Читать книгу Qualitative Dissertation Methodology - Nathan Durdella - Страница 66

While we have discussed methodology conceptually and have applied a conventional understanding of methodology to dissertation contexts, we have not yet defined methodology in technical terms. In the simplest terms, methodology is an approach to investigating the world and, more specifically, the social world. But methodology implies more! As Schwandt (2007, p. 193) explains, methodology is a model to follow in a systematic approach to research that includes what you believe, assume, and use to guide general methods and procedural details in the field. Schwandt goes on to say that methodologies articulate the following:

(a) the kinds of problems that are worth investigating, (b) what compromises a researchable problem, testable hypothesis, and so on, (c) how to frame a problem in such a way that it can be investigated using particular designs and procedures, and (d) how to understand what constitutes a legitimate and warranted explanation, (e) how to judge matters of generalizability, (f) how to select or develop appropriate means of generating data, and (g) how to develop the logic linking problem-data generation-analysis-argument.

Clearly, methodologies direct almost every dimension of a study—encompassing (a) what is important to study, (b) how to formulate studies, (c) how to go about gathering and making sense of information related to the study, (d) how to interpret patterns from an analysis of information in the study, (e) how to transfer findings to other contexts, and (f) how to produce and disseminate contributions to further inquiry and practice. Schwandt finishes his discussion of methodology by arguing that methodologies function as an intermediary of sorts between methods and specific steps in procedures of data collection and broader philosophical issues in the social sciences like casual relationships, for example. One important note from Schwandt’s discussion of methodology for qualitative researchers needs to be clarified: One of the goals of qualitative inquiry is not to generalize from a sample to a population but rather to transfer what is learned about one group to other groups in similar contexts.