Selecting a methodology
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Presentation Transcript
Selecting a methodology Rachel H. Ellaway Community Health SciencesOffice of Health and Medical Education Scholarship
The process of empiricism • Observe the world and identify phenomena for study • Describe phenomena in increasing breadth and depth • Identify relationships and differences within and between phenomena • Build models, develop theories and test them, break them, improve them • Iteratively refine models and theories to: • Explain the underlying structure/function of the phenomena • Predict how these phenomena will behave
Methods and methodology • Methodology: “the research design or plan that shapes the methods to be used in the study. The methodology provides a rationale for the choice of methods used in a study” Illing 2010 • Methods: “the techniques used for data collection” questions methodology methods • Illing J. Thinking about research: frameworks, ethics and scholarship. In Swanwick(Ed). Understanding medical education: evidence, theory and practice. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell: 2010.
Developing a methodology • Methodology: • Needs to be able to answer research/study questions • Should be grounded in theory and in ontological and epistemological paradigms • Practical questions • What kinds of data do you need? • How will you analyze them? • What is practical, allowable, parsimonious? • What methodologies have others used? • Do your skills and resources align with methodology?
Dimensions of methodology • Overall strategy • Problems • Hypotheses • Questions • Conceptual grounding • Data collection methods • Data analysis methods • Synthesis methods • Reporting
Methodological implications • Ontological • Exists • What kind of thing • Epistemological • What can we know • How can we know • Axiological • Beliefs and values
QQ Wars • Quantitative • How much? • Qualitative • How well? • Multiple - parallel • Mixed - integrated • Many paradigms and stances … Creswell, J (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage.
Choosing between methodologies • Creswell’s ‘among 5’ qualitative methodologies: • Grounded theory • Ethnography • Phenomenology • Case study • Narrative research • Creswell J. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. 3rd ed. SAGE.
Paradigm vs pragmatic • Adopt/align established • Strengths • Weaknesses • Pragmatically borrow/adapt • Strengths • Weaknesses
From methodologies to methods • Alignment • Logical top down and bottom up • See the separate presentation on methods
Summary • Your methodology is your overall inquiry strategy • Select methods within a methodological frame • Many methodological positions • Each with strengths, weaknesses, implications
