Choosing research methodologies appropriate to your research focus

Bradley, J.R.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/620 Copy

Description

Title

Choosing research methodologies appropriate to your research focus

Author(s)

Bradley, J.R.

Issue Date

1992

Keyword(s)

• Library science --Research
• Methodology

Abstract

This paper considers the generic activities involved in research and some issues that underlie whatever specific methodologies the investigator selects. A general definition of research (or empirical inquiry as it is generally termed in the paper), broad enough to encompass multiple research traditions and methodologies, is developed: systematic connection of observation of the empirical world with abstraction about the empirical world in ways that consciously seek to identify and control for bias and thus provide the most complete view that is relevant to the purposes and focus of the inquiry. Five activities necessary in the process of empirical inquiry are discussed: (a) finding a focus, (b) describing the problem to be investigated, (c) selecting the phenomena in the empirical world to observe, (d) observing the phenomena, and (e) analyzing and interpreting the observations. Each activity is described, major issues are considered, and, where appropriate, alternative approaches represented by deductive and inductive research traditions are presented.

Publisher

Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Series/Report Name or Number

Allerton Park Institute (33rd : 1991)

ISSN

0536-4604

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/620

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