners seeking information about
make up an undisclosed proportion of the local population. historic vehicles last year.

Most groups in the area rated the facilities at Thimblemill Over 33,000 members of historic vehicles clubs drive a
library as ‘poor’ or ‘inadequate’. contemporary vehicle that is of the same marque as a historic
vehicle they own.

Source: Adapted from Hart, 1997 and 2000.

Both of the executive summaries shown in Table 12.6 are typical for applied research of this
type. They give the main findings in a logical order, are brief, to the point and are easily
reproducible by others.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Whoever has helped you in your research should be acknowledged. This includes people who
have enabled access to subjects, advised on writing, given direction and provided guidance to
resources and sources of information. Among such people will be your supervisor and the
university librarian; if a family member or friend has done some proofreading they certainly need
mentioning.
Acknowledgements help to show that research is based in a context of personal and institutional
realities. It is not only good manners, therefore, to acknowledge the help you have received, but
also to show the support you have had from others. If you have had financial assistance with
your research, say from a funding body, it is common practice to give details of this.

THE CONTENTS PAGE

This may seem obvious; a contents page is a listing of the contents. The variety of ways in which
the contents pages of dissertations differ each year is something my colleagues and I often
remark on. Even though we give examples of good practice, authors of dissertations often do
things differently. This book has several contents pages; there is one at the beginning that
provides an overview of the chapters and each chapter has a detailed one at its beginning to show
just what is in that chapter. We recommend you have only one contents page. It should be
sufficiently detailed to provide information on what the chapter is about and how its contents are
arranged. For example, if Chapter 8 of this book was a dissertation the format for listing its
contents might look like this:

Contents
List of figures and tables
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Studies of feeble-mindedness
1.1 Goddard’s study of the Kallikak family
1.2 Goddard’s recommendations
1.3 Consequences of the Kallikak family study
1.4 The issues

FIGURE 12.5 SEQUENCE OF PARTS IN A DISSERTATION

Chapter 2 Criminal types

2.1 Lombroso’s research and theory
2.2 Consequences of Lombroso’s theories
 2.3 The issues
Chapter 3 The universality of mind
3.1 Structural study of cultures
3.2 The structure of myth
3.3 Analysing myths
3.4 Summary of Lévi-Strauss’s argument
3.5 Consequences of Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism
3.6 The issues
Appendix 1: The research proposal
References

Each chapter would be consecutively numbered and its contents double-numbered. Try to avoid
taking multiple numbering too far. That is, avoid numbering all sections and having a number
like 3.1.1.2.

Another way of looking at the parts of a dissertation is shown in Figure 12.5. This shows the
sequence normally used. Note that the references (works you have cited in the text) can be placed
after each chapter, as endnotes, or after the appendices, as a references section.

FIGURES AND TABLES

List your figures and tables on a separate page. Use the heading ‘List of figures and tables’ and
list them continuously with figures first. Note that the ones below are from Chapter 10 of this
book, and so they all begin with 10. Figures and tables are normally numbered by chapter. For
example, figures in Chapter 1 begin with 1, figures in Chapter 2 with 2, and so on. So Figure
10.2 is the second figure in Chapter 10.
Figures
Figure 10.1 The methodological logic of research design
Figure 10.2 The place of research design in the research process
Figure 10.3 Different types of research and associated study design elements
Tables
TABLE 10.1 Summary of interpretivist research designs
TABLE 10.2 Examples of and sources on different research standpoints and cultures
TABLE 10.3 Construct, Internal and External Validity

APPENDICES
The contents of the appendices are not normally included in the word count for a dissertation.
This does not mean that you can put a lot of material here which you would have liked to have
had in the main body of your dissertation. The appendices are reserved for materials pertinent to
the research. This may include a copy of your questionnaire, a printout of a website you
analysed, letters you received from organizations, and the like. The way to format an appendix is
like this:
Appendix 1: Letters of consent
Appendix 2: Portrait of Jane Austen

Final thoughts
I have, I hope, shown you that you have choices in research and that to be able to exercise them
you need to know what they are, what each commits you to and what kind of consequences for
understanding may follow. The choice is far greater and much more consequential than that
between quantitative or qualitative. It involves asking big or little questions, looking to theorize
or describe, aiming to produce recognizable descriptions which connect with reality (realism) or
produce ways of picturing the world (conventionalism), making choices about value-relevance
and value-neutrality, and understanding some of the implications of using a closed- or open-
systems approach. Some disciplines or research programmes will have largely made the choices
for you by making clear in their literature the ontological and epistemological parameters of their
research. Feyerabend would advocate that you challenge these, but if you are happy with a
particular frame of reference a research programme implies, and know what it entails, then get on
with your research and ‘work your problem’. After all, we are not attempting to address big
questions such as the size of the universe or how consciousness works. We are interested, in the
main, in formulating little questions (Geertz, 1973) which, through the design strategy of our
research, we may be able to answer in some way. This requires that we collect relevant materials
and data and pay close and careful attention to the details (Putnam, 1975; Hacking, 1983) so that
we can apply our frame of reference in ways which display our knowledge. Doing research is,
we contend, far more interesting and more productive than talking about it. At the end of the day
research is not philosophy, any more than economics is psychology, and none is reducible to a
single discipline or cause. They are forms of knowing and understanding and have things to learn
from each other, but have differences at their cores which set them apart. Investigating what
these cores are and what they mean are ways of exercising our intellects which help us develop
our capacity for understanding and for tolerance towards other ways of knowing, and enhance
our cognitive abilities as ‘professional’ researchers and people.

Further reading
Colinson, D., Kirup, G., Kyd, R. and Slocombe, L. (1992) Plain English. 2nd edn. Buckingham: Open University Press. Advice
on making your writing clear.

Schwartz, M. (1995) Guidelines for Bias-free Writing. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Gives sound advice on what
terms to use in order to avoid sexist, racist and other discriminatory forms of writing.

Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Basic Books. One of the earliest
formulations of reflective practice in research.
Appendix 1 Skills, capabilities, attitudes
and qualities of the masters
Appendix 2 Levels of measurement and use
Appendix 3 References for Tables 10.2 and
10.7

Experiments
A primer on experimental and quasi-experimental design. http://ericae.net/ft/tamu/Expdes.HTM.
Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S.A. (1963) ‘Imitation all for film mediated aggressive models’. Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 66: 3–11.
Campbell, D.T and Stanley, J.C. (1963) ‘Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research’. In Gage, N.L. (ed.),
Handbook of Research on Teaching. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.
Field, A. and Hole, G.J. (2002) How to Design and Report Experiments. London: Sage.
Greenacre, M.J. (1993) Correspondence Analysis in Practice. London: Academic Press.
Kitto, J. (1989) ‘Gender reference terms: separating the women from the girls’. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28: 185–7.
Lazarsfeld, P.F. and Rosenberg, M. (1955) The Language of Social Research: A Reader in the Methodology of Social Research.
Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Loftus, E.F. and Palmer, J.C. (1974) ‘Reconstruction of automobile destruction: an example of the interaction between language
and memory’. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 13: 585–9.
Piliavin, M., Rodin, J.A. and Piliavin, J. (1969) ‘Good Samaritanism: an underground phenomenon?’ Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 13: 289–99.
Rosenthal, R. and Jacobson, L. (1966) ‘Teacher’s expectancies: determinants of pupil’s IQ gains’. Psychological Reports, 19:
115–18.

Ethnography
Agar, M.H. (1985) Speaking of Ethnography. Sage University Paper Series on Qualitative Research Methods, Volume 2. Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage.
Atkinson, P. (1990) The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality. London: Routledge.
Becker, H. (1970) Sociological Work: Method and Substance. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Bulmer, M. (ed.) (1982) Social Research Ethics: An Examination of the Merits of Covert Participant Observation. London:
Macmillan.
Center for Ethnographic Research. University of Missouri. http://iml.umkc.edu/cer/goals.html.
Center for Urban Ethnography. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. http://www.gse.upenn.edu/cue/.
Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds) (1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Denzin, N.K. (1997) Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fetterman, D.M. (1989) Ethnography: Step by Step. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Fielding, N. (1981) The National Front. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Geer, B. (1964) ‘First days in the field’. In Hammond, P. (ed.), Sociologists at Work. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1989) ‘On Fieldwork’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18(2): 123–32.
Green, J.L. and Wallats, C. (eds) (1981) Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
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McCall, G.J. and Simmons, J.L. (eds) (1969) Issues in Participant Observation: A Text and Reader. Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley.
Stewart, A. (1998) The Ethnographer’s Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
van Maanen, J. (1988) Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Whyte, W.F. (1943) Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Phenomenology
Binswanger, L. (1967) Being-in-the-world. (Trans. and ed. J. Needleman). New York: Harper and Row.
Casey, E.S. (1987) Remembering: A Phenomenological Study. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Cavalier, R. Lectures on Heidegger’s ‘Being and time’, Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University.
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Frick, W.B. (1990) ‘The symbolic growth experience: a chronicle of heuristic inquiry and a quest for synthesis’. Journal of
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Lincoln, Y.S. (eds), Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Packer, M.J. and Addison, R.B. (eds) (1989) Entering the Circle: Hermeneutic Investigation in Psychology. Albany, NY: State
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Phenomenology www.connect.net/ron/phenom.html.
Psathas, G. (ed.) (1989) Phenomenology and Sociology: Theory and Research. Washington, DC: Centre for Advanced Research
in Phenomenology and University Press of America.
Seamon, D. and Mugerauer, R. (1989) Dwelling, Place and Environment: Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World. New
York: Columbia University Press.
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van Manen, M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Wagner, H.R. (1983) Phenomenology of Consciousness and Sociology of the Life-World: An Introductory Study. Edmonton:
University of Alberta.

Grounded theory
Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York:
Aldine.
Goulding, C. (2002) Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide for Management, Business and Market Researchers. London: Sage.
Hutchinson, S.A. (1988) ‘Education and Grounded Theory’. In Sherman, R. and Webb, R.B. (eds), Qualitative Research in
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Locke, K.D. (2001) Grounded Theory in Management Research. London: Sage.
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4/pandit.html.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
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Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (eds), (1997) Grounded Theory in Practice. London: Sage.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory.
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Surveys
Aldridge, A. and Levine, K. (2001) Surveying the Social World. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bourque, L.B. and Fielder, E.P. (1995) How to Conduct Self-Administered and Mail Surveys. London: Sage.
Cartwright, A. and Seale, C.F. (1990) The Natural History of Survey: An Account of the Methodological Issues Encountered in a
Study of Life Before Death. London: King’s Fund.
Dale, A., Arber, S. and Proctor, M. (1988) Doing Secondary Analysis. London: Unwin Hyman.
de Vaus, D.A. (1991) Surveys in Social Research. London: Routledge.
Fink, A. (1995) The Survey Kit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Nine volumes.
Foddy, W. (1993) Constructing Questions for Interviews and Questionnaires: Theory and Practice in Social Research.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fowler, F.J. (2001) Survey Research Methods. 3rd edn. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Hoinville, G. and Jowell, R. (1987) Survey Research Practice. London: Heinemann.
Home Office (1983) The British Crime Survey. London: HMSO.
Hyman, H. (1955) Survey Design and Analysis. New York: Free Press.
Kish, L. (1965) Survey Sampling. New York: Wiley.
Marsh, C. (1982) The Survey Method. London: Allen and Unwin.
Moser, C.A. (1971) Survey Methods in Social Investigation. 2nd edn. Aldershot: Gower.
Oppenheim, A. (1992) Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. London: Pinter.
Petersen, R. (2000) Constructing Effective Questionnaires. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
ResearchInfo.com http://www.researchinfo.com/docs/software/index.cfm.
Rowntree, B.S. (1901) Poverty: A Study in Town Life. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Salant, P. and Dillman, D. (1994) How to Conduct Your Own Survey. New York: Wiley.
Sampling guide. http://www.fantaproiect.org/publications/sampling.shtml.
Sapsford, R. (1999) Survey Research. London: Sage.
Statistical good practice guidelines – overview http://www.rdg.ac.uk/ssc/dfid/booklets.html.
Statistics glossary http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/sampling.html.
Tacq, J. (1997) Multivariate Analysis and Techniques in Social Science Research. London: Sage.
Trochim, W.M. The research methods knowledge base, 2nd edn. http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/index.htm
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Wells, A.F (1935) The Local Social Survey in Great Britain. London: Allen and Unwin.

Case study
Abramson, P.R. (1992) A Case for Case Studies: An Immigrant’s Journal. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Feagin, J.R., Orum, A.M. and Sjoberg, G. (eds) (1991) A Case for the Case Study. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina
Press.
Gomm, R., Hammersley, M. and Foster P. (eds) (2000) Case Study Method: Key Issues, Key Texts. London: Sage.
Hamel, J., Dufour, S. and Fortin, D. (1993) Case Study Methods. Vol. 32. Qualitative Research Methods, ed. by John van
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Merriam, S.B. (1988) Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ragin, C.C. and Becker, H.S. (eds) (1992) What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Stake, R.E. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Travers, M. (2001) Qualitative Research Through Case Studies. London: Sage.
Yin, R.K. (1993) Applications of Case Study Research. Vol. 34. Applied Social Research Methods, ed. by L. Bickman and D.J.
Rog. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Action research
Action Research International. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arhome.html.
Action research: an electronic reader. http://www.beh.cchs.usyd.edu.au/narow/Reader/.
Argyris, C. (1993) Knowledge for Action: A Guide to Overcoming Barriers to Organisational Change. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Argyris, C., Putnam, R. and McLain, S.D. (1985) Action Science: Concepts, Methods and Skills for Research and Intervention.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research. London: Falmer.
Center for Action Research in Professional Practice. http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/carpp.htm.
Coghlan, D. and Brannick, T. (2000) Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization. London: Sage.
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Heron, J. (1996) Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition. London: Sage.
Oja, S.N. and Smuljan, O. (1989) Collaborative Action Research: A Developmental Approach. London: Falmer.
Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (2000) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.
Whyte, W.F. (1991) Participatory Action Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Critical theory
Adorno, T.W. (1991) Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. (Trans. S. Crook and J.M. Bernstein). London:
Routledge.
Adorno, T.W. (1994) The Stars Come Down-to-Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture. ed. by S. Crook. London:
Routledge.
Braaten, J. (1991) Habermas’s Critical Theory of Society. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Boyle, J. (1996) Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Burawoy, M. (1979) Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labour Process under Monopoly Capitalism. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Calhoun, C. (1995) Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell.
Connerton, P. (ed.) (1976) Critical Sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Deetz, S. (1992) Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in the Communication and the Politics of
Everyday Life. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Ewert, G.D. (1991) ‘Habermas and education: a comprehensive overview of the influence of Habermas in educational literature’.
Review of Educational Research, 61(3): 345–78.
Fay, B. (1987) Critical Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Forester, J. (1993) Critical Theory, Public Policy, and Planning Practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol 1. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge.
Held, D. (1980) Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley, CA: University Press of California.
Kincheloe, J.L. and McLaren, P.L. (1994) ‘Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research’. In Denzin, N.K. and Yvonna, S.L.
(eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. pp. 138–57.
LaCapra, D. (1989) Soundings in Critical Theory. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Lasch, C. (1978) The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton.
Leiss, W. (1978) The Limits of Satisfaction. London: Marion Boyars.
Marcuse, H. (1964) One-Dimensional Man. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Morrow, R.A. and Brown, D.A. (1994) Critical Theory and Methodology: Interpretive Structuralism as a Research Program.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Radnitzky, G. (1970) Contemporary Schools of Metasciences. Vols I—II. Göteborg: Akademiföraget.
Thompson, J.B. and Held, D. (eds) (1982) Habermas: Critical Debates. London: Macmillan.
Young, R. (1990) A Critical Theory of Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Feminist methodology
Feminist research methods: A guide to library and internet resources.
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/uo/libhome/instruct/womenst.html.
Fonow, M. and Cook, J. (eds) (1991) Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
Hammersley, M. (1992) ‘On Feminist methodology’. Sociology, 26(2): 187–206.
Hammersley, M. (1995) The Politics of Social Research. London: Sage.
Humphries, B. and Truman, C. (eds) (1994) Re-thinking Social Research: Anti-discriminatory Approaches in Research
Methodology. Aldershot: Avebury.
Jaggar, A.M. and Struhl, P.R. (1978). Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations between Women
and Men. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Keohane, N.O., Rosaldo, M.Z. and Gelpi, B.C. (eds) (1981–82) Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Maynard, M. and Purvis, J. (eds) (1994) Researching Women’s Lives from a Feminist Perspective. London: Taylor and Francis.
Reinharz, S. (1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, H. (ed.) (1981) Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Sociological Research Online. ‘Feminist research processes: practices, issues, debates’.
www.socresonline.org.uk/threads/femres/femres.html.
Stanley, L. (ed.) (1990) Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge.
Sydie, R.A. (1987) Natural Women, Cultural Men: A Feminist Perspective on Sociological Theory. Milton Keynes: Open
University Press.
Warren, C.B. (1988) Gender Issues in Field Research. London: Sage.

Virtual phenomena
Birnbaum, M.H. (ed.) (2000) Psychological Experiments on the Internet. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Center for Electronic Commerce. Rules of procedure for conducting the virtual focus group.
http://www.erim.org/cec/conduit/rules.htm.
Coomber, R. (1997) Using the internet for survey research in sociological research online.
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/2/2.html.
Cybersociology. www.cybersociology.com.
Dourish, P. (2001) Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.
Jones, S.G. (ed.) (1999) Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/.
Journal of On-line Behaviour. http://www.behavior.net/JOB/.
Murray, P.J. (1997) ‘Using virtual focus groups’. Qualitative Health Research, 7(4): 542–9.
Resources Centre for Cyber-culture. http://www.com.washington.edu/rccs/.
Evaluation
Chen, H., and Rossi, P.H. (1992) Using Theory to Improve Program and Policy Evaluations. New York: Greenwood.
Fetterman, D. ‘Empowerment evaluation: collaboration, action research, and a case example’.
http://www.aepro.org/inprint/conference/fetterman.html.
Fetterman, D.M. (1994) ‘Empowerment evaluation’. Evaluation Practice, 15(1): 1–15.
Green, J.C. (1994) ‘Qualitative program evaluation: practice and promise’. In Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) The
Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hadley, R.G. and Mitchell, L.K. (1995) Counseling Research and Program Evaluation. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
House, E. (1993) Professional Evaluation: Social Impact and Political Consequences. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Madaus, G.F., Stufflebeam, D.L. and Scriven, M.S. (eds) (1983) Evaluation Models. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff.
Patton, M. (1990) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Popham, W.J. (1988) Educational Evaluation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Posavac, E.J. and Carey, R.G. (1992) Program Evaluation: Methods and Case Studies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Rossi, P.H. and Freeman, H.E. (1993) Evaluation: A Systematic Approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Scriven, M. (1991) Evaluation Thesaurus. 4th edn. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Stake, R.E. (1983) ‘Program evaluation, particularly responsive evaluation’. In Madhaus, G.F., Scriven, M. and Stufflebeam,
D.L. (eds), Evaluation Models. Viewpoints on educational and human social services evaluation. Boston/The Hague:
Kluwer/Nijhoff: 101–115.

Interviews
Arksey, H. and Knight, P.T. (1999) Interviewing for Social Scientists: An Introductory Resource with Examples. London: Sage.
Bell, C. and Roberts, H. (eds) (1984) Social Researching. London: Routledge.
Bourque L.B. and Fielder E.P. (1995) How to Conduct Self-administered and Mail Surveys. London: Sage.
Brenner, M., Brown, J. and Canter, D. (eds) (1985) The Research Interview: Uses and Approaches. New York: Academic Press.
Dexter, L.A. (1970) Elite and Specialized Interviewing. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Douglas, J.D. (1985) Creative Interviewing. Vol. 159, Sage Library of Social Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Flick, U. (1998) An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Foddy, W. (1993) Constructing Questions for Interviews and Questionnaires: Theory and Practice in Social Research.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fontana, A. and Frey, J.H. (1994) ‘Interviewing: the art of science’. In Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds), Handbook of
Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Fre, J.H. and Mertens, O.S. (1995) How to Conduct Interviews by Telephone and in Person. London: Sage.
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (eds) (2001) Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. London: Sage.
Holstein, J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (1995) The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hyman, H.H. (1975) Interviewing in Social Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kahn, R.L. and Cannell, C.F. (1983 [1957]) The Dynamics of Interviewing: Theory, Techniques and Cases. Malabar, FL:
Krieger.
Kvale, S. (1996) Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lavrakas, P.J. (1993) Telephone Survey Methods: Sampling, Selection, and Supervision. 2nd edn. London: Sage.
McCracken, G. (1988) ‘The Long Interview’. Vol. 13. Qualitative Research Methods Series ed. by J. van Maanen. Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage.
Merton, R.K., Fiske, M. and Kendall, P.L. (1990) The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures. 2nd edn. New
York: Free Press.
Mishler, E.G. (1991) Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.

Questionnaires
A primer on experimental and quasi-experimental design. http://ericae.net/ft/tamu/Expdes.HTM.
Electronic textbook. http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html.
Foddy, W. (1993) Constructing Questions for Interviews and Questionnaires: Theory and Practice in Social Research.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oppenheim, A. (1992) Questionnaire Design, Interviewing and Attitude Measurement. London: Pinter.
PA 765 Statnotes: an online textbook. by Garson, G.D. http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/statnote.htm.
Petersen, R. (2000) Constructing Effective Questionnaires. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sampling guide. http:gsociology.icaap.org/methods/sampling/html.
Statistical good practice guidelines – overview. http://www.rdg.ac.uk/ssc/dfid/booklets.html.
Statistics glossary. http://www.statsoftinc.com/textbook/glosfra.html.
The little handbook of statistical practice. http://www.tufts.edu/~gdallal/LHSPHTM.
University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension;. http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/evaldocs.html.

Focus groups
A manual for the use of focus groups. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/food2/UIN03E/UIN03E00.HTM.
Agar, M. and MacDonald, J. (1995) ‘Focus groups and ethnography’. Human Organization, 54: 78–86.
Banks, J.A. (1957) ‘The group discussion as an interview technique’. Sociological Review, 5(1): 75–84.
Barbour, R.S. and Kitzinger, J. (eds) (1999) Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice. London: Sage.
Bion, W.R. (1961) Experiences in Groups. London: Tavistock.
Bloor, M., Frankland, J., Thomas, M. and Robson, K. (2000) Focus Groups in Social Research. London: Sage.
Fern, E.F. (2001) Advanced Focus Group Research. London: Sage.
Goulding, C. (2002) Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide for Management, Business and Market Researchers. London: Sage.
Greenbaum, T.L. (2000) Moderating Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Group Facilitation. London: Sage.
Krueger, R.A. (1994) Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Krueger, R.A. (1997) Analysing and Reporting Focus Group Results. London: Sage.
Locke, K.D. (2001) Grounded Theory in Management Research. London: Sage.
Market Navigation, Inc. http://www.mnav.com/qualitative research.htm.
Morgan, D.L. (ed.) (1993) Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Myers, D.L. (1988) ‘Displaying opinions: topics and disagreement in focus groups’. Language and Society, 27: 85–111.
Social Research Updates. http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU19.html.
Stewart, D. and Shamdasani, P. (1990) Focus Groups: Theory and Practice. London: Sage.
Using focus groups to create excellence. http://child.cornell.edu/army/focus.html.
Vaughn, S., Schumm, J.S. and Sinagub, J.M. (1996) Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology. London: Sage.
Wilkinson, S. (1998) ‘Focus groups in Feminist research: power, interaction, and the construction of meaning’. Women’s Studies
International Forum, 21(1): 111–25.

Delphi technique
Delbeq, A. and van de Ven A. (1971) ‘A group process model for problem identification and program planning’. Journal of
Applied Behavioural Sciences, 7: 467–92.
Fink, A., Kosecoff, J., Chassin, M. and Brook, R.H. (1984) ‘Consensus methods: characteristics and guidelines for use’.
American Journal of Public Health, 74: 979–83.
Fowles, R.B. (ed.) (1978) Handbook of Futures Research. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Gerth, W. and Smith. M.E. (1991) ‘The Delphi Technique. Background for use in probability estimation’. Human Health
Economics MHHD. Merck and Co., 8 September.
Pill, J. (1971) ‘The Delphi method: substance, context, a critique and an annotated bibliography’. Socio-economic Planning
 Science, 5: 57–71.

Personal documents
Cooper, J.E. (1991) ‘Telling our own stories: the reading and writing of journals and diaries’. In Witherell, C. and Noddings, N.
(eds), Stories Lives Tell: Narrative and Dialogue in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Malinowski, B. (1989) A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Webb, E., Campbell, D., Schwartz, R. and Sechrest, L. (2000 [1966]) Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social
Sciences. London: Sage.

Conversation analysis
Atkinson, M. and Heritage, J. (1989) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Button, G. and Lee, J.R.E. (eds) (1987) Talk and Social Organization. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A. and Jefferson, G. (1974) ‘A simple systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation’.
Language, 50: 696–735.
ten Have, P. (1999) Doing Conversation Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: Sage.

Content analysis
Ang, I. (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge.
Bauer, M.W. (1998) ‘Guidelines for sampling and content analysis’. In Durant, J., Bauer, M.W. and Gaskell, G. (eds),
Biotechnology in the Public Sphere. London: Science Museum.
Berelson, B. (1952) Content Analysis in Communication Research. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Glasgow University Media Group (1976) Bad News. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Holsti, O.R. (1969) Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Kaplan, A. (1943) ‘Content analysis and the theory of signs’, Philosophy of Science, 10: 230–47.
Krippendorff, K. (1980) Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Leiss, W., Kline, S. and Jhally, S. (1986) Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-being.
London: Methuen.
Neuendorf, K.A. (2002) The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Riffe, D., Lacy, S. and Fico, F.G. (1998) Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Rosengren, K.E. (ed.) (1981) Advances in Content Analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
West, M.D. (ed.) (2001) Applications of Computer Content Analysis. Westport, CT: Ablex.

Discourse analysis
Cazden, C.B. (1988) Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Edwards, D. and Potter, J. (1992) Discourse in Psychology. London: Sage.
Faircloth, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Gill, R. (1996) ‘Discourse analysis: practical implementation’. In Richardson, J. (ed.), Handbook of Qualitative Research
Methods for Psychology and the Social Sciences. Leicester: British Psychological Society.
Gumperz, J.J. (1982) Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Potter, J. (1996) Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric and Social Construction. London: Sage.

Rhetorical analysis
Cole, T. (1991) The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gross, A. and Keith, B. (eds) (1997) Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. Albany, NY:
SUNY.
McCloskey, D.N. (1994) ‘How to do a rhetorical analysis, and why’. In Blackhouse, R.E. (ed.), New Directions in Economic
Methodology. London: Routledge.
Meyer, M. (1994) Rhetoric, Language, and Reason. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Nelson, J., Megill, A. and McCloskey, D. (1987) The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship
and Public Affairs. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Toulmin, S. (1958) The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Semiological analysis
Barthes, R. (1977) Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang.
Barthes, R. (1986) Mythologies. London: Paladin.
Gottdiener, M.P. (1995) Postmodern Semiotics: Material Culture and the Forms of Postmodern Life. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hawkes, T. (1992) Structuralism and Semiotics. London: Routledge.
Saussure, F. de (1974) Course in General Linguistics. London: Fontana.
Williamson, J. (1978) Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. London: Marion Boyars.

Narrative/life history
Cortazzi, M. (1993) ‘Narrative analysis’. Vol. 12. Social Research and Education Studies, ed. by R.G. Burgess. London: Falmer.
International Conference on Narrative. http://www.uky.edu/~iknuff/narrative_conference.
Lee, D.J. (ed.) (1994) Life and Story: Autobiographies for a Narrative Psychology. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Lieblich, A. and Josselson, R. (eds) (1994) Exploring Identity and Gender: The Narrative Study of Lives. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Narrative resources, Hevern, V.W., LeMoyne College, Syracuse, NY. http://maple.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/narpsych.html.
Oral History Society: http://www.oralhistory.org.uk/.
Oral history: techniques and procedures http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/oral.htm.
Reinharz, S. (1992) ‘Introduction’. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press.
Riessman, C.K. (1993) Narrative Analysis. Vol. 30, Qualitative Research Methods, ed. by PK. Manning, J. van Maanen and M.L.
Miller. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rubin, H.J. and Rubin, I.S. (1995) Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Spradley, J.P. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Weiss, R.S. (1994) Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. New York: Free Press.
Werner, O. and Schoepfle, G.M. (1987) Systematic Fieldwork. Vol. 1. Foundations of Ethnography and Interviewing. Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage.
Yow, V.R. (1994) Recording Oral History: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Publications Inc.
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Index
Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables; a indicates appendix.

abstracts 440
and indexes 46, 143, 158, 438
academic dissertation see traditional dissertation
acknowledgements 442
action research 328, 452a
actionable recommendations, work-based dissertation 128–9
active voice 419–20
activist learning style 25, 26, 53
‘actor’, conceptions of 212, 259–60
aims/objectives of research
assessment 10–12, 14, 401
misconceptions 57–8
writing 82–90
see also learning outcomes
Alasuutari, P. 60, 420
Alvesson, M. and Sköldberg, K. 323, 353, 421
American vs British universities 4, 6–7
analysis
chapter 100, 101, 434–5
literature review dissertation 143–9, 150–1
methods 357–60
traditional dissertation 122, 128
work-based dissertation 169–70
writing 418–20
Anderson, R.J. et al. 148, 208, 219, 224
appendices 444
argumentation
assessment 10–12, 14, 16, 187, 188, 401
critical reasoning 106, 134, 206, 213–14
introductory chapter 425–6
literature review 187, 188
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) 151
assessment
examiner criteria 9–17, 400–1
literature review 10–12, 14, 175–6, 183–7, 188, 401
marking ranges and failure 13
research proposal 400–4
attitude
open 189
‘research attitude’ 197
to masters dissertation 23
see also skills/capabilities/attitudes/qualities
attribution see bibliographies; citation
authorship standards 300

Bachelor degrees 4, 5
bias 71, 298
bibliographies
core texts 160
methods of creating 49–50
see also citation
British Sociological Association Code of Ethics 282
British vs American universities 4, 6–7
Burt, C. (twin studies) 286, 291–6, 300
card indexes 48, 49, 50
case series 319
case studies 327, 452a
categorical imperatives 280
chapters
citation style 166
organizing 98, 99–100, 421–37
word count 101
citation 48–9, 50, 163–5
assessment 10–12, 14, 401
copyrights 49, 167–8
domain/mind maps 169
ethical issues 163–8, 299, 300
quotations 423
styles 163, 164–5, 166
citation indexes 151, 160–1, 188–9
closed system analysis 205–7, 235, 434
Clough, P. and Nutbrown, C. 81, 378–9
Cochrane, A. 141
Cochrane Library 141
coherence
examiner questions 15
research proposal 397–400
cohort/prospective studies 320
commercial research 142
comparative research 61, 62, 121
descriptive studies 319–20
generalization 332
work-based dissertation 134, 135–7
complaints procedures 45
computer technology 50–1, 78
bibliography creation 49–50
desk space management 42
file management 46–8, 415
word processing software 49, 51, 414–15
see also databases; Internet
Comte, A. 195, 196, 272
concept generalization 332
conceptual language 61, 62
‘conceptual pathways’ 149
conclusions/recommendations
chapter 100, 101, 436–7
examiner questions 17
literature review 176
self-evaluation 139, 436
work-based dissertation 128–9
Cone, J.D. and Foster, S.L. 80
conference papers 438–9
confidence
full data 433–4
levels 340–2
objectivity 351–4
confidentiality 299–300
congruence vs correspondence theories 208–12
consent, informed 308
consequentialist vs deontological ethics 279–82
construct validity 335, 336
constructionist vs objectivist approach 409, 410, 411–13, 424
content analysis 458–9a
contents page 102–3, 442–3
context 61, 62
shaping 173–4
control see ethics, codes of
control groups 319
convergence 349, 350
conversation analysis 228–30, 359–60, 458a
copyrights 49, 167–8
core texts 160
correlational research 121
example 179, 180, 181, 182
correspondence theory
literal description problem 223–4
variables 82
vs congruence theory 208–12
counter induction 217
criminal types study (Lombroso) 243–7
critical awareness, assessment 10–12, 14, 187, 188, 401
critical reasoning 106, 134, 206, 213–14
critical research 121
critical theory 328, 453–4a
cross-disciplinary literature search 159–60
cross-sectional studies 319
Crotty, M. 213, 411, 421
culture
comparative research 121, 134, 135–7
research culture 66, 324, 325–30
structuralist approach 235, 247–58

data
availability/access 67, 77
definition 354–6
integrity 299
questions 67, 70–1
requirements 110–14
data analysis see analysis; literature review; statistics
data collection 356, 357–60
appropriate 76
assessment 10–12, 14, 70–1, 401
examiner questions 70–1
tools 355
work-based dissertation 133
databases 49–50, 141–4, 438
meta-analyses 141–4, 155
decision making
ethical 285–6, 307–10
literature review dissertation 140–1
techniques 143
deductivism 204
definitional clarity 81–2, 148–9, 219
Delphi technique 358–9, 458a
Denscombe, M. 351–2
deontological vs consequentialist ethics 279–82
description, problem of 223–4
descriptive/non-experimental research 121, 122, 316, 317
design 319–24, 347
desk space management 42
desk-based dissertation see traditional dissertation
detective novel analogy 101–2
see also puzzles
diagrammatic representation 104–9
discourse analysis 359, 459a
discussion
chapter 100, 101
examiner questions 17
distance learning 170, 171–3
Doctorates 4, 5, 6–7
documents
control system 46–53
as data 359–60
personal 458a
writing long 413–15
domain/mind maps 168–9
drafts 114–16, 421–2
dramaturgical analogy 259–60
Durkheim, E. 220, 230–1

eating and sleeping 36–7

electric shock studies see Obedience and Authority studies (Milgram)
emancipatory research approaches 328–9
empirical research see traditional dissertation; work-based dissertation
empiricism 257–8, 274–5
vs interpretivist orientation 321–2, 323–4
vs rationalism 205, 216
envisioning
techniques 104–10
see also imagination
epistemology
definition 203
and ontology 203, 409, 410, 411
see also empiricism; idealism; interpretivist orientation; knowledge; positivism; rationalism; realism
ethics
codes of 282–3, 302–7
consequences of 284–5
decision-making 285–6, 307–10
definitions 278–9
good practice guidelines 163–8, 296–302
importance of 284–6
personal issues as topics 66
philosophical origins 279–82
political issues as topics 61, 62, 64–6, 379–81
potential conflicts 308–9
‘research attitude’ 197
research design 296–8
research proposal 395, 396
unethical research 71, 284–5, 286–96, 300–1, 302
using the literature 163–8
and values 220, 221
ethnographic research 325, 448–9a
ethnomethodology 265, 270–1, 274
evaluation research 121, 319, 330, 455a
evidence-based reviews 140–3
see also literature review
examiner questions 15–17
see also assessment
executive summary, work-based dissertation 138, 440–1
experimental research 316, 317, 318, 448a
design 318–19, 325, 327, 347
external validity 335, 337
externalists vs internalists 207–8, 235

failure, marking ranges and 13

falsificationism 203–5, 213, 215
family and other commitments 34–5
feasibility 402
feeble-mindedness study (Goddard) 236–43
feminist methodology 329, 454a
Feyerabend, P. 215, 216–17, 445
figures 444
file management 46–8, 415
findings/results
chapter 99, 101, 433–4
literature review 176
first person 416, 419–20
vs third person 372, 373–4
focus groups 358, 457a
‘for-me-days’ 36
fraud 71
twin studies (‘Burt Affair’) 286, 291–6, 300
full-time students 18, 32

Garfinkel, H. 161, 210, 223, 224, 235, 265–72, 273, 274–5, 354, 439
gender
discrimination 44–5
identity study (Garfinkel) 265–72
general to particular focus 63–4, 65
generalization 331–3
Gillie, O. 293–4
Goddard, H.H. 235, 236–43
Goffman, E. 148, 235, 258–64, 273–4, 306, 323
‘Goldilocks test’ 81
Grathoff, R. 208, 209, 224, 323
Greek mythology 251–5
grids see tables
grounded theory 326, 450–1a

Hacking, I. 217
Hart, C. 46, 69, 93, 154, 168, 174, 183
Harvard citation system 163, 164
hermeneutics see interpretivist orientation
Hernshaw, L. 293, 294
historic perspectives 61, 62, 151
research examples 236–64
university degrees 4, 5
see also philosophical origins
humanist position on ethics 305–7
Hume, D. 201
Humphreys, L. (Tearoom Trade studies) 284, 286, 289–90, 303, 305, 306–7, 308
hypothesis
critical assessment 175
use of 90–3
writing 417–18
hypothetical imperative 281
hypothetico-deductive model 204–5

idealism
neo-Kantian 230, 235, 274
vs realism 235, 409
imagination 187–9, 372
envisioning techniques 104–10
indexes
and abstracts 46, 143, 158, 438
card 48, 49, 50
citation 151, 160–1, 188–9
indicative abstracts 440
indicative literature review 168–74, 382–91, 402
inductive empiricism 204
information technology see computer technology; databases; Internet
informative abstracts 440
informed consent 308
integrity of data 299
intellectual property/copyrights 49, 167–8
intelligence studies see feeble-mindedness study (Goddard); twin studies (‘Burt Affair’)
inter-test reliability 348
internal validity 335, 336
Internet
citation style 166
discussion groups 43
interpretation see analysis
interpretivist orientation 194, 220–1
research design 320–4, 325–6, 327
vs empiricism 321–2, 323–4
interviews 357, 455–6a
introduction 99, 101, 423–6
research proposal 374–6, 377–8

Jensen, A. 293, 294

journals 151, 160, 161, 166, 300
justification
examiner questions 16
logic of 392
methodological relevance 272–5, 298
research proposal 376–82, 402, 403

Kallikak family study (Goddard) 236–43

Kant, E. 279, 280, 281, 282, 309
Kazim, L. 293, 294
Kinsey, A.C. (sexual behaviour studies) 286, 290–1
knowledge
differences over nature of 207–12, 235
relativism 216–17, 218–22
situated not universal 212–18
see also epistemology
knowledge management study 144–7, 149
Kolb, D.A. et al. 52
Kuhn, T. 212–14, 215, 218

Lakatos, I. 215, 216

language
appropriate ‘register’ 416–17
conceptual 61, 62
definitional clarity 81–2, 148–9, 219
and mythology/culture 249–50, 255–6, 257
research proposal 397
specialized 142, 143, 160
see also first person; third person
Leach, E. 250, 256
learning cycle 52
learning log 51–3
learning outcomes
approach 28–9
learning opportunities and 7–9
work-based dissertation 134
learning styles 25–7, 53
Lévi-Strauss, C. 235, 247–58, 273, 274
liberal position on ethics 302–5
libraries, use of 69, 157–8, 189
life history see narrative/life history approach
line of least resistance 66–7
literal description, problem of 223–4
literature
alternative 161–3
definition 154–7
ethics of using 163–8
guides to 158
quantity and core texts 160–1
 types 155
see also citation
literature review 168–89
assessment 10–12, 14, 15, 175–6, 183–7, 401
chapter 99, 101, 426–9
examiner questions 15
example 179, 180, 181
as historical analysis 151
imagination and 187–9
importance of 183–9
indicative 168–74, 382–91, 402
initial search and 69–75, 155–63, 298
reasons for 155–7
relevant 157–63, 174–7
research proposal 168, 382–91, 402
topic formulation 168
traditional dissertation 122
work-based dissertation 129, 134, 135, 138
writing 177–83
literature review dissertation 18, 119, 120–1, 139–51
analysis 143–9, 150–1
evidence-based reviews 140–3
example 144–7, 149
methodology 148, 430
research proposal 382, 383–4
stages 139–40
therapeutic 143–7, 150–1
vs work-based dissertation 143–7
logic of justification 392
logic of research design 313–14
logical positivists see Vienna Circle (logical positivists)
Lombroso, C. 235, 243–7
loneliness 22, 42–3
longitudinal studies 319–20

mapping see research proposal

marking ranges and failure 13
masters course
aims 7–8
dissertation as part of 7–9
documentary information/handbook 27, 33
specifications 27–9
masters degrees 3, 4–5
masters dissertation
definition 5–9
requirements for 22–3
timescale for 20–2, 32
types 18–19, 119–21
university of choice 24–9
May, T. 278
measurement levels 333–4, 447a
memory sticks 415
meta-analysis 141–2, 179
methodological behaviourism 263–4
methodological pluralism 217
methodological relevance 272–5, 298
methodology
assessment 10–12, 14, 401
assumptions and beliefs 193–233, 235
chapter 99, 101, 429–33
choices and consequences 234–76
departmental preferences 67–8
ethical research 298, 299
 examiner questions 16, 70–1
introductory chapter 424, 425–6
literature review 148, 175, 430
research committee preferences 373–4
research design 122, 139, 313–14
research proposal 391–5
see also qualitative research
Milgram, S. 316
Obedience and Authority studies 286, 287–9
mind/domain maps 168–9
mistakes, avoiding 299
motivation 37–8, 64
mystery genre 420, 421
see also puzzles
mythology
language and culture 249–50, 255–6, 257
research 249–55, 257
research proposal 382, 383–4

narrative structure 101–4, 420, 421

narrative/life history approach 360, 460a
personal documents 458a
‘naturalism’ 355
negative outcomes 434
neo-Kantian epistemology 230, 235, 274 ‘networking’ 33, 43–4
Nominal Group Technique (NGT) 358–9
non-experimental research see descriptive/non-experimental research
normal distribution curve 340–2
note-taking 163
null hypothesis 91–2
Nuremberg Code, The 304

Obedience and Authority studies (Milgram) 286, 287–9

objectives see aims/objectives of research
objectivist vs constructionist approach 409, 410, 411–13, 424
objectivity 298, 351–4
observations
and description 223–4, 319–20
methodological behaviourism 263–4
scientific 222–31
Oedipus myth 252–3
Office of Research Integrity 285, 301
ontology and epistemology 203, 409, 410, 411
open system analysis 273–4, 320, 434
open-door policy 33–4
organization of chapters 98, 99–100, 421–37
organization skills 35–44
organization studies 161, 162
see also work-based dissertation

parallel-forms reliability 348

Parsons, T. 209–10, 223, 265
and Schultz, A. 208–12, 224
part-time students 18, 20, 32
passive voice 418
past tense 431
peer support group 43
‘people skills’ 132, 133
perseverance, examiner questions 15
personal documents 458a
see also narrative/life history approach
personal issues as topics 66
personal pronoun see first person
phenomenology 210–12, 326, 449–50a
philosophical origins
ethics 279–82
social sciences 195–207
plagarism 71
avoiding 163–5
detecting 300, 301
planning 36, 158–60, 414, 417–23
see also research proposal
plot see narrative structure
political research topics 61, 62, 64–6, 379–81
Popper, K. 203–5, 206, 214, 215, 216, 218, 219, 221–2, 353–4
positivism 193–4, 195–203
alternatives to 219–21
as closed system analysis 205–7, 235
as externalism 207–8, 235
and falsificationism 203–5, 213
see also experimental research
possessions and identity (Goffman study) 260–3
Post-it notes see yellow-sticker plotting
postgraduate study, transition to 32–5
practical actions studies 265–72
pragmatic learning style 26, 27, 53
presentation
assessment 10–12, 14, 17, 401
examiner questions 17
principle of proliferation 217
printing, saving paper and ink 415
prior understanding, examiner questions 15
probability vs non-probability sampling 347
problem analysis technique 169–70
professional values 308–9, 310
Project Camelot 286, 303, 305, 306
project management skills 32–3
prospective/cohort studies 320
Psathas, G. 228–30
Putnam, H. 207, 217, 445
puzzles
detective novel analogy 101–2
topics as 58–62, 80–1
writing mystery genre 420, 421

qualitative research
evaluation 182–3
and quantitative methods 177–9, 316, 320, 371–2, 374, 430, 431–3, 434
quasi-experimental research 316, 317, 318, 347
questionable practices 301, 302
questionnaires 357–8, 456–7a
traditional dissertation 123–4
questions
examiner 15–17
literature review 155–6, 176, 428–9
methodology chapter 430–1
research 80–1, 138, 140, 402
research proposal 397, 398–9, 401–4
quotations 423

randomization 318
rationalism
definition 206
vs empiricism 205, 216
rationalization see argumentation
realism 257–8, 273–4
 and triangulation 349, 350
vs idealism 235, 409
recommendations see conclusions/recommendations
reference aids/sources 75, 158, 195
references see bibliographies; citation
reflective practice/self-evaluation
conclusions chapter 139, 437
ethical research 299
examiner questions 17
work-based dissertation 138–9
reflector learning style 25–6, 53
relativism 216–17, 218–22
relevance of research see justification
reliability 346–9
and validity 64, 66, 71, 142, 334–8
reporting 418, 431
vs writing 408–9
work-based dissertation 134, 137–9
reproducibility 225
Research Assessment Exercise 140
‘research attitude’ 197
research committees 373–4
research culture 66, 324, 325–30
research departments see university departments
research design
definition 313–15
ethics 296–8
quality 324–54
type and purpose of research 315–24
see also data; data collection; reliability; validity
research diary 51–3
research ethics see ethics
research imagination see imagination
research process 314–15
research proposal 315, 365–405, 424
assessment 400–4
coherence 397–400
definition 366–7
elements 368, 369
ethics 304–5, 306, 395, 396
formal reasons for 367–8
introduction 374–6, 377–8
justification 376–82, 402, 403
length 370
literature review 168, 382–91, 402
method selection 391–5
scope and limitations 376, 379
timetable 395–6, 397
title 374
types 370–2
voice 372–3
research propositions 93–4
research questions 80–1, 138, 140, 402
research types 315–24
researchers
gender discrimination 44–5
-as-practitioners 129
skills/capabilities/attitudes/qualities 7, 308–9, 310, 446a
transition to postgraduate study 32–5
work-life balance 35–44
respect for others 298
results see reporting; writing
retrospective studies 320
rhetorical analysis 459–60a
riddles see puzzles
risk analysis 402
Robson, C. 197, 279
‘Russian doll principle’ 81

Sacks, H. 222–31, 265

sampling 338–40
confidence levels 340–2
ethical research design 298
in practice 344–6
probability vs non-probability 347
size 342–3, 344
Sawyer, F.S. 245
Schegloff, E.A. 224, 225, 227, 228, 332
scholarly standards, examiner questions 16
Schutz, A. 210–12, 265
and Parsons, T. 208–12, 224
science
natural observational 222–31
paradigms 212–14
see also positivism; social sciences
sections/sub-sections of chapters 422–3
self in community studies (Goffman) 258–64
self-evaluation see reflective practice/self-evaluation
semiological analysis 460a
sexual behaviour studies (Kinsey) 286, 290–1
sexual identity study (Garfinkel) 265–72
side-headings 422
skills/capabilities/attitudes/qualities 7, 308–9, 310, 446a
sleeping and eating 36–7
Smith, M.L. and Glass, G.V. 141–2
Smullen, E. 373
social action theory 209–10
social interaction
mechanics 227–31
and self identity 259–60
social needs of researcher 22, 34–5, 42–3
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) 151
social sciences 150, 151
definitional clarity 81–2, 148–9, 219
dual literature 161–3
historic development 195–207
space management 40–2
staff, getting to know 33–4
standard deviation 340–2
standpoint research 66
statistics 142, 433, 434
confidence levels 340–2
generalization 332
measurement levels 333–4, 447a
secondary 177–9
Story of Asdiwal, The (Lévi-Strauss) 254
structuralist approach to culture 235, 247–58
structure of dissertation 97–101
assessment 10–12, 14
narrative 101–4, 420, 421
see also envisioning
structured themed review 170, 171–3
subject disciplines 120
subject standards 27–8
subjective dispositions 355
succinctness, assessment 10–12, 14, 401
supervisors
assistance of 78–9, 158, 367, 431
contact with 20–2, 77
surveys 327, 451a
symmetry of potential outcomes 78
systematic reviews see evidence-based reviews; meta-analysis

tables 433, 444

literature search and review 177, 178
teaching styles see learning styles
Tearoom Trade studies (Humphreys) 284, 286, 289–90, 303, 305, 306–7, 308
templates, setting up 414
test and re-test reliability 348
textbooks 438, 439
theorist learning styles 26, 27, 53
therapeutic literature reviews 143–7, 150–1
thesis
citation style 166
vs dissertation 6–7
third person 409, 418, 431
vs first person 372, 373–4
thoroughness, examiner questions 15
time management 37–40, 41
choice of topic 63, 76, 77
desk-based research 67
research proposal 395–6, 397
weekly schedules 38–9, 40, 170, 171–3
timescale for dissertation 20–2, 32, 127
title 374, 402, 437–9
topic(s)
assessment 10–12, 14, 401
choice 62–8, 75–7
data requirements 110–14
features of good 77–8
formulating the research problem 79–84
from idea to research proposal 115
literature search and review 155–7, 168
misconceptions 57–8
possibilities 69–75
sources for generating ideas 68
types 58–62
see also envisioning
total institutions (Goffman study) 260–3
traditional dissertation 18, 19, 119, 121–8
examples 123–4, 125–7
introduction 375
key challenges 127–8
methodological chapter 430
research proposal 382, 385–9
stages 122–7
types 121–2
triangulation 349–51
twin studies (‘Burt Affair’) 286, 291–6, 300

unethical research 71, 284–5, 286–96, 300–1, 302

unity see coherence; structure of dissertation
universality of mind study (Lévi-Strauss) 247–58
university
choice of 24–9
as context 407–13
university departments 24
getting to know staff 33–4
initial visit 32–3
 methodology preferences 67–8
open-door policy 33–4

validity 334–8
and reliability 64, 66, 71, 142, 346–9
triangulation 349–51
values
professional 308–9, 310
and relativism 218–22
Vancouver citation system 163, 164–5
variables 82, 90–3, 318
verification 201
and falsification 203–5
version management 414–15
Vienna Circle (logical positivists) 201–3
and Karl Popper 203–5
virtual phenomena 329, 454–5a
vocabulary see language
voice
active 419–20
passive 418
research proposal 372–3

Weber, M. 221
weekly schedules 38–9, 40, 170, 171–3
Winch, P. 218–19
Wittgenstein, L. 219
word count 101
word limit 128, 431
word processing software 49, 51, 414–15
work-based dissertation 18, 19, 119, 128–39
action learning and 128–9
examples 129, 130–2, 134, 135–7
introduction 377–8
key challenges 132–7
methodological chapter 430
problem analysis 169–70
research proposals 377–8, 390–1, 391
as research report 134, 137–9
self-evaluation 138–9
stages 129–32
vs literature review dissertation 143–7
see also organization studies
work-life balance of researcher 34–44
Wright-Mills, C. 188
writing 406–45
aims/objectives 82–90
drafts 114–16, 421–2
long documents 413–15
organizing contents 98, 99–100, 421–37
planning 417–21
style 415–17
see also first person; third person; voice
university as context 407–13
when to start 114–16

yellow-sticker plotting 109, 114