Download - HSRC Press

Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaFirst, we regard it as necessary to emphasize the intrinsic interwovenness of (i)the determinants of research decisions, and (ii) the steps of the decisionmakingprocess in a research project, a topic to which we alluded in theprevious section. The researcher’s specific beliefs regarding the domainphenomena and the best interpretation(s) of a particular phenomenon, andassumptions about what constitutes good research, will all play a determiningrole in the manner in which the research problem will be formulated, thechoice of techniques by means of which the central concepts of the theory areto be operationalized, and the manner in which data about phenomena orevents are to be collected.Secondly, we wish to emphasize that the model allows for different types ofresearch. In this model the formulation of problems could refer either to typicalempirical problems (for example, What is the relationship between intelligenceand scholastic performance?) or to typical conceptual problems (for example,What is the meaning of structural violence?). In the same manner,conceptualization and operationalization could refer to the situation whereclearly articulated theories and models are employed as the framework forresearch. Similarly, the concepts could be employed to refer to a situationwhere the conceptualization is done in a qualitative manner during the courseof the research, with the primary aim of determining the concepts of the actorswithin their social context. It is also possible to demonstrate that data collectionneed not necessarily only refer to the processes involved in collating data in aquantitative manner, but could as readily refer to information derived fromhistorical documents, biographies, in-depth interviews, and so on. One couldgo even further and demonstrate that this view would hold for that type ofevidence which is generated in the process of conceptual analysis. We shall,however, discuss this problem in more detail in subsequent chapters.SUMMARYThe first aim in this chapter was to clarify the concept social sciences research.In terms of the definition of social sciences research which is used in this book,five dimensions are distinguished. These are the sociological, ontological,ideological, epistemological and methodological dimensions. The fact that weallude to five dimensions of social sciences research is already an indicationthat these five aspects are conceptually linked. For this reason, we havestressed that these dimensions are mutually determined. When we, therefore,turn our attention to the context of the research process as, for example, in themodel of the practice of social sciences research in the previous section, theinterdependence of the various dimensions is implied throughout.The primary goal in the formulation of the model was to draw attention to thefact that a variety of perspectives on research exist. On the one hand, one mayemphasize the fact that research is always conducted within the25