Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 105

All research methods have advantages and limitations, and recognition of this means that it is commonplace today to find sociologists combining methods in a single piece of research, using each to supplement and check on the others. This process is known as triangulation. Advocates of triangulation argue that it produces more reliable, valid and comprehensive knowledge than a single research method, though Denzin (1970) actually distinguished four types of triangulation. Data triangulation occurs when data are collected at different times and perhaps uses different sampling strategies within the same research project. Investigator triangulation is where a team of researchers, rather than a single researcher, carries out the fieldwork. Theoretical triangulation is more controversial, as it involves using several theoretical approaches when interpreting the data. Finally, methodological triangulation is the adoption of more than one methodology as part of a research study. We can see the potential value of combining methods – and, more generally, the problems and pitfalls of real sociological research – by looking once again at Laud Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade.

One of the questions Humphreys wanted to answer was ‘What kind of men use the tearooms?’ It was very hard for him to find this out because all he could really do was observe. The norm of silence made it difficult to ask questions or even to talk, and it would have been very odd if he had asked personal questions of the participants. As we have seen, Humphreys noted the car number-plates of people involved, giving the numbers to a friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles, who secured the owners’ addresses. Some months later, he persuaded a work colleague at Washington University in St Louis, who was conducting a door-to-door survey of sexual habits, to add the names and addresses of his own tearoom sample. Disguised as an investigator, Humphreys interviewed the men in their homes to learn more about their backgrounds and lives, interviewing wives and family members too.

Leaving aside the unconventional and ethically dubious tactics he employed, Humphreys was engaging in a form of methodological triangulation. He tried to overcome the limitations of participant observation by joining a social survey and, by combining the results, was able to produce a richer, more detailed and powerful piece of research. Mixing methods has become common today for precisely this reason. However, it is not a panacea and is certainly not accepted or adopted by all.