PISO and CIMO frameworks

Have you heard of PISO and CIMO before? Well, if not, they stand for population, intervention, study design, outcome; and context, intervention, mechanism, outcome (Cochrane Library, 2025; Costa et al., 2018).

PISO (Cochrane Library, 2025) is:

• Population (or Patient or Problem): "What are the characteristics of the patient or population (demographics, risk factors, pre-existing conditions, etc)? What is the condition or disease of interest?"
• Intervention: "What is the intervention under consideration for this patient or population?" So what are we going to do, treat, change, or action?
• Study design: "What is the alternative to the intervention (e.g. placebo, different drug, surgery)?" What else will we consider, and how will we plan this?
• Outcome: "What are the included outcomes (e.g. quality of life, change in clinical status, morbidity, adverse effects, complications)?" What do we expect to happen, what would we like to happen? How will we measure and know if this has worked?

CIMO (Costa et al., 2018, p. 3) is:

• Context: "The results that human actors aim to achieve and the surrounding (external and internal environment) factors that influence the actors". What are the circumstances or environment where we research the intervention?
• Intervention: "Purposeful actions or measures (products, processes, services or activities) that are formulated by the designer or design team to solve a design problem or need, and to influence outcomes". What is the action or change we introduced into the situation?
• Mechanism: "The mechanism that is triggered by the intervention, in a certain context, by indicating why the intervention produces a certain outcome. It can be an explanation of the cognitive processes (reasoning) that actors use to choose their response to the intervention and their ability (resources) to put the intervention into practice". How will/might the intervention work? Quantitative research will be in order to produce the outcomes in the next step; qualitative will be more "how might the intervention work?" and being open on outcomes.
• Outcome: "Result of the interventions in its various aspects". What did we ended up with; what were the impacts of the intervention?

The key differences between these concepts is that PISO is more likely to be used in clinical or experimental research designs, and often in healthcare. PISO tends to emphasise who is being studied and how (Cochrane Library, 2025). On the other hand, CIMO is a management and social science tool, seeking to understand why and how interventions work in specific contexts or cases (Costa et al., 2018). Either framework will assist in systematic reviews as well as evidence-based research projects. 

Following either a PISO or CIMO framework assists researchers in how to ask their research question (or questions), what type of methodologies, methods and data collection should be chosen, determining variables, and analysing and organising findings.

Anything that helps us to create stronger, more deliberate ways of researching has to be a bonus!

Sam

References:

Cochrane Library. (2025). What is PICO?. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about-pico

Costa, E., Soares, A. L., & de Sousa, J. P. (2018). Exploring the CIMO-logic in the design of collaborative networks mediated by digital platforms [paper]. Collaborative Networks of Cognitive Systems (19th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises), PRO-VE 2018, Cardiff, UK, September 17-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99127-6_23

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Posthumanism and post-linguistic theory

When doing research, we use a base theory to provide a backbone for our methodology (our research philosophy, inquiry strategy, and design - big picture why and how) and our methods (our data collection, sampling and analysis tools). If we use some type of unifying theory it helps our decisions to align, making our data collection more consistent, more trustworthy, and potentially containing less bias (if we are undertaking qualitative research) and validity, reliability and generalisability (for quantitative projects).

I am currently trying to get my head around what post-linguistic theory is; which, I think - at this early stage - relates to the epistemology of posthumanism (Koivunen et al., 2021). So before I can understand post-linguistic theory, I first need to understand posthumanism. And - of course - before I can understand posthumanism, I first need to understand humanism. 

A humanist epistemology appears to value reason, and focuses on the humanity side, rather than the nonhuman, the 'other'. Humanism seems to make "a distinction between mind (rational, spiritual, essentially human) and body (unwieldy, worldly, essentially animal)" (Allen, 2023). So if humanism is "two legs better" (Orwell, 1945, p. 104), then post-humanism appears to be that "all animals are equal" (p. 11); mind and body both have value; that all living things have value. This is 'post' the age of enlightenment, where discovery is scientific, Western, and potentially "industrial, imperialist, and warlike" (de Vaujany et al., 2024, p. 3). 

Lamb and Higgins explain "the posthumanist question" as the "how and why we have come to think about humans in particular ways, with particular boundaries between humans and other animals, humans and artefacts, humans and nature" (2020, p. 350). Additionally, posthumanism can be thought of as "the end of a 'man-centred' universe" (de Vaujany et al., 2024, p. 2). 

Which brings us to post-linguistic theory; this too is a framework with pre-, present and post- elements (Andersson et al., 2018). Pre-linguistics is perhaps akin to beings without a sentient voice (babies, cells, etc); present is text and communication; and post-linguistics, or "post-linguistic propositional knowledge" - which I hope is the same thing - could be "a way of perceiving and expressing knowledge [aligned] with Goethe’s concept of the phenomena themselves being the theory" (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014, p. 332). Related to language, this is where we blend "discourse-oriented linguistics and pragmatics into affect studies", and we "re-introduc[e...] a linguistic model to a post-linguistic theory frame [... to help us] to understand affectivity as a form of meaning-making" (Koivunen et al., 2021, p. 646); and what I think that means is that we examine positive and/or negative emotions, story, conversation, and making sense of our how we, and our participants, react to those feelings. 

I get the feeling that post-linguistic theory is somehow a bit like the T S Eliot poem, Little Gidding, where "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate, when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning" (Gardner, 1985, p. 897). We come full circle, and know the inherent, "immanent meaning" of what we are examining (Andersson et al., 2018, p. 37).

However, I do not yet see how post-linguistic theory fits - or does not fit - with posthumanism. I can see a fit with action research, though. Ah well, I need to do more reading!

Sam

References:

Allen, P. (2023, September 3). What is Posthumanism?. Perlego. https://www.perlego.com/knowledge/study-guides/what-is-posthumanism/

Andersson, J., Garrison, J., & Östman, L. (2018). Chapter 2: Distributed Minds and Meanings in a Transactional World Without a Within: Embodiment and Creative Expression. In Empirical philosophical investigations in education and embodied experience (pp. 27-68). Palgrave Macmillan.

Coghlan, D., & Brydon-Miller, M. (Eds.). (2014). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Gardner, H. (1985). The New Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1950. Oxford University Press.

Koivunen, A., Antti Kanner, A., Janicki, M., Harju, A., & Hokkanen, A., Mäkelä, E. (2021). 1PP 736 Emotive, evaluative, epistemic: A linguistic analysis of affectivity in news journalism. In the Proceedings of Communication and Trust: 8th European Communication Conference (p. 646). https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/7239636/ECREA_2021_Abstract_Book.pdf#page=604

Lamb, G., & Higgins, C. (2020). Chapter 16 - Posthumanism and Its Implications for Discourse Studies. In A. De Fina, A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies (pp. 350-370). Cambridge University Press.

Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm: A fairy story. Secker & Warburg.

de Vaujany, F.-X., Gherardi, S., & Silva, P. (Eds.). (2024). Organization Studies and Posthumanism: Towards a more-than-human world. Routledge.

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Methodology and methods alignment

When it comes to making decisions about our research methodology (big picture stuff on how we want to go about finding the answer to our research question) and methods (what tools we will use to find out), there is a sort of hierarchy to making those decisions.

Our choices arrive in layers, which - like an onion (Saunders et al., 2016) - we take the outer layer first. The outer layer provides us with the largest and most significant decision: how do we approach our research; how do we think we will 'come to knowing'? Following this big decision, we work deeper into the onion, into finer and finer layers through our methodological choices so they fit with the modified "research onion" (as illustrated accompanying this post, adapted from Saunders et al., 2016, p. 124). Those layers of decisions consist of the following areas: 

1. Epistemology/Paradigm/Philosophy. This is our big picture understanding of how we come to knowing. In career development we are likely to take a subjective research philosophy such as constructivism; critical realism; interpretivism; or phenomenology. Learn more here
2. Our Inquiry Strategy. This is how our data will answer our question. In career development this is likely to be an inductive approach. If we are taking an objective research philosophy, then this is likely to be deductive. Learn more here
3. Our Research Design. This is about the type of data we will collect. In career development this is likely to be a qualitative approach: we are likely to want to talk to our participants and collect text-oriented data from them, inferences, emotions, and loaded meanings which will need to be interpreted; not just counted. Learn more here
4. And lastly, our Methods. This comes with its own subsets of participants | sampling strategy | data analysis | coding strategy. This section is about the tools we will use to collect our data. In career development we are likely to conduct some type of interview (here), and thematic analysis (here). 

We write our decisions up in that same order: from the outside (highest/most encompassing/broadest/general); to the inside (smallest/most detailed/most specific). From methodology to methods. 

You might find that the following article list helpful here.

Sam

References:

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2016). Research Methods for Business Students (7th ed.). Pearson Education.

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The emic and etic debate

I have written about this pair of research approaches before (here), but felt that there might be a bit more to say. 

These terms relate to two opposite approaches used in field research to assist us in gathering our data. We can either take an emic approach "from the perspective of the individual within a particular social group" or an etic approach "from the observations and interpretations of the outside researcher" (Carducci & Nave, 2020, p. 14). The terms arise from the work of "Kenneth Pike (1954) to describe phonetic similarities and differences in language, but has since been transformed to describe various culturally specific or universal aspects of human behavior" (Carducci & Nave, 2020, p. 14).

"Within cross‐cultural psychology the term etic is used to describe universal psychological truths that are fixed across all cultures. Emic refers to the cultural differences of psychological aspects that are specific to particular cultures. This approach has led to extensive testing of the tools researchers use when gathering data within and between cultures. Harry Triandis was an early proponent of testing the validity and reliability of psychological measures for clear and identifiable differences (Triandis & Marin, 1983). His work found that scales designed for a specific culture were more likely to find cultural differences than those that were created with the assistance of members of all of the cultures being studied. Research in this area has highlighted the importance of creating equivalent measures in order to determine which psychological principles can be considered universal, and which should be considered culturally specific" (Carducci & Nave, 2020, p. 14).

Further clarification can be found when considering the phenomena we are researching:

"The emic approach explores Indigenous psychological phenomena (i.e. personality) and the extent to which it is related to the culture in question. The emphasis is on the singular culture and the cultural context of the psychological processes, the relativist tradition. The etic approach attempts to understand behavior and relationships across cultures so as to delineate universal patterns of behavior (i.e. personality), much like the structural universalist paradigm advocates. Etic inquiries espouse Western research traditions and the utility of Western models and positivistic methods in the study of culture and personality. Consequently, etic studies are mainly concerned with the trait approach to the understanding of culture and personality" (Carducci & Nave, 2020, p. 97).

Both approaches have benefits and limitations, and perhaps the 'debate' is best explored as if it were a continuum. There is no reason why we cannot take a mixed methods approach in order to more fully explore our actual and potential biases and limitations. 

Lastly, in career practice we need to remember that many assessments "which are often considered to be culture‐free, actually contain bias or take an emic approach to culture" (Carducci & Nave, 2020, p. 146).

Sam

References:

Carducci, B. J., & Nave, C. S. (2020). The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, Personality Processes and Individuals Differences. John Wiley & Sons.

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Emic and etic approaches to research

Many of us in the career field are drawn to the relational side of research, which tends to use the more qualitative approaches. However, we also need to understand the difference and the different legitimacies between 'etic' and the 'emic' methods within the qualitative field. Etic and emic are anthropological terms, and mean either an outsider perspective (etic), or an insider perspective (emic) (Peters, 2015). It is easy to remember which is which: just remember that if something becomes endemic, it is 'normalised' within a population or cultural group. Emic is not without. Etic is without.

To clarify origin and meaning, the SAGE dictionary of sociology defines these terms as:

"EMIC AND ETIC: A distinction fashionable in the late 1970s, this pair comes from linguistics where ‘phonemic’ refers to a speaker’s own recognition of patterns of sound, whereas ‘phonetic’ refers to the professional observer’s modelling and measurement of differences in sound. By extension, ‘emic’ came to mean ‘internal’ or ‘indigenous’ and etic ‘external’. An emic approach to analysis involves describing a situation or pattern of behaviour from the standpoint of those involved in it while an etic one is based on the external observer’s accounts. Often the distinction is used for moral purposes; the emic or indigenous being preferred to the etic. In practice the distinction is hard to maintain because in most social settings there are major differences within the group and major similarities between some insiders and some outsiders" (Bruce & Yearley, 2006, pp. 83-84).

For example: 

Etic: an outsider’s perception of Māori appointment barriers as Iwi representatives on boards. This is a study of the group from outside the group. It is arms-length; possibly more objective. 

Emic: Māori appointee perception of appointment barriers for Iwi representatives to boards, usually undertaken by a Māori researcher who experienced the Iwi representative appointment process. This may be a compassionate study of lived experience. The researcher is also researched. Emic approaches are used in field and ethnography research (Andrews et al., 2012). 

As we can see by the examples above, there are opportunities for a mixed methods approach: where while the participants may come from 'within', the researcher is partly from 'without' (Bruce & Yearley, 2006): a swimming coach could explore experiences of high performance swimmers without having been an elite athlete themselves, but understanding much of the elite athlete context. Because of the likelihood of mixed approaches - because life is not tidy - we must remember that, as the researcher, it is our job to "decode the data gathered, seeking to join emic observations and etic explanations" (Albuquerque et al., 2014, p. 438). 

Another way to consider this pair is as "etic (or universal) rather than the idiosyncratic emic" (Trimble et al., 1983, p. 259). I like this idea of idiosyncrasy and universality: I find that enlightening. Within, idiosyncratic, experienced, indigenous; versus without, universal, global, observed (Arthur & McMahon, 2005).

We can be aware of the within and without but not let it take over our lives.

Sam

References:

Albuquerque, U. P., da Cunha, L. V. F. C., De Lucena, R. F. P., & Alves, R. R. N. (Eds.). (2014). Methods and Techniques in Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology. Springer.

Andrews, R., Borg, E., Davis, S. B., Domingo, M., & England, J. (Eds.). (2012). The SAGE Handbook of Digital Dissertations and Theses. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Arthur, N., & McMahon, M. (2005). Multicultural career counseling: Theoretical applications of the systems theory framework. The Career Development Quarterly, 53(3), 208-222. ttps://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2005.tb00991.x

Bruce, S. & Yearley, S. (2006). The SAGE Dictionary of Sociology. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Peters, B. (2015). Qualitative Methods in Monitoring and Evaluation: The Emic and the Etic: Their Importance to Qualitative Evaluators. American University. https://programs.online.american.edu/msme/masters-in-measurement-and-evaluation/resources/emic-and-etic

Trimble, J. E., Lonner, W. J., & Boucher, J. D. (1983). Stalking the wily emic: Alternatives to cross-cultural measurement. In S. H. Irvine, J. W. Berry (Eds.), Human Assessment and Cultural Factors (pp. 259-273). Plenum.

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A simple view of method

There is some research that, when you read it, sounds incredibly well-planned. But am also wondering if we get into the habit of making our methods sound good at the end; as opposed to actually being good from the outset.

I suspect that we tend to make methodology and methods too complicated - arcane, even - in academia. All the esoteric categories and sub-categories sound so deliberate. However, the more I read, the less sure of the 'deliberateness' I become.

Recently I ran across these powerful words:

"I begin to see that the whole idea of a method for discovering things is ex post facto. You succeed in doing something, or you do something so well that you yourself want to know how you did it. So you go back, trying to re-create the steps that led you, not quite by accident, not quite by design, to where you wanted to be. You call that recreation your ‘method’. (Koller, 1983: 88 [...])" (Thorne, 2016, p. 19).

Wow. Well, it looks like other people also think we 'make it up' as we go along in research. Even when we write our methodology up when we go to publish our work, we tend to follow a "drunkard's walk" (Heinlein, 1980, p. 164) approach. A drunkard's walk can be defined as:

"a mathematicians' term for a two-dimensional random search. The name comes from the colorful image of a drunk standing in the dark between two lamp posts. The drunk wants to get to a lamppost — he doesn't care which — but he's so intoxicated that he can't control which direction he's stepping in; all he can control is that he is walking toward a light. Every step he takes is a 50/50 split between going one way and the other. Eventually he will reach a light, but how long it'll take him is the big question" (Schroeck, 2012).

The more expert we become and the more experience we accumulate, the fewer our elements of drunkard's walk will be. But is that because we have learned more about our 'chosen' method, or is it that we have learned what category our natural method inclination is most aligned with?

Or some of both? And does it matter?

Sam

References:

• Heinlein, R. A. H. (1980). The Number of the Beast. New English Library.
• Koller, A. (1983). An unknown woman: A journey to self-discovery. Bantam.
• Schroeck, R. (2012). Latest Update: 29 November 2012. http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dw2conc.shtml
• Thorne, S. (2016). Interpretive Description: Qualitative Research for Applied Practice (2nd ed.). Routledge.

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Characterising approaches to argument

It is generally considered that there are three types of academic argument: classical - aka Western, or Aristotelian - argument (Excelsior Online Writing Lab, 2020; Macauley, 2020); Toulmin argument (1958; read more here); and Rogerian argument (aka 'persuasion'; Nordquist, 2019).

However, across these three types, there are also a few characterising approaches to argument. Those are considered to be structural; pragmatic; and the cluster of inductive, deductive and conductive (McKeon, 2020), as follows:

1. Structural: this is the "if this, then this" type of argument. This type of argument can be displayed in standard form: Premiss 1, Premiss 2, Premiss 3, Therefore: Conclusion (p1, P2, P3, ∴ C). This is used a lot in science, often paired in hypothesis testing research. There is no 'why': there is only evidence.
2. Pragmatic: this is where a 'reasoner' proposes several premisses as supporting reasons, and explanations of 'why', "to rationally persuade an audience of the truth of the conclusion" (McKeon, 2020; Pierce, 1908). We gain an understanding of other perspectives, but also have to be alert to the reasoner's aims in case they differ to our own, or are contrary to reality.
3. Inductive/deductive/conductive:
1. Deductive: basically, if the premisses are true, then the reasoner's argument should be valid; a step by step, known outcome model. McKeon provides an example: "It’s sunny in Singapore. If it’s sunny in Singapore, then he won’t be carrying an umbrella. So, he won’t be carrying an umbrella" (2020). We talk a lot about validity here. This is a mathematical argument (even though this is often called 'mathematical induction'). We can see how this fits with structural argument.
2. Inductive: this is where, if the reasoner's argument is strong enough, then the argument is likely to succeed. You can hear the probabilities whirring in this one! As McKeon illustrates, "For example, this is a reasonably strong inductive argument: Today, John said he likes Romona. So, John likes Romona today. (but its strength is changed radically when we add this premise:) John told Felipé today that he didn’t really like Romona" (2020). Ouch for Romona. We talk about reasoning here. This is a humanistic, social sciences, management-style of argument. We can see how this fits with pragmatic argument.
3. Conductive: the reasoner provides "explicit reasons for and against a conclusion, and requiring the evaluator of the argument to weigh these competing considerations, that is, to consider the pros and cons" (McKeon, 2020). Provide all the arguments and let the audience decide for themselves. We can see how this too fits with pragmatic argument.

And then I read a great piece by Patters on retroductive argument (Thompson, 1999), which is also known as abductive argument. This is where "an explanation is proposed to account for an observed fact or group of facts, [...] i.e. any type of similarity or co-occurrence, including (but not limited to) location in space and time. For example, 'Jones was in the building at the time of the murder. Perhaps he is the killer,' or 'The blood on the victim's shirt matches Jones' blood type. Perhaps Jones is the killer.' In the second example, the similarity of blood type is the concomitance on which the inference turns" (Thompson, 1999). Lovely.

So retroduction - aka abduction - is where we take an "observation or set of observations and then seek[...] to find the simplest and most likely conclusion from" them (Leslie & Van Otten, 2020): an Occam's Razor approach, if you will (though we do need to be careful of affirming the consequent). What I also find useful is how well abduction fits with Pierce's pragmatic approach (Commens Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce, 2020). What is also interesting is that 'abduction' is thought to be a corruption of retroduction. Conduction is not mentioned anywhere. It seems that, for Peirce, retroduction is conduction. Different schools, maybe.

We could plot the characteristics of argument on a continuum and see the shift from absolutism to fuzzy logic, as is shown in the accompanying illustration. I suppose someone has done this before, but it was new to me :-)

Interesting.

Sam

References:

• Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020). Aristotelian Argument. https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/organizing-your-argument/organizing-your-argument-aristotelian/
• Leslie, J., & Van Otten, N. (6 September 2020). 7 Phase 4: Project definition. https://datasciencedesign.com/definition.html
• Macauley, W. J. (2020). Different types of arguments. https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/different-types-of-arguments
• McKeon, M. (2020). Argument. https://iep.utm.edu/argument/#H3
• Nordquist, R. (01 October 2019). Rogerian Argument: Definition and Examples. https://www.thoughtco.com/rogerian-argument-1691920#:~:text=Rogerian%20argument%20is%20a%20negotiating,Rogerian%20persuasion%2C%20and%20empathic%20listening.
• Peirce, C. S. (1923). Chance, love, and logic; philosophical essays. Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.
  
• Commens Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce. (2020). Abduction. http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/abduction
• Thompson, B. (1999). Retroduction. https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Retroduction.html#:~:text=Retroduction%20is%20the%20kind%20of,attention%20and%20demands%20an%20explanation.
• Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The Uses of Argument (Reprint 1969). Cambridge University Press.

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The social sciences

It is not often that we really step back and think about our own fields, and where those fields fit in relation to everything else. I was idly thinking about the social sciences, and why business in a part of that field (Sodertorn University, 2020).

Scientia is from Latin meaning ‘knowledge’, and referring “to a systematic and organized body of knowledge in any area of inquiry” (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 1). Science falls into two halves: natural science; and social science. The natural sciences focus on objects or phenomena occurring naturally (e.g. light, matter, our planet and beyond, or living things). Science - natural science - tends to take a more objective approach (Frey, 2013).

The social sciences are the study of people or groups (e.g. organisations, societies, economies, or behaviours), and include “psychology (the science of human behaviors), sociology (the science of social groups), and economics (the science of firms, markets, and economies)” (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 1). The social sciences tend to take more of a subjective approach (Frey, 2013).

OK: so what then separates the humanities and the social sciences? Professor Iain McLean pinpoints a wonderfully cogent difference: “humanities are (mostly) interested in the unique; social sciences are (mostly) interested in the general”, continuing on to provide an example, that “Social statistics cannot predict how I will vote in the next election, but they can help to predict what most people like me will do” (McLean, 20 November 2018).

These delineations are somewhat arbitrary though. Without going into the Arts, where things get even more murky, let's stay on the simple side of the divide, and consider the areas where business has a clear involvement. Depending on what is studied, and the methods used, business can easily fall into a number of different disciplines. For example, research into stock market returns can explore the connection between a range of mathematically measured factors (science); the reasons why stockbrokers invest in certain stocks (social sciences); or the narrative of a particular stockbroker (humanities).

It all comes back to where we stand (ontology), what we want to learn, and how we come to knowing (epistemology). And we could fling a bit of axiology in there as well for spice :-)


Sam

References:

• Alexander, J. C. (2019). What Social Science Must Learn From the Humanities. Sociologia & Antropologia, 9(1), 43-54. https://doi.org/10.1590/2238-38752019v912
• Bhattacherjee, A. (2012). Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices (2nd ed.). Author (Creative Commons 3.0
• Frey, R. (2013). The Humanities and the Social Sciences: Contrasting Approaches. http://writeprofessionally.org/how-teach-tpc/files/2018/02/humanities-social-sciences-distinctions.pdf
• McLean, I. (20 November 2018). What is social science? https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-social-science/
• Sodertorn University (2020). Business Studies. https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/research/our-research/business-studies

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How Research Components Fit Together

When we prepare our methodology, we have to work from the big picture down to the detail.

There are four layers to this, which I am going to introduce you to with a quick overview. You can choose to watch the following clip, or read on below.



First, research philosophy. A research philosophy is a belief about the way in which data about a phenomenon should be gathered, analysed and used, or “how we come to know things”. A research philosophy also called epistemology (what is known to be true), not (what is believed to be true).

There are two key clusters of research philosophies: objective, the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings; and subjective; that our thoughts are the only unquestionable fact of our experience, that there is no external or objective truth for everyone. That experience is individual, not shared or communal.

Some examples of objectivist research philosophies are positivism, postpositivism, and pragmatism. Some examples of subjectivist research philosophies are social constructivism, advocacy, social justice, interpretivism and critical realism.

Second, inquiry strategy. This is how we are going to approach our research question. Will we start with a theory, write our hypothesis, observe our data, then see how close our hypothesis was to our observation? That’s a deductive inquiry strategy, or hypothesis testing (empiricist). A deductive approach fits with an objective research philosophy. An example of a deductive research question is “Hourly micro-breaks improve employee productivity by 5%: true or false?”.

On the other hand, we might first observe our data, then find a pattern, then come up with a tentative hypothesis, then form a theory. That’s an inductive inquiry strategy, where we wait to see what arises from the data. An inductive approach fits with a subjectivist research philosophy, and an example could be “Employee productivity: do hourly micro-breaks have a positive effect?”

Third comes research design. Research designs are the spirit in which we will make our decisions about the data we are going to collect. Will we go for quantitative, numerical data, which we tend to observe or record largely at arms-length, or will we go for qualitative, textual data, which we tend to obtain from our subjects, face to face?

Qualitative strategies seek to understand behaviours. Data gets analysed by coding, and thematic analysis. A qualitative approach fits with a subjectivist research philosophy and an inductive research design.

Quantitative strategies look for statistical patterns. Data gets analysed using tools like Chi squared, regression analysis or mathematical modelling software such as SPSS. A quantitative approach fits with an objective research philosophy and a deductive research design.

Then lastly we choose our actual data collection method. This is likely to be interviews, focus groups, or open-ended surveys which fit with subjective, inductive and qualitative research; or observations, experimentation or closed-ended surveys, which fit with objective, deductive and quantitative research.

Hope that helps you understand how it all fits together!


Sam

References:

• Creswell, J. (2009). Research Design (Third Edition). USA: Sage
  
• McLeod, S. A. (2008). Qualitative vs. Quantitative. Retrieved 7 July 2017 from https://www.simplypsychology.org/qualitative-quantitative.html
• Veal, A. J. (2005). Business Research Methods (Second Edition). Australia: Pearson Education

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Do teachers need a philosophy?

I belong to a 66,500-strong group, Higher Education Teaching and Learning, on LinkedIn. This forum usually contains very good posts about tertiary study.

Recently, Dr Bruce Johnson posted a link to a LinkedIn Pulse article he has written telling all educators that they need a philosophy in order to be able to teach.

I was quite struck by Dr Johnson's post, as I happen to feel that many good teachers probably DON'T have a particular philosophy, and probably don't need one. Instead, their experience and student-focus has provided them over the years with a bag full of tools to engage all learners - to find a way in, to connect, to inspire and to help students motivate themselves.

Benjamin Bloom, one of the pre-eminent educational researchers of the 20th century, said towards the end of his career that “After 40 years of intensive research [...] my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions for learning” (Bloom & Sosniak, 1985, p. 4).

To me, that says that good teaching should consist of setting up those current conditions for learning. 

Those conditions for learning are many and various, but include a positive environment where exploration and enquiry is encouraged; where failure means that students are on the learning path, but have not yet achieved mastery; where there is collegiality and support; and where the only 'stupid' question is the one that is not asked. This is not my philosophy. This is the behaviour I model and seek in learning environments.

Whether we have defined a philosophy or not is fairly immaterial.

In my opinion :-)


Sam

References:

• Bloom, Dr Benjamin Samuel & Sosniak, ‎Lauren A. (1985). Developing Talent in Young People. USA: Ballantine Books.
• Johnson, Dr. Bruce A. (10 April 2016). What is Your Teaching Philosophy? Retrieved 14 April 2016 from https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2774663/2774663-6124979189125828608
• Johnson, Dr. Bruce A. (10 April 2016). All Educators Need a Teaching Philosophy Statement - Is Yours Developed? Retrieved 14 April 2016 from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/every-educator-needs-teaching-philosophy-what-yours-dr-bruce-a-

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Ontologies: subjectivism versus objectivism

Ontology is how we are, as beings, in our universe. It is our understanding of ourselves. Epistemology is the next level down: the how we come to 'knowing' who we are, in our universe.
Epistemology is often called our research philosophy at under-graduate level (post-grad requires both ontology and epistemology).
It is important to know what our epistemology is, because where we start guides how we pose our research question, how we design our research project and the individual methods - tools - that we choose. It becomes the central theme pinning our project together (as per the diagram shown above, which I have adapted from Creswell, 2009).

The trouble is that often we don't know where to start with a philosophy. Most of us have never stopped to think about it.

Below is a fast and dirty ontological summary of subjectivist and objectivist approaches curated for my research students, to aid research epistemology.

Firstly, I have an edited table from Donald Hastings (2004) comparing the difference in ontological/epistemological stance between objectivism and subjectivism:

Objectivism (Positivism, Empiricism) Quantitative Single reality. Reality exists independent of the observer (subject-object split). Reality is experienced through the senses, catalogue by the mind, and measurable either direct or indirectly. Researcher may engage the world in a value-neutral manner (ie, objectively). Knowledge may be built cumulatively following scientific canons emphasising observation, reliability in measurement and analysis, and confirming or refuting hypotheses logically derived from theory. Theory is cumulative. It embodies the explanatory principles, empirical laws on how classes of events and processes work across time and space (universals). It allows us to predict how reality works. Emphasis is on explanation and control. Internal or external to research subjects.

Subjectivism (Constructivism, interpretivism, Idealism) Qualitative Multiple realities. Realities are symbolically constructed and meaning is observer dependent. Social reality is engaged through cognition and organised in memory. Researcher engages the world in a value-laden manner (ie, subjectively). Understanding is possible by dint of people’s ability to exercise empathy. Knowledge is based on observation. Theory is situationally and historically specific to a given social context. A statement describes how an event or process works (particularistic). Emphasis is on discovery. For more information on discovery, see Brannigan, A. (1981). The social basis of scientific discoveries. Cambridge University Press.  Internal to research subjects.

This summary is supported by some additional reading and resources below for further thought, for those who would like to take things further.

Ingmar Persson's book chapter detailing subjectivism and objectivism suggests that subjectivists approach research wanting to understand "desires and/or emotions had under some factually described circumstances", looking inside the person for answers. However, objectivists will look both inside or outside the individual to see whether the circumstances are right, or if those circumstances are necessary: "only the sufficiency of such a condition or both its sufficiency and necessity [...and] could be either internalist or externalist, depending on whether they accept the necessity of this link to attitudes" (2005). 

Additionally, Robert McIntosh (2015) put together a flowchart showing how our research philosophy choices fit the later methodological choices that we make (though I find Robert's stance overly narrow on surveys solely fitting with empiricist/positivist approaches - I feel that modern survey instruments gather rich data which can be meaningfully qualitatively coded).

I hope this is useful!

Sam

References:

• Brannigan, A. (1981). The social basis of scientific discoveries. Cambridge University Press. 
• Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
• Diesing, P. (1966). Objectivism vs. subjectivism in the social sciences. Philosophy of Science, 33(12), 124-133. https://doi.org/10.1086/288081
• Hastings, D. W. (2004). Basic assumptions of Objectivism vs. Subjectivism. Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://web.utk.edu/~dhasting/Obj_vism-vs-Subj_vism.htm
• McIntosh, R. (2015). Methods Map. Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://www.methodsmap.org/#pageindex
• Dudovskiy, J. (2014). Ontology. Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://research-methodology.net/research-philosophy/ontology/ 
• Persson, I. (2005). The Retreat of Reason: A dilemma in the philosophy of life. Oxford University Press book summary. Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0199276900.001.0001/acprof-9780199276905-chapter-8
• Ratner, C. (2002). Subjectivity and Objectivity in Qualitative Methodology. Qualitative Social Research, 3(3), 16. Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/829/1800
• University of Southampton. (1999). What is your paradigm? Retrieved 11 April 2016 from http://www.erm.ecs.soton.ac.uk/theme2/what_is_your_paradigm.html

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