英语论文网

bserved that no discipline can be healthy if the methods by which questions are asked within that discipline are overshadowed by the methods by which those questions are investigated (Moscovici, 1972). This is perhaps most apparent within the particular discipline of psychology.

So what methodology works best for critical social psychology? Positivism is the theory that knowledge can be acquired only through direct observation and experimentation, and not through metaphysics or theology, thus it was thought that psychology's success as a legitimate science would only be ensured by the emulation of the hard sciences' laboratory methods and statistical analyses, known as Quantitative (Q1) Research. It was this search for scientific legitimacy that led to the discarding of what came to be seen as the 'softer' traditions of Qualitative (Qa) research methods such as participant observation and field work.

This positivist approach, with its narrow focus and hypothesis driven methodology does have its place in psychology, as long as the research question requires a merely 'quantifiable' answer. In relation to critical social psychology however, Kidder & Fine (1987) defined Qa research as having two distinguishable features:

The Big Q - consisting of unstructured research, inductive work, the generating of hypotheses and the development of 'grounded theory' (cf. Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in field work, participant observation and ethnography.

The Small q - consists of open ended questions fixed within a survey or experiment that has been structured or designed.

They also put forward the idea that there are other elements of Qa research that facilitate critical analysis:

An Open-ended Stance - Starting with an intuition on a particular subject, researchers form and continuously reform hypotheses. It encourages a broad inquiry into previously undocumented social spaces.

Reflexivity - Researchers subjectivity is considered as an extra piece of data alongside those of their respondents and how these differences or similarities affect the data collection and analysis.

Analysis - The process of analysing Qa data can bring forth surprising patterns and yield further hypotheses that require yet further investigation.

Qa researchers are interested in answering the questions of why rather than what. It is just not enough on its own to know that a certain number of people said yes to a particular 'closed' question. That is not to say that when placed alongside Qa evidence, Q1 evidence is both clear and powerful. Unfortunately it sometimes has the effect of being so powerful to some individuals that it overpowers the opinions of the people involved and this is particularly dangerous. In addition there are still many researchers who are not prepared to 'go the extra mile' and add the extra understanding to the figures they have collected.

Schostak (2002) espouses that Qa researchers develop their theories from the everyday experiences of their respondents and report the research findings in terms that would be familiar to those respondents. They conduct their research on a much more face to face level of interaction that focuses on the respondents' everyday routine. Qa researchers do not have the objective detachment from their data that limits Q1 researchers. Rather the Qa researchers engage respondents