RAHBORD
Year:2010 | Volume:19 | Issue:54 (SPECIAL ISSUE FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH)|Papers Count:15

This article tries to address the challenge created after Dithery's distinction between natural and human sciences. To do this, the author explains the nature of quantitative and qualitative researches and shows the relationship between these two research models and natural and human sciences. Also, in this article the views expressed by empiricists, positivists and idealists are discussed. Finally, the epistemological and ontological bases of the two models of quantative and qualitative research are fully explained.

This article studies the two major research approaches in the field of research approaches. It emphasizes their epistemological foundations and their differences. Along these lines, the inadequacies of quantitative research leading to its failure in human science research are discussed. This article pays special attention to the four fold internal conflicts including version, holography, multivocality and skepticism in qualitative researches based on phenomenology put forward by Harley, Hardy and Alison, and mentions the failure of qualitative research in overcoming the obstacles created by methodology. Then, the emergence of mixed research as an insufficient substitute for the quantative and qualitative methods is criticized. Finally, given the fallacies made by Scott regarding quantitative, qualitative and mixed research, the authors introduce para-quantitative method as an alternative for overcoming the inadequacy of existing methods.

It is more than two decades that some new traditions (other than analytical tradition) have emerged in the philosophy of science. One of these traditions is the hermeneutic phenomenological approach to philosophy of science which is the extension of phenomenological movement in the field of philosophy of science. This article tries to explain the hermeneutic phenomenological approach to philosophy of science, its relationship with positivist and post-positivist thoughts and its use in qualitative research. In explaining hermeneutic phenomenology, the views expressed by Professor Patrick Heelan have been used.

One of the scientific problems in human sciences in the majority of non- Western societies including our society is the lack of indigenous theories based on the cultural system of the society. The lack of an indigenous theory entails some problems, the most important of which is the lack of proper understanding of psychological and sociological characteristics of people and society as well as social institutions. Why we cannot develop indigenous theories? There are various reasons, the most important of which is the use of research method. In our society, most researches are carried out by quantitative method which is meaningful in the positivist paradigm. We believe that if drawing upon existing foreign theories, a number of researches based on qualitative method could provide a deep understanding of different sectors of society including structures and functions; this would pave the way for developing theories by our researchers. The study and comparison of some scientific articles authored by Iranian and French researchers in the fields of sociology, psychology and pedagogy show that Iranian researches mostly use non-Iranian or Western theories, while their French counterparts use the theories formulated by French theoreticians. On the other hand, our researchers gather their data by using quantative method, especially standard questionnaires, while foreign researchers mostly use qualitative methods relying upon content analysis methods.

This article tries to show that how Husserl's formal ontology can analyze the qualitative relation between the whole and the parts. This analysis is based on the distinction made by Husserl between piece and moment. Husserl's formal ontology separates from the tradition of analytical philosophy by recognizing moment as a single, concrete and dependent part which maintains qualitative relation with other parts and the whole. Since analytical philosophy refers subjective actions toward objects to those related to the current state of affairs, it remains in the framework of the formal structure of meaning and truths and reduces the quality of moments to the attributes which could be studied in the framework of set theory. On the contrary, Husserl's formal ontology studies the formal structures of objects and does not refer the quality of objects to the current state of affairs. From this point of view, formal ontology is similar to mereology developed by Lesniewski which studies ontological relations between whole and parts. The author concludes that formal ontology in the framework of manifolds theory and mereology forms a basis for any qualitative research in human or empirical sciences. Therefore, it could go well beyond the phenomenological qualitative method which only includes human sciences by relying upon the concept of life world.

There are two research approaches in human and behavioral sciences: quantitive and qualitative. In other words, in the field of human and behavioral sciences including pedagogy and psychology, the selection of an approach to research depends on the adopted worldview or paradigm by the researcher. This article aims to study and compare the two approaches to research (quantitative and qualitative) in terms of nature, goal, method, hypotheses, gathering data instruments, sampling methods, validity, verification, statistical analysis as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

Qualititative research is one of the main pathways for generating knowledge which may be used for solving the complicated problems of human communities and organizations. Qualitative research is less familiar than quantitative research and for this reason, it is used less than the latter. Qualitative research is an ordered and deep method for describing those elements, situations and attributes related to human phenomena that are not reducible to quantities or otherwise, they lack enough depth to analyze the situation. Therefore, it can be said that qualitative research is used where we should analyze very complicated concepts or phenomena involving human agency. Data in this kind of research are gathered, analyzed and interpreted in depth and in a narrative form. Qualitative research is based on phenomenological philosophy and is conducted with the participation of real individuals (not in a experimental setting). Despite the uses and advantages of qualitative research in solving the problems of the society, it seems that the scientific community of the country does not tend to use it properly. Therefore, this article tries to provide strategies for promoting this method of research in the country, drawing upon SWOT model through studying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing it.

Paying attention to new approaches to research can be useful in overcoming methodological problems, especially in the field of human science. One of the steps taken towards responding this demand is explaining strategies for sampling and field operations paving the way for highlighting the role of human agency in research. The active role of researcher in the field of research and the conduct of sampling constitutes one of the essential differences between qualitative and quantitative research. The authors believe that these discussions can contribute to more innovation in science, especially human sciences.

Method of research is one of the important sources of acquiring knowledge which is classified into different methods including qualitative and quantative ones. Qualitative methods have many variations, but this article only addresses the phenomenological method of research and its application in clinical sciences. Phenomenological method is a descriptive deductive method originating from the philosophy of phenomenology. To explain this issue, this article, first, reviews the history of phenomenological philosophy and its adaptation as a qualitative research method in medical sciences. Attention paid by clinical sciences and professional nursing to holistic care has prepared the scene for conducting phenomenological research. This holistic view combines with the lived experience to form a basis for phenomenological research. The researcher should ask himself whether research on the lived experience is the most appropriate method for gathering data? Primary data are achieved by considering the experience of the phenomenon, therefore, the researcher should bear in mind that this is the product of rich and descriptive data. Phenomenological research is goal oriented, because, contrary to quantitative research, it does not intend to generalize findings to the society where sampling has been conducted, rather it aims to understand the envisioned phenomenon and as said before, researchers should chose those people who enjoy enough experience about the studied phenomenon. This article studies the methods of data gathering and data analysis in phenomenology and discusses issues such as validity and verification.

The main goal of every research project is to generate and develop science to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. Research in management is a systematic field of research on organization seeking effective actions to improve the efficiency in organization and to solve its problems As other fields of research, the strategies of qualitative research in this field are categorized based on the two dimensions of philosophy of science (positivism and social structuralism) and human philosophy (voluntarism and determinism). These strategies are social surveys, case studies, operational research and grounded research. Studying the research projects conducted based on these methods help researchers understand better the process of qualitative research.

To study the phenomena related to organization and management problems, researcher chooses a method for research. In the recent decades, quantitative approach has dominated research in management. But, there is no doubt that all phenomena related to organization and management, especially those which involved human behavior, cannot be objectively observed. Also, the manipulation of unwanted variables involving in these phenomena is a difficult task. Therefore, researchers have resorted to qualitative research. This article seeks to explain the importance of qualitative research in organizational and managerial problems. However, it also reviews the main features of other methods of research.

This article studies "Grounded Theory" as one of the methods of qualitative research which allows the researcher to explore the concepts directly from the facts by relying upon a heuristic and inductive approach and to develop a theory himself. It first discusses the philosophical foundations of research from positivism to interpretationism and then drawing upon the assumptions of the new paradigm and realizing that most of the existing organizational theories have not adequate for solving the organizational problems of Iranian organizations, it elaborates on the methodology of grounded theory and its practical framework. It aims to channel organizational studies towards developing indigenous theories based on the lived experience of leaders and staff.

This article studies one of the major approaches in the method of qualitative research that is grounded theory according to which theory should not be emanated from the creative mind of researcher in a deductive manner as it is done in quantitative research, rather it should be extracted from data. In this article, the main concepts of this approach that are acquiring data, theoretical sensitivity, theoretical sampling and saturation are fully discussed. Also, the manner in which a theory is developed has been described. Finally, the author explains its differences with previous theories and provides criteria for recognizing a good theory according to the principles of grounded theory.

Sometimes, the researcher wants to study more deeply an individual, an event or a series of specific events Instead of asking questions such as "how people think about it?” (As prevalent in grounded research) or "if I do such a thing, what will happen?” (As done in empirical research), the researcher asks "how these people act?” or "how events happen?” or "how people are described?” To answer such questions, researchers use a number of research methods under the title of "qualitative research". This article explains necessary steps for conducting qualitative research. Those researches that study the quality of relations, activities, situations or cases are often classified as qualitative research. This kind of research is different from methods involved in quantitative research, and it is based on a comprehensive description, that is elaborating on all the happenings which occur during a specific activity or situation. There are various kinds of qualitative methods, but only a certain number of them are general and representative of qualitative research.