Alan Bryman

Social Research Methods

Chapter 2: Social research
strategies: quantitative research
and qualitative research

© Alan Bryman, 2016. All rights reserved.

 Student experience

A valuable feature of the text is the ‘Student experience’

boxes with links to the Online Resource Centre

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Theory and research

• What type of theory? page 18

- explanation of observed regularities
• Merton (1967)
– grand theories
• highly abstract
• Butler and Robinson (2001) – Bourdieu’s concept of social
capital – gentrification of areas of London
– middle range theories
• useful for empirical research - limited domain

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Theory and research

• Middle range theories

- unlike grand ones, operate in a limited domain;
whether it is juvenile delinquency, racial prejudice,
educational attainment or ethnic relations
• Conflict and contact theory: These theories are about the effects of
ethnic diversity on the quality of inter-group relations.
- they offer contrasting theories (see Hughes et al. 2011; Sturgis et al.
2014)
• Cohen(2010)
- postal questionnaire survey of hairstylist’s relationship with their
clients

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Empiricism

- Philosophical approach to theorising

- Only knowledge gained through sensory
experiences is acceptable
- Rigorous scientific testing of theories
- Positivist epistemology
- Accumulation of ‘facts’ as data
- Naïve empiricism?
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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Empiricism

• McKeganey and Barnard (1996)

- research on prostitutes and their clients

• Goffman (1963) - notion of ‘stigma’

• Hochschild (1983)
- concept of ‘emotional labour’
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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Deductive and inductive theory

• Deductivism:
– theory --> data
– explicit hypothesis to be confirmed or rejected
– quantitative research

• Inductivism:
– data --> theory
– generalizable inferences from observations
– qualitative research /grounded theory

Pages 21
and 22

Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Deductive and inductive theory

Fig.2.1 Page 21

Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Deductive and inductive theory

Fig.2.2 Page 23

Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Deductive and inductive theory

• Deductive: Roder and Muhlau (2014)

- When migrants move from a country in which
egalitarian attitudes are weak to one where they
are strong
• Inductive: O’Reilly et al. (2012)
- A study of interactions between customers
and front-line employees

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Epistemological considerations

• What is (or should be) considered acceptable

knowledge?
• Can the social world be studied ‘scientifically’?
• Is it appropriate to apply the methods of the natural
sciences to social science research?
• Positivist and interpretivist epistemologies

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Positivist epistemology

• Application of natural science methods to

social science research
• Phenomenalism: knowledge via the senses
• Deductivism: theory testing
• Inductivism: theory building
• Objective, value-free researcher
• Distinction between scientific and normative
statements
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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Realist epistemology

• Similarities to positivism:
- natural science methods appropriate
- external reality exists independently of our perceptions

• Empirical (naïve?) realism

- close correspondence between reality and terms used
to describe it
- direct knowledge of the social world

• Critical realism
- theoretical terms mediate our knowledge of reality
- underlying structures generate observable events
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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Interpretivist epistemology

• Subject matter of the social sciences (people) demands non-

positivist methods
• Positivism vs hermeneutics (Von Wright 1971)
- concerned with the theory and method of the interpretation
of human action
• Hermeneutic-phenomenological tradition
• Verstehen: interpretative understanding of social action
(Weber 1947)
• Attempts to see world from the actor’s perspective: subjective
reality (Bogdan and Taylor 1975)
• Influenced by symbolic interactionism

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Ontological considerations

• Social ontology: the nature of social entities

• What kind of objects exist in the social world?
• Do social entities exist independently of our
perceptions of them?
• Is social reality external to social actors or
constructed by them?

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Objectivist ontology

• Social phenomena confront us as external facts

• Individuals are born into a pre-existing social world

• Social forces and rules exert pressure on actors to

conform

• e.g. culture exists independently of social actors

who are socialized into its values

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Constructionist ontology

• Social phenomena and their meanings are

constructed by social actors
• Continually accomplished and revised
• Researchers’ accounts of events are also
constructions - many alternative interpretations
• e.g. Strauss et al (1973) negotiated order in a
psychiatric hospital
• Language and representation shape our
perceptions of reality

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Research strategy:
quantitative and qualitative

• Useful way of classifying methods of social research

• Two distinctive clusters of research strategies: quantitative

and qualitative

• These strategies differ in terms of their:

– general orientation to social research
– epistemological foundations
– ontological basis

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Quantitative research

• Measurement of social variables

• Common research designs: surveys and experiments

• Numerical and statistical data

• Deductive theory testing

• Positivist epistemology

• Objectivist view of reality as external to social actors

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Quantitative research

Table 2.1 Page 32

Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Qualitative research

• Understanding the subjective meanings held by actors

(interpretivist epistemology)

• Common methods: interviews, ethnography

• Data are words, texts and stories

• Inductive approach: theory emerges from data

• Social constructionist ontology

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Mixed methods research

• Both quantitative and qualitative research

• Poortinga et al (2004)
- Foot and Mouth Disease – public trust of
government and perceived associated risks

• Beck (1992)
- Notion of the ‘risk society’

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Influences on the conduct of social
research
• Values
– personal beliefs or the feelings of researcher
– all ‘preconceptions must be eradicated’ (Durkheim 1938)
– affect every stage of research process
– some advocate value-laden research:
• Becker (1967) sympathy with ‘underdog’ groups
• feminist research encourages reciprocity
(Oakley 1981) and
‘conscious partiality’ (Mies 1993)

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Influences on the conduct of social
research

Fig.2.3 Page 34

Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition

 Influences on the conduct of
research
• Practical considerations
– time
– cost/funding available
– how much prior literature exists (theory testing or
theory building?)
– topic (deviant activities/sensitive issues may be more
suited to qualitative research)
– all social research is a compromise between the ideal
and the feasible

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Bryman: Social Research Methods, 5th edition