Reply #29: There is always a method [View All]

[markses]

Or some coherent (or, in many cases, incoherent) amalgam of methods. That should be clear enough. Nobody proceeds in an inquiry without some set of methods for determining what is important, what counts as data (criteria for inclusion and exclusion), what kinds of data merit interpretation, and what particular school of interpretation you happen to be relying on (what grounds your interpretation). You are always using some method(s). The question is not whether there is a method or not. The question is whether a researcher is aware of his or her methodology, its possibilities and constraints, its theoretical underpinnings, what it warrants and what it doesn't warrant. The danger, of course, is that an inconsistent methodology throws both the reliability of your findings and - more importantly - their persuasive force into question. That's why people explicitly develop coherent methodologies in the first place (it ain't just cuz a dissertation advisor told you that you had to, in other words). So, then the question becomes: What are the methodologies and are they consistent? What kinds of findings or conclusions do they allow researchers to make? What kind of qualifiers are necessary given the limitiations of a particular methodology or interpretive system? This is not, fundamentally, a question of "academic" or "non-academic" attitudes towards research. this is a basic question about the credibility of findings. If your methods are hidden or merely implicit even to you, how do you expect others to take your conclusions seriously?