Hi Derek,



I am aware of terminological controversies and affiliations. I actually rarely use the term "soft." I probably haven't used it for many years. Even when I use the term "qualitative," I often put it in brackets as in the previous posts. It depends on what discussion list I am posting. The "qualitative" is actually an umbrella term for several humanistic paradigms. (humanistic -- yet another way to refer to the same class of paradigms and methodologies) It is difficult to predict what is the preferred terminology on a discussion list. In general each one of the terms has particular incompleteness or bias when scrutinized by different research communities. The people on qualitative research discussion lists insist that there is a homogeneous, unitary qualitative epistemology and dislike my idea about the "qualitative" as an umbrella term. I personally prefer to refer to paradigms and to work within paradigmatic boundaries.



What you say about your work with both qualitative and quantitative methods in one project is usually referred to as "mixed methods" research design. I personally prefer to use the two major categories of methods separately, although I have also engaged in mixed methods studies as needed.



I have been trained to work within several paradigmatic realms: symbolic interactionism, historical materialism, and positivism. Now I experiment with several other methodologies that I would not related directly one of the classic paradigms. In the last decades, with the advent of Postmodernity, there is a proliferation of methodologies. I am well aware of the peculiarities of hermeneutics and phenomenology, but would not say I work with them. Nowadays many people claim they are doing a phenomenological study and then I found a lot of statistics in their project.  However, this is a different topic and I will stop here.



Best wishes,



Lubomir



-----Original Message-----

From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Derek B. Miller

Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 2:12 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: projection before analysis



Very brief interjection, and only on two points.



1. Hard and Soft

There was indeed a time when the term "soft" was applied to the social sciences, especially those concerned with qualitative research. In fact, in the 1950s, there was an on-going joke (referring to a term by Freud, which I'll refrain from mentioning) that said social scientists had "physics envy" and wished that social research could also be a hard science.



However, times have also changed here. There are indeed empirical means of generating qualitative findings. That its — in line with Popper — the findings can be falsified as can various kinds of claims about the findings. Qualitative research should not disregarded as necessarily soft. As with everything, the matter is "how" it is done, not what it being looked at. Such is the differences between alchemy and chemistry, astrology and astronomy. 



Those not trained in empirical, qualitative research might mistakenly think that we're back 40 years. But this is an error. 



2. There is no inherent dichotomy

Qualitative research (and I'd prefer to avoid a long discussion on this) is generally concerned with description, interpretation of what is described, and some challenge of meaning. On the last point, one can generally approach meaning from two angles, often called etic and emic. The etic is an imposition of meaning on a system. An emic one tries to accurately reflect the meanings inherent in the practices themselves as understood by those engaged in them. Both are valuable. At UNIDIR and at the SNAP project, we were concerned with both when dealing with security. From an etic perspective, we wanted to make claims about patterns of violence, whether or not the people engaged in those patterns of violence would describe them that way. The emic perspective (from work in cultural research) was rigorously attentive to the premises, practices, and meanings as understood by those engaged in those practices.



There is no reason that a research design cannot make use of qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to answer a question. My book, Media Pressure on Foreign Policy (Palgrave) was chiefly concerned with understanding media pressure — i.e. what is it, and how do I know it when I see it? But upon arriving at a theory of pressure, it became possible to measure it (as time series data) as well. If something happens, it may happen often or infrequently. Whether you choose to measure it is strictly in accordance with the question you have asked and what an answer necessitates.



I don't suspect that this thread will necessarily disagree that soft is a dated euphemism, or that qualitative and quantitative approaches — while different — can't work together. 



And before anyone pounces: Empirical work can indeed be conducted in a constructivist paradigm as well as a positivist one. 



Derek Miller





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