Читать книгу A Companion to Medical Anthropology - Группа авторов - Страница 61

Research design is about posing good questions and finding empirical answers. The hallmark of well-designed research is that it justifies the claim that your particular answer is better than the alternatives. The goal is not to claim perfect knowledge – that goal is unattainable – but rather to generate systematic evidence that minimizes the errors of everyday reasoning and casual observation. Good research design thus requires researchers to be explicit about the methods and logic we use to connect theory and data, so that others can evaluate the validity of our claims.

Whole books have been written about research design, and several extended treatments discuss applications to anthropology in particular (Bernard 2018; Brim and Spain 1974; Johnson 1998; LeCompte and Schensul 2010; Pelto and Pelto 1996). This work is essential reading for medical anthropologists. Here I outline some basic ideas for connecting data and theory through research design.