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CHAPTER 4RESEARCH DESIGN:DATA COLLECTIONFree download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaINTRODUCTIONThe distinctive nature of the research domain of the social sciences poses thegreatest challenges to the methodological ingenuity of the researcher. The factthat human beings are being investigated in the social sciences createsproblems not encountered in the physical sciences. We concentrate on threeimportant characteristics of human beings as being relevant to the topic of thischapter, that is, the fact that they are rational, historical, and normative beings.Rationality refers to the fact that human beings possess the ability to reasonabout their existence; the ability to make reasoned and free decisions thatdetermine their future. Rationality does not only imply awareness, but, moreimportantly, also self-awareness. One may, in terms of ethnomethodologicaltheory, state that human beings are capable of defining their situatedness in theworld. Human beings do not only react to stimuli — they interpret, define, andbehave proactively.The fact that human beings are rational beings also accounts for theirhistoricity. That human beings are capable of creative and culture-forming acts,is the direct cause of human history. Human beings create their own history butthey are, simultaneously, the products of history. The fact of historicity notonly means that human beings have a past, present, and future, but also75