METHODOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Year:2007 | Volume:13 | Issue:51|Papers Count:9

This article is based on the findings of Iranian studies on research methodology in psychology. One of the goals of this research is to analyze the epistemological and methodological research fundamentals, whose findings are published iN scientific psychological journals in Iran. In this article, the following subjects are studied:1. Definition of research epistemology and methodology fundamentals2. Brief explanation of qualitative, quantitative, and combined methods3. The importance of evaluating scientific articles in developing research method instruction4. Description of content analysis method5. Content analysis of scientific journals of psychology in Iran6. Evaluation and interpretation of samples of research in psychology in Iran with an emphasis on research methodology.

Methodology plays the main role in performing the studies. Selecting the right method results in valid and reliable results, and an incorrect method leads to false deductions. Methodology does not form in vacuum and depends on ontological, epistemological, and anthropological views of the researcher.In this research, some methodological points in obtaining religiosity evaluation scale have been studied. These points include the theoretical foundations of research methods, the role of theory in research, the logic of selecting a research method, and designing and developing a questionnaire. The second section of the article is a critical analysis of Iranian religiosity evaluation scales. The result of the study depicts that the most important deficits of such studies in Iran include incorrect interpretation of the results, providing wrong images of religious concepts, exerting the views of western psychological schools on Islamic concepts, and research outcome not resulting in a new theory or model.

Action research is one of the important approaches in qualitative research. In this approach, the researcher identifies the problem and in order to solve the problem or make a change, gathers precise data and then takes the appropriate action and evaluates the results. Therefore, action research is known as a method for employee development while in duty. In this article, action research is defined and its evolution, specifications, and qualities are explained and examined. Then, the application of action research in behavioral sciences is studied.

Structuralism, is kown based on principles such as holism, discovering the structure hidden behind the reality of the society, the common culture dominating the human being, contagion of lingual rules to social activities, solving the cultural systems with dualistic encounters, ignoring date and time, disapproving subjectivism, incommensurability of structures, and considering the internal and external structures in the French school (lingual structures) and American school (societal structures). The similarity of structuralism and post-structuralism is in their criticism of the common understanding of subject and historicism.The following specifications can be noted in the passage of structuralism to post-structuralism, in other words from modernism to postmodernism: language as an unclear media shapes the reality and is considered a societal phenomenon and a means of political combat. Subjects are originally societal and the role of discourse and context is seriously considered.

Ethnography is considered as a data collection method (observation type), as a research method (set of qualitative and analytic approach to a certain research subject), and as a theory (the framework of a system in which a subject in researched).This method is usually used in humanities and social studies. This method allows the researcher to deeply and precisely identify the subject, when understanding the subject with means such as questionnaire and direct interview is not possible. The subject of understanding can be positive (marriage) or negative (addiction), but the research will ultimately be beneficial for the society.

Today, the pioneer research system is one of the factors of evaluating the countries' research system development. Considering the issue of being born or being made in the recent decades has accelerated. Of the main reasons of 'this is the countries' sense of self-expression, nations' strive for development, and expansion of information in the societies.In this article, the importance of establishing a pioneer research system to evolve the structure of research system, with respect to the issue of being born or made, is studied. Also, the various cultural, fundamental, and structural factors for applying a local approach in this evolution are studied, and finally some strategies to implement this are mentioned.

This article provides a description of methodology of jurgen habermas and his analysis of positivism and carl popper’s critical rationalism. Also, habermas’s attempt to develop a comprehensive rationality by the means of describing the three concerns of human kind and their relation with the knowledge of natural sciences, historical sciences and hermeneutics, and critical sciences is portrayed. Finally, the way in which habermas used Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Freud’s psychoanalysis to develop these sciences along with the goals limitations of each science is explained.