On research methods and their philosophical assumptions »Raising the consciousness of researchers«, again Omar Carlo Gioacchino Gelo

Zusammenfassung: Forschungsmethoden und deren philosophische Voraussetzungen: erneut »ein Bewusstsein bei Forschern und Forscherinnen schaffen« Die Ausbildung und Praxis sowohl quantitativer als auch qualitativer Forschung haben sich vermehrt auf Forschungsmethoden fokussiert, was auf Kosten der zugrundeliegenden philosophischen Voraussetzungen geht. Es entsteht ein Mangel an kritischem Denken und Selbstreflexion, was zu einer Verringerten Fähigkeit von Selbstkorrektur bei Wissenschaftlern führt. Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht basierend auf einer Arbeit von Slife (1998) »ein Bewusstsein bei Forschern und Forscherinnen zu schaffen« nämlich über philosophische Voraussetzungen für typische quantitative und qualitative Forschungsmethoden. Ich gebe in der Einleitung eine kurze Überschau zu quantitativen und qualitativen Forschungsmethoden, die durch meine Erfahrungen als Student und Forscher geprägt ist. Danach werden ontologische, epistemologische und methodologische Voraussetzungen für bestimmte wissenschaftliche Paradigmen skizziert, und deren Einfluss auf quantitative und/ oder qualitative Forschung diskutiert. Abschließend werden einige Vorschläge formuliert, wie man dieses Bewusstsein bei Forschern und Forscherinnen im universitären Setting nachhaltig schaffen kann. Schlüsselwörter Wissenschaftstheorie, Forschungsparadigmen, empirische Forschung, quantitative Forschungsmethoden, qualitative Forschungsmethoden Abstract The training and practice of both quantitative and qualitative research have focused heavily on research methods at the expenses of the philosophical assumptions underlying them. This situation, which reflects a lack of critical, self-reflective thinking, is problematic because it reduces the likelihood that Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 109

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scientists will self-correct or conceive viable alternatives. The present paper, referring back to a work of Slife (1998), aims to »raise the consciousness of researchers« about the assumptions lying behind typical quantitative and qualitative research methods. A brief introduction to quantitative and qualitative research approaches is given through the lens of my personal experience as a student and a researcher. The ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions underlying different scientific paradigms are described, and the extent to which they provide a rationale for either quantitative and/or qualitative research is discussed. Some suggestions on how to sustain such a »raising of consciousness« within university academic settings concludes the paper. Keywords philosophy of science, research paradigms, empirical research quantitative research methods, qualitative research methods

Introduction Quantitative and qualitative research may be considered as the two main empirical research approaches within the behavioral, social, and/or human sciences. The quantitative approach represents the orthodoxy and has been dominant in both research practice and training, especially in the field of psychology (Bögelein & Kathia Serrano-Velarde, 2012; Danziger, 1985; Hoshmand, 1989; Keeley, Shemberg, & Zaynor, 1988; Ponterotto, 2005a; Rennie, Watson, & Monteiro, 2000, 2002; also see the contribution by Philipp Mayring in this special issue, 2012)1. However, qualitative research has considerably increased in relevance in the last few years, establishing itself as a viable alternative (O’Neill, 2002; Rennie, Watson, & Monteiro, 2002; Wertz, 2001). Both approaches require some technical procedures for their implementation. These are known as research methods and specify, among other things, the research design (i.e., the plan of action and logical structure), the sampling procedure (i. e., the means of collecting the subjects to be investigated), the data collection (i. e., the means of gathering the data) and the data analysis (i.e., the means of analyzing them). But quantitative and qualitative research requires also a set of principles that provide the foundations to the methods and, thus, drive their application. These principles (also called worldviews in the philosophy of science) are usually considered to be organized in so1 With this regard, Danziger (1985) has talked of methodological imperative, in analogy to Kant’s categorical imperative.

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called scientific paradigms. A scientific paradigm may be defined as a set of interrelated basic values, assumptions and beliefs regarding what science should be and how we should carry it out (Kuhn, 1996; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; see also Madill & Gough, 2008 for a discussion on the different ways in which the concept of paradigm can be understood). The values, beliefs and assumptions of a scientific paradigm are usually condensed in the methodology. This latter – etymologically, the logic of the method – specifies the rules and formal conditions for scientific investigation, with specific reference to its aims, logic of inquiry, quality criteria and, finally, research methods. Anyway, these values, beliefs and assumptions also address the so-called ontology (nature of reality) and epistemology (nature of knowledge). These latter are much more implicit and very often hidden, but nonetheless play a necessary and fundamental role in grounding and mediating the formulation of the methodology and thus the consequent implementation of the methods (Slife & Williams, 1995). While research methods define the what and how of empirical research, scientific paradigms provide the why of scientific inquiry, providing it with its basic philosophical foundations. Now, one of the main, but most neglected, problems that afflicts contemporary scientific inquiry is that both empirical research training and practice tend to focus mainly on the methods, at the expenses of the underlying principles (Slife, 1998). As a result of this, research training and practice become a mere matter of technology rather than of scientific inquiry (see Kvale, 1973). Though this is not always, or necessarily, true for the basic assumptions dealing with the logic of the method (methodology), about which we receive some notions during our research training and on which we may occasionally explicitly reflect during our research practice, it is most frequently the case for the basic assumptions dealing with the nature of reality (ontology) and of knowledge (epistemology). Moreover, although it would seem that quantitative researchers more often neglect philosophical assumptions in favor of the methods, qualitative researchers may often do the same. For example, Ponterotto (2005a) has noted that some psychologists engaging in qualitative research »are doing so without a firm grasp of the philosophical anchors undergirding many approaches to qualitative inquiry« (p. 127), and thus still wearing »research lenses« (p. 127) heavily influenced by their socialization in quantitative research. In general, in the very few cases we may be confronted with the philosophical assumptions of our research methods, we are usually not stimulated (during research training) and/or do not tend to (during research practice) to consider them as relevant for scientific inquiry. Instead, we end up in relegating them to the domain of philosophical speculation. But, as Slife and Williams (1995) have clearly stated: Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 111

Omar Carlo Gioacchino Gelo »Scientific method was not divinely given to scientists on stone tablets. There is no foreordained or self-evident truth about how science should be conducted at all. Scientific method was formulated by philosophers […]. These philosophers, not scientist, are responsible for the package of ideas now called scientific method. Scientist may use science, but they are often unaware of the ideas formulated but philosophers hidden in their scientific methods« (p. 4).

This lack of awareness is partly because the scientific method itself cannot be empirically tested (Slife & Williams, 1995). I am convinced, however, that this lack of awareness is also due to the generalized lack of a critical, self-reflective attitude among many contemporary researchers with regard to what science is (Slife, 1998; Slife, Reber & Richardson, 2005; Slife & Williams, 1995). This may lead us to take the nature of science for granted and self-evident: thus, we might tend to believe that science proceeds in one specific way because it must be so. By doing this, we would neglect that science is itself a (meta) theoretical human construction which heavily depends on the worldviews of those who have constructed it. Because I believe that critical self-reflectivity represents a key feature of science and scientists (see Slife et al., 2005; Yanchar, Slife & Warne, 2008), it follows that the lack of such an attitude does not represent simply an incidental problem. On the contrary, it may seriously prevent science from developing. In the light of these observations, Slife (1998) has stressed the necessity of »raising the consciousness« of researchers by making them aware of the hidden philosophical assumptions which drive their research enterprise. Doing so will deeply contribute to the development of science (Hoshmand, 1989; Ponterotto, 2005a; Slife, 1998; Slife et al., 2005, 2008). The present paper, based on these considerations, aims to explicitly articulating the beliefs and assumptions underlying empirical research, with specific reference to scientific paradigms which are considered to organize them. I first describe my personal experience with the training and practice of quantitative and qualitative research.

Quantitative and qualitative research approaches: Personal reflections – Learning the orthodoxy of quantitative research When I was a child and thought of a scientist, I imagined someone wearing a scrub, interested in the falling of bodies, using telescopes to observe the behavior of planets and microscopes to observe chemical reactions. My idea of 112 Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012

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science as the study of physics, biology and astronomy was further confirmed during elementary and high-school. When I started studying psychology at the University of Urbino in 1995, I began to discover that psychology, too, is – or more precisely can be – a science. I was learning the specific content of scientific theories of our mind – theories concerning, for example, the basic structure and functions of our psyche (see neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, biopsychology, and general psychology), the way these latter develop over time (developmental psychology), the way they are organized into what we call personality (personality psychology), and the way they allow us to regulate our social interactions (social psychology). However, another issue soon became extremely relevant within my curriculum. In fact, I began to attend classes which covertly explained what science is and how it should be applied to the study of the psyche in order for psychology to be scientific. These were courses dealing with primarily with research methods and, to some extent, methodology. I must admit, it took me a rather long time to really grasp the difference between these two concepts. However, essentially, what I learned is as follows: (1) Being scientific means to strive for objectivity, replicability and control with the aim of causal explanation and generalization. More specifically: ➣ (Quasi) experimental research designs should be adopted, although passive-observational designs may also be accepted2. ➣ Large, representative samples must be employed, although also smaller samples or single cases may be »tolerated«. ➣ Data must be collected and analyzed in numerical form. That is, the phenomena of interest must be reliably measured and analyzed by means of statistical analysis. ➣ The aim is to test a hypothesis derived from a theory. (2) These principles and procedures represent the methodology and methods of what is usually called quantitative research, which entails the necessity of observing and analyzing the investigated psychological phenomena (e.g., perceptions, behaviors, attitudes, etc.) by means of numbers with the aim of falsifying the proposed causal theory. (3) Quantitative research represents the instantiation of one single, general model of science that is appropriate for the study of natural phenomena (such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc.), and which therefore must be applied to the study of human and social phenomena (i.e., psychology). 2 The term »passive-observational« refers to the fact that variables are not actively manipulated by the researchers with a loss of control on confounding variables. These research designs may also be called »correlational«, because they do not allow us to test cause-effect relationships among the variables of interest.

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(For an overview on quantitative research methods and methodology in psychological and social sciences, see Bortz & Döring, 2002; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). When, in 2001, I started my PhD in psychotherapy research at the University of Ulm under the supervision of Prof. Erhard Mergenthaler, I began to find out that not only theories in psychology, but theories in psychotherapy too can be scientific if they have been validated by mans of quantitative research. Thus, my PhD allowed me to refine my knowledge of quantitative research principles (i. e., methodology) and procedures (i. e., research methods), as well as to increase my ability to use to answer research questions dealing with psychotherapy. I learned that it is possible to quantitatively assess (i.e., to measure) both the psychotherapeutic process (i.e., what happens during the sessions) and the outcome (i. e., the outputs of the treatments). I also learned that it is possible to test hypotheses regarding the former (process research), the latter (outcome research), and/or on their relationship (process-outcome research) (for a review, see Lambert, 2004). More specifically, I learned that psychotherapy-relevant phenomena, such as clients’ symptomatology and personality structure, clients’ and therapists’ overt verbal and interpersonal behaviors, and their associated covert processes (e.g., clients defense mechanisms, metacognition, relational patterns, therapeutic strategies), can be measured by means of questionnaires, ratings scales, etc. I also learned that some complex multivariate statistics can be used to test hypotheses regarding the relationship between the assessed variables. The overarching principle is always that of objectivity, replicability and control. However, a greater emphasis, at least as compared to what I have learned to be the case for non clinical domains of psychological research, was given to correlational rather than experimental designs, and to single-case quantitative designs (see Hilliard, 1993) – as opposed to group designs (for an overview, see Timulak, 2008). My PhD project was an implementation of this quantitative research approach (see Gelo & Mergenthaler, 2012). Interestingly, at this time I had never realized, at least explicitly, that the research methods and methodology I was learning and beginning to apply had to do with what is usually called quantitative research. For me, it was »simply« research. However, something happened in 2006, when I took part in a research methods workshop organized in Genève by Prof. Franz Caspar and the Society for Psychotherapy Research. During that event, I attended a lecture by Clara Hill dealing with a specific qualitative approach to psychotherapy research, called Consensual Qualitative Research (Hill et al., 2005). 114 Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012

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I had sometimes heard that some variables used in quantitative research may be qualitative, that is, may express the nominal quality of a phenomenon when data are assessed by means of nominal and/or dichotomous scales. However, it was the first time I explicitly realized that the adjective qualitative could refer to a whole alternative research approach, different from the one I had been trained until that time. What I learned from that lecture was that there is another way of doing scientific research, called »qualitative research« that contrasts with quantitative research. I must admit that I was not able to grasp and »take home« much more than this very simple idea from that first lecture. This should not, in hindsight, be a surprise. The lecture was fully a day long, which is good for a workshop but conveys very little information compared to years of lectures and readings on quantitative research. Moreover, after returning to Ulm, I went on studying and working with quantitative research, and the scientific literature with which I went on to be confronted rarely mentioned qualitative research. Thus, qualitative research quickly moved to the background.

Engaging with the alternative of qualitative research It was just a couple of years later that I would have had the opportunity to deepen my knowledge of what I have learned to be called qualitative research. After finishing my PhD in 2008, I received a position at the Sigmund Freud University Vienna. My tasks were to lecture about research methods and methodology in psychotherapy, supervise PhD students, and to engage in research projects. Of course, given the nature of my previous academic socialization, all these three activities were organized around quantitative research. Thus, I begun to teach students quantitative research methods and methodology in psychotherapy, supervise PhD projects where such methods were implemented, and produce quantitative psychotherapy research. I was then asked to take part in a research project coordinated by the Red Cross Vienna, which deeply challenged my approach to science and scientific research. The research group was composed mainly of sociologists (including the research coordinator) and two psychologists (including myself). The aim of the project was to explore the personal experience of anxiety and threat in migrants (for more details, see Braakmann & Enzenhofer, 2010). What quickly became clear during my attendance of the first preparatory meetings was that we would have had to follow a qualitative research approach. First, the study was exploratory since very few literature was available on that specific subject. Second, our aim was to explore and »get in Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 115

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touch« with the in-depth, personal experience of anxiety and threat of the migrants. Thus, from 2008 to 2010, among my other »main« quantitative research activities, I found myself actively engaged with qualitative research. Essentially, what I learned in that time thanks to my intensive study of »alternative« textbooks and to the research cooperation with my colleagues, is as follows: (1) There is an alternative way of being scientific – as well in psychological as in psychotherapeutic science, which can be realized by means of what is called qualitative research. (2) This alternative research approach relativizes and, in most cases, subverts objectivity, replicability and control and emphasizes (inter)subjectivity, uniqueness, unrepeatability, and participation, with the aim of contextually (and eventually critically) understanding subjective perspectives and experiences. (3) Within this research approach (for an overview on qualitative research methods and methodology, see Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Przyborski & Wohlrab-Sah, 2009): ➣ Naturalistic research designs are adopted which emphasize the necessity of studying phenomena in their naturally occurring context. ➣ Samples are usually small, and single-cases are very often analyzed. ➣ Data are collected mainly in a textual or »languaged« format (see Polkinghorne, 2005; p. 137). ➣ Data collected in this way are then analyzed by means of a process which involves an active and transactional engagement with the collected texts (Rennie, in print). ➣ The aim is to re-construct the personal meaning and/or experiences conveyed by the participants.

Research methods, methodologies, and what else? At this point in my academic and scientific career, I was beginning to have an initial, detailed picture of the research methods specific to both quantitative and qualitative research, as well as knowledge of some of the methodological principles ruling their application. However, two things are worth mentioning. First, most of my research training and practice was focused more on research methods than on methodologies. Second, almost no place had been given to the deeper beliefs and assumptions – ontology and epistemology – which ground both methods and methodology. 116 Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012

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Eventually, my attention was broadened beyond methods and methodology and began to embrace also epistemology and ontology. Since then, I have been trying to develop a systematic reflection on the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions of both quantitative and qualitative research. In the following part of this paper, I will try to share my understanding of them with you.

Research approaches and scientific paradigms Several classification schemes for scientific paradigms have been described in the literature. In this paper, I refer to the one of Guba & Lincoln (1994) and Ponterotto (2005a) (see Madill & Gough, 2008 for an overview). This scheme considers positivism, postpositivism, constructivism-interpretivism and critical-theory (and related ideological positions). Each of them is described in table 1 with reference to its ontology, epistemology and methodology.

Positivism and postpositivism Positivism. Positivism reflects what has been termed the »received view« of science (Suppe, 1977). This was formalized in the 19th century by John Stewart Mill (Keeley et al., 1988) and still represents the current standard, dominating view of science in our everyday life and academic culture (Polkinghorne, 1983; Ponterotto, 2005a). This view originated during the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century as a reaction to the medieval era’s unquestioned acceptance of religious authority as the source of all knowledge and truth. Positivism emphasizes formal logical reasoning applied to sensed data as a criterion to provide certain (scientific) knowledge. Positivists believe that the world is »real« and exists independently from us, »driven by immutable natural laws and mechanisms« (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 108) (naïve realistic ontology). The resulting knowledge may be thus, at least in principle, objective and true (objectivist epistemology). In order for this to happen, we must avoid being influenced by or influencing the observed reality. Subjective biases and perspectives must be controlled to increase the validity of our knowledge. As a consequence of this, science requires a set of principles and procedures that allow the verification of the truth of a theory by testing its correspondence to the world (experimental/manipulative methodology). More specifically, science aims at explaining, and thus predicting and controlling, phenomena Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 117

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in terms of cause-effect relationships. The perspective of inquiry is nomothetic, i. e., revolves around verification of general laws (»what always is«; Windelbandt, 1904/1998, p. 13)3. This is realized by means of a deductive process (see the hypothetico-deductive method; Suppe, 1977) wherein general rules are applied to the empirical world to verify their truth. Quality criteria are »conventional benchmarks of rigor« (Guba & Lincoln, 1995, p. 112), namely, internal and external validity and reliability. This paradigm provides thus one of the strongest rationale for the use of quantitative research methods. In fact, experimental designs in the form of true-experiments are employed which ensure to carefully control (manipulate) confounding variables. The samples studied must be as broad and representative as possible to allow for the generalization of the findings to the population at large; probabilistic sampling procedures are used to achieve this goal. Data are collected in a structured and numeric format by means of standardized questionnaire and closed-ended observation protocols. Finally, data are analyzed by means of inferential statistics, which allow us to test hypotheses in terms of the functional relationships among variables. While this paradigm clearly promotes quantitative studies, the basic values of positivism (and moreso of postpositivism, as will be discussed shortly) can be found in qualitative research as well. For example, some qualitative content analysis strategies use a priori configured category systems (sometimes of 3 to 5 strictly defined categories) that are deductively applied to a text, without further reflection of the appropriateness to the material under investigation. Moreover, quantitative estimates of reliability are calculated in order to ensure for reliability of the analyses. Still, these studies are labeled qualitative because researchers engage in the interpretation of textual material. This may represents a case of applying the technique while forgetting about the philosophical assumptions. Postpositivism. Postpositivism, which counts Karl Popper as one of its main proponents, is a variant of positivism which arose out of relative criticism of some aspects of the positivistic received view (see Suppe, 1977 for a review). It is important to stress, however, that this criticism was limited (i.e., relative) because proponents of postpositivism proposed some adjustments to the positivist paradigm, »while remaining within essentially the same set of basic beliefs« (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 109). In fact, postpositivists still contemplate a »real« reality, but affirm that this is only imperfectly (i.e., probabilistically) 3 Windelbandt (1904/1998) introduced the distinction between nomothetic and idiographic (see later in this section). For a discussion, see Salvatore and Valsiner (2010).

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Table 1. Ontology, epistemology, and methodology of scientific paradigms and related research methods. Positivism Naive realism: “Real” reality perfectly apprehendable

Critical realism: “Real” reality probabilistically apprehendable

Epistemologya

Objectivist: Knowledge is true

Objectivist modified: Knowledge probably true

Methodologya

Experimental/manipulative; Verification of hypotheses

ConstructivismInterpretivism Relativism: Multiple local realities psychologically and socially situated Transactional/subjectivist: Psychologically and socially constructed Hermeneutical/dialectical

Critical-Ideological Historical realism: Virtual reality shaped social, political, cultural economic, and gender values Transactional/subjectivist: Historically situated and value-mediated Dialogical/dialectical

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Aim

Explain

Experimental/manipulative modified; Falsification of hypotheses Explain

Perspective of inquiry

Nomothetic

Nomothetic

Idiographic

Emancipatory, Transformative Idiographic

Logic of inquiry

Deductive

Deductive modified

Abductive

Abductive

Quality criteria

Internal and external validity, Reliability

Internal and external validity, Reliability modified

Quantitative

Quantitative, eventually also Qualitative

Credibility, Transferability, Dependability, Confirmability, Authenticity Qualitative

Historical situatedness, erosion of ignorance, action stimulus Qualitative

Research designs

Experimental: True- and Quasi-experiments; Control

Naturalistic

Naturalistic

Sampling

Probabilistic

Experimental: True- and Quasi-experiments, Passiveobservational; Control Probabilistic, Purposive

Purposive

Purposive

Data collection

Numeric format, Closedended Inferential statistics

Numeric format, Closed-ended

Languaged format, openended Qualitative text-analysis

Languaged format, openended Critical text-analysis

Data analysis

Modified from Guba and Lincoln (1994).

Inferential statistics

Understand

On research methods and their philosophical assumptions

Ontologya

Research methods

a

Postpositivism

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apprehensible (critical realist ontology). Thus, while objectivity remains a regulatory ideal, knowledge cannot be absolutely true and is, instead, only an approximation of reality (objectivist modified epistemology). As a consequence, the principles and procedures adopted by positivists must to some extent be modified and accommodated to acknowledge the higher degree of indeterminacy with which we are inevitably faced when doing science (experimental/manipulative modified methodology). Thus, while the aim of scientific inquiry as well as its perspective and its logic remain essentially the same as in the positivist paradigm, the emphasis is now placed on theory falsification instead of on theory verification. Quality criteria remain also essentially the same, with the only difference that a major emphasis is placed on ecological validity – a subtype of external validity – at the expenses of internal validity. Thus, as in the case of positivism, postpositivism provides a strong rationale for quantitative research. Research designs are still experimental, although quasi-experiments and correlational designs are also accepted. Finally, sampling procedures remain the same as in positivist paradigm, although also convenience samples may be studied. Data collection and data analysis are still basically quantitative. However, postpositivists are more open than positivists to qualitative methods (see below in the following section), thus engaging very often in mixed-method research (see Gelo et al., 2008, 2009).

Costructivism-interpretivism and critical-ideological Differing from the two paradigms described so far, the constructivist-interpretivist and critical-ideological paradigms are representative of an alternative view of science which, during the course of 20th century, grew out of a deep dissatisfaction with the basic assumptions and beliefs of both the positivist and postpositivist paradigms (Lincoln & Guba, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1983; Ponterotto, 2005a). This alternative view is very heterogeneous; nonetheless, some general commonalities may be identified with the so-called »worldoutlook« analysis (Weltanschaungsanalyse; see, among others, Feyerabend, 1975, Kuhn, 1996, and Polanyi, 1964). According to this: »All knowledge is relative to one’s perspective; there is no absolute point of view outside of one’s historical and cultural situation; neither pure sense data nor formal logic can provide an absolute foundation for knowledge, the categories according to which experience is formed, what is considered as reasonable, and so on – all of these are functions of one’s world outlook. One never has access to reality: one can only look through the opaque spectacles of the cognitive apparatus of one’s historically given world view« (Polkinghorne, 1983, p. 103).

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Constructivism-interpretivism. The constructivist-interpretivist paradigm has its roots, among others, in philosophical hermeneutics, phenomenology, and symbolic interactionism. Philosophical hermeneutics (Ricoeur, 1978) affirms that »meaning is hidden and must be brought to the surface through deep reflection« (Ponterotto, 2005a, p. 129). Moreover, it is stressed that the process of understanding, from which meaning emerges, is ineluctably bounded to individual perspectives and is, therefore, interpretative (Rennie, 2000). Phenomenology (Husserl, 1931) is the study of the structure of subjective experience and consciousness in terms of »lived experiences« (Erlebnis; see Dilthey, 1977); its main tenet is that the investigation of subjective experience requires the ability to assume the first-person perspective of the subjects being investigated (i. e., their personal, singular and private the point of view). Finally, symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1986) claims that »human beings act toward things on the basis of the meaning that the things have for them«, that »the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellow«, and that »these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters« (p. 2). Proponents of this paradigm affirm that reality, far from being considered a given, material, single true entity, is supposed to be comprised of the manifold singular lived experiences of the subjects acting within specific social and cultural contexts (relativist ontology). Coherently with this, knowledge, far from being regarded as a universally objective truth, is instead considered to transactionally emerge within the dynamic interplay between the observer and the observed (for a further discussion of this, please read Leeat Granek’s contribution in this special issue, 2012), which is in turn influenced by the history of the subject and his/her social and cultural environment (transactional/ subjectivist epistemology). Thus, knowledge is regarded as being psychologically, socially and culturally constructed. Note that that this view challenges the traditional distinction between ontology and epistemology. The nature of reality and that of knowledge are considered to be strictly interwoven within a dynamic process of mutual co-determination. As a consequence, science does not consist of an objective and neutral set of principles and methods which allows us to search for an absolutely certain (or probable) knowledge about the world in terms of the attainment of the truth. Science instead consists of the hermeneutical interpretation and reconstruction (Rennie, in print) of the consensually agreed upon and socially shared personal, individual perspectives of the subjects being investigated. The subjects and the researcher are interactively linked to each other by dynamic processes of mutual influence. Finally, the knowledge resulting from scientific Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 121

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inquiry is organized in contextually bound and local (not universal) theories, which are then »compared and contrasted through a dialectical interchange« (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 111) (hermeneutical/dialectical methodology). The aim of science is not to explain (Erklären) phenomena in terms of universal laws, but rather to understand (Verstehen) the lived experiences of the subjects4. The perspective of inquiry is now idiographic, i.e., it focuses on the formulation of generalized knowledge concerning the singular, specific, particular, and even unique (»what once was«; Windelbandt, 1904/1998, p. 13). This is realized by means of an abductive logic of inquiry (Peirce, 1965; for a discussion, see Salvatore & Valsiner, 2010). Finally, quality criteria do not address the issue of objectivity, resulting from control and neutrality. Rather, they are related to the possibility of realizing a sort of »disciplined subjectivity« and comparticipation. These may be described in terms of credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability, and authenticity (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; for a critical discussion, see Golafshani, 2003). These philosophical and methodological commitments provide a strong rationale for the use of qualitative research methods. Naturalistic research designs are employed that do not focus neutrality or controlling for confounding variables. Instead, they are organized around the idea of the natural context of the observation (including the relationship between the researchers and the subjects investigated), which is essential for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under investigation, instead of representing a source of variability which may threaten the validity of the study and which must therefore be controlled. The samples studied are smaller than in quantitative research and gathered through purposive sampling strategies. The aim is not to generalize from the sample to the population, but rather to illuminate and to describe in a theoretically coherent way, as deeply as possible, the phenomenon under investigation. Data collection does not aim to assess or measure the performance of the subjects, but instead aims to collect material which may allow for an in-depth exploration of the personal perspectives of the subjects being investigated. For this reason, it is much less structured then in quantitative research. Data are collected in a textual, languaged format (Polkinghorne, 2005), although pictorial data in the form of pictures and/or videos may also be considered (see Bohnsack, 2009; Hampl, 2010). This is accomplished by means of open-ended and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and naturalistic observation protocols. Finally, data is analyzed by 4 In making the distinction between Naturwissenschaften (natural sciences) and Humanwissenschaften (human sciences), Dilthey (1977) affirmed that the former aim at explaining (Erklären), while the latter at understanding (Verstehen).

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means of a set of procedures which are generally known under the name of qualitative text analysis. These, to different extents, may be described with reference to what Rennie (in print) defines as methodical hermeneutics, i. e., the application of hermeneutic principles of text-interpretation. This allows researchers to identify categories/themes within the text as well as interconnections between them, and eventually to conceptualize these interconnections within a theoretical framework which provide a »personal theory« of the subject being investigated (to this regard, see the concept of double hermeneutics; Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Rennie, 2000). To accomplish this task, the researcher must acknowledge and »bracket« his/ her perspectives and beliefs, without eliminating them. Qualitative content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Mayring, 2010), grounded theory analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2011) are usually used (further ideas and thoughts on content and conversational analysis have been raised by David Lätsch in this special issue, 2012). Researcher engaging with qualitative methods in the way just described, either within »pure« qualitative or mixed-methods research should always critically reflect on the extent to which they may share the philosophical assumptions of constructivism-interpretivism. Critical-ideological. The critical-ideological paradigm comprises a set of alternative basic beliefs that may be traced back to critical theory and some related ideological positions (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Ponterotto, 2005a). Critical theory has as its pioneering thinkers, among others, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse from the so-called Frankfurt School, who were strongly influenced by scholars such as Marx, Kant, Hegel, and Weber (Ponterotto, 2005a). Related ideological positions include, among others, feminist, critical race and queer theory conceptualizations (Ponterotto, 2005a; Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Despite some substantial differences, these variants share a set of alternative basic beliefs. First, they believe there is an apprehensive reality, which is reflected in, and thus can be know in terms of, historical narrative accounts which are themselves influenced and shaped by a series of social, political, cultural, economic, gender, etc. factors (historical realist ontology). Thus, knowledge is always mediated and embedded within an historical and institutional context (transactional/subjectivist epistemology). Proponents of this approach recognize – as constructivists do – that reality is shaped within contextual, social and historical contexts, and that knowledge is value-mediate; anyway, they stress the idea that reality and events, together with our possibility of knowing them – are shaped within »power relations« Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 123

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(Ponterotto, 2005a, p. 130). Thus, science aims at »leading to emancipation (from oppression) and more egalitarian and democratic social order«, with critical scientists using their work »as a form of cultural or social criticism« (Ponterotto, 2005a, p. 130). This is realized by means of a dialogue between the researcher and the subjects being investigated. This dialogue »must be dialectical in nature to transform ignorance and misapprehensions […] into more informed consciousness« (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 110) (dialogical/ dialectical methodology). As a consequence, critics, like constructivist, aim to reconstruct previously held construction, but they stress that this reconstruction must free the subjects from their ideological and cultural chains. Also the perspective of inquiry and its logic overlap with those of constructivism. Quality criteria are slightly different, and they are related to the extent to which a study takes into account the cultural-, social-, political-, economic-, and gender-mediated nature of the situation being investigated. Moreover, they are related to the extent to which a study allows the transformation of the perspectives of the subjects involved as well as to stimulate action in order to emancipate (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Ponterotto, 2005a). Similarly to interpretivism, the critical-ideological paradigm provides a strong rationale for the application of qualitative research methods. As for constructivism-interpretivism, research designs are naturalistic, sampling is purposive and data are collected in language form. Data analysis may employ techniques used by intepretivists, but they more often adopt procedures of qualitative text analysis which aim to uncover how unconscious processes, ideologies, power relationships and institutional contexts of social interaction may shape the world of the subjects being investigated (to this regard, see the concept of triple hermeneutics; Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009). Critical variants of discourse (Wodak & Meyer, 2009) and conversation (van Dijk, 1999) analysis may be used to this purpose. As in the case of constructivistinterpretivism, researchers should always critically reflect upon the extent to which their use of qualitative methods may reflects the philosophical assumptions of the critical-ideological paradigm.

Conclusion One of the main problems afflicting contemporary science is that the training and practice of both quantitative and qualitative research tend, to different extents, to be dominated by a main focus on research methods at the expenses of the philosophical assumptions underlying them. In other words, 124 Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012

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too much emphasis is given, within both training and practice contexts, to the technical procedures necessary to implement a study, while the principles grounding these procedures are often neglected or not sufficiently considered. This is problematic for two reasons. First, it disregards what I consider to be a basic tenet, i. e., that everything we do as human beings is necessarily framed in and guided by a set of convictions, perspectives and expectations. This holds for everyday life and even more for science (see Gergen, 1985). Second, this lack of critical awareness and reflexivity reduces extremely the possibility of both self-correction within a given approach and of conceiving viable alternative approaches. Both of these I consider to be basic features of good science. The present paper intended, referring back to Slife’s work (1998; Slife & Williams, 1995), to stimulate critical thinking among researchers within training and practice contexts to raise their consciousness about the often hidden philosophical assumptions grounding their empirical inquiry. If the task of raising the consciousness of researchers is to be effectively fulfilled, I believe the first place to begin is with university (see also Hoshmand, 1989; Ponterotto, 2005b). First, research curricula should be developed that, beyond their usual focus on methods, emphasize to the philosophical and historical underpinnings of science and scientific paradigms. Courses on the philosophy of science, the history of science, the sociology of science, and on research paradigms should be offered to the students. Only thereafter taking such courses should students be offered courses on methodology and research methods. Particular attention should be given to the relationship between different philosophies of science, scientific paradigms, and quantitative and qualitative research approaches. This should be performed at the level of the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degree at increasing levels of complexity. In this way, student would learn to critically examine the interconnections between specific methods and the underlying philosophical assumptions, as well as to develop personal positions about them. Moreover, this would make available potential researchers possessing such increased critical awareness regarding research methods. Second, specific strategies for faculty/staff recruitment and development should be pursued: This would allow us, on the one hand, to sustain the research curricula described above. In addition, it would also promote a more aware and self-critical research practice by the members of the staff. To accomplish this, more emphasis should be given to interdisciplinary recruitment, especially from neighboring disciplines including philosophy, history, and cultural studies (see Mörtl & Lamott, 2010). Collaboration among members of different faculties and academic departments should also be fostered. Psychotherapie & Sozialwissenschaft 2/2012 125

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Finally, institutional support should be offered to the faculty members in order to allow them to deepen and further articulate their knowledge of the philosophical assumptions underlying the research approaches within which they usually work. I believe that, if this challenge is taken up in the coming years, science will enormously benefit from it.

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