in the research and it is this engagement which gives respondents an understanding of the research. This is considered to be a basis for the facilitation of radical social change that is a defining feature of Critical Psychology.
Qa research should not be seen as an attempt to reflect social reality in objective terms, but rather as the production of a set of interpretations that allow a greater and more detailed understanding of a particular social phenomenon. There is a move towards placing the researcher and their interpretations as the axes of the investigation, so as to support the findings.
This happens through a narration by the respondent, however narration is not merely a medium of communication, but a descriptive and analytical tool with which the researcher seeks to produce an interpretation of the reality experienced by the respondent.
In a typical Q1 experiment a small number of variables are manipulated and the consequences of that manipulation are observed. Q1 research however, does not take into account that some important factors in a phenomenon cannot be manipulated in this way. One of these important factors is that of people's behaviour which is often complex. It cannot be reduced to simply a straightforward reaction to a stimulus or some measurable aspect of the immediate surroundings (for instance, the number of
people present). Rather, it is framed and given meaning by people's personal histories and by the beliefs, values and moral principles of the society and communities to which they belong. These things cannot be conceptualised adequately as experimental variables, and such concerns have led to an increase in the use of qualitative methods. When critical psychologists talk about experiments 'decontextualising' behaviour (Hepburn, 2003), they are often referring to this more 'distant' personal and
social context as well as to features of the more immediate situational context that can inform our understanding of a person's conduct, which is all too often lost in the hypothesis driven Q1 research.
In conclusion, the relevance of qualitative methods to critical social psychology can be best summed up in this direct quote from a famous 19th century Scottish mathematician and physicist:
'It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry'.
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