Epistemology

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Many people in everyday practical situations believe that they can recognize the truth “when they see it” and do not bother with the nuances of deeper epistemological issues. However, utilization of everyday-life common sense can lead to significant errors, as in eyewitness testimony or the interpretation of hoaxes or spam and bogus Web sites online. Epistemological considerations need to be taken into account for sophisticated understanding of any research results, but they are often overlooked, as in the use of results from public opinion polls or from case studies of various kinds. For example, what is the epistemological status of case study material from a psychoanalytic therapy situation? Many researchers ignore epistemology when establishing their research design, but that makes them like the drunk searching for his keys under the street lamp though he probably dropped them in the dark. A quantitative analysis that uses variables at the categorical, nominal level of analysis often cannot be interpreted to reveal the results that some researchers would like to extract from [Page 332]the data. Although many factors enter into research design, one's epistemological convictions often help to determine the types of methods and techniques that will be favored. Charles Ragin has written on this question and has indicated through rigorous analysis the ways in which many researchers make mistaken assumptions about the validity of results obtained through cross-tabulation. Though not always the case in the social sciences, those who favor a positivist epistemology are more likely to utilize quantitative methods, while those who lean to more interpretive approaches often emphasize qualitative methods. Although not universally applicable, particularly when several cases are being compared, most case study research—particularly studies of single cases—tend to be interpretive and qualitative. The emphasis on interpretation of human meaning in one or a few cases rather than broad statistical patterns in a large number of cases (or a sample of the population) is an epistemological decision. Efforts to combine quantitative and qualitative research techniques often do not face epistemological issues squarely. Many quantitative researchers may discuss a few of the cases discovered during survey research or other positivist approaches, but the discussion of such cases is often, ironically, not very systematic or thorough. Case study research takes time and effort. It cannot simply be an “add on” to essentially quantitative variable analysis.