An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

Pentecostal churches and even some seemingly forbidden communities.The method chosen for this research draws on the qualitative model of interviews andparticipant observation used in that North American tradition. Qualitative researchattempts to gain interpretative understanding of the psychological and social more than themeasurement techniques of quantitative research. According to Denzin (1989:37) „Theconceptual diversity of qualitative (naturalistic) enquiry and analysis has led many to takea sceptical, if not irreverent view of the naturalistic approach, viewing it as soft science orjournalistic.‟Ethnography, as a qualitative or soft science research method, attempts to study humanbeings in their natural environment. Supporters of hard science and quantitative researchregard ethnography as vague and unscientific. There is also criticism of ethnographicresearch amongst social scientists. They claim that „ethnography cannot produceuniversally valid knowledge by accurately capturing or representing the nature of the socialworld‟ (Brewer 2000:24) However, researching the behaviour of human beings in their„natural‟ environment by observing their participation in activities that are natural to themand seeking their views on those behaviour in a (structured and organized) systematic wayis intended to add to the field of knowledge especially where there is very littledocumentary evidence of such research. The soft science research which usesphenomenology, ethnographic and the “grounded theory” approach (Glaser and Strauss1967, Sheldon 1998) to designing the study and analyzing data, is used by many socialscientists and is especially being developed in the fields of nursing and other health careprofessions. The data collection methods used here engaged the researcher in observing thepopulation of church attendees in their „natural environment‟.69