Research Philosophies Approaches Positivism Positivism adheres to the

Research Philosophies & Approaches

Positivism • Positivism adheres to the view that only factual knowledge gained through observation is trustworthy • The role of a researcher using a positivist philosophy is to collect data and interpret the data in an objective way. • Typically uses a deductive approach for research.

Positivism • Advantages • Good for generalizing – able to generalise findings after replication on multiple populations • Quantitative Approach – seen as a more reliable approach and can be used to make scientific assumptions • Disadvantages • Human Behaviour – the positivist philosophy states that human emotion should be disregarded during research, this however cannot be guaranteed during all studies.

Example of positivist philosophy. • Positivism is based on the view that whatever exists can be verified through various experiments or observation. • Verifies whether something is true, false or meaningless • Example - Verifying the number of mobile phones in the world

Phenomenology; • Phenomenology is most closed associated with the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859 -1938) • Phenomenology is the "study of structures of consciousness experienced from a first-person point-of-view. " [4] • Phenomenology in basic terms is the study of human experience and how things present themselves to us in and through such experience. [5] • Phenomenologists seek to describe and feel real-world experience meaning this goal sets it apart from more casual / positivist approaches to social research

Real world example of phenomenology • Phenomenology is essentially reflecting on or attempting to uncover the primal meanings of something. • This would mean that, reading a story, having a talk with someone, sending an email, listening to music, is all part of phenomenology because it is based around human experience.

Pros and Cons of Phenomenological Research • Pros: Unique perspectives through how people perceive an event or phenomena. It can provide a profound, detailed understanding of a single phenomenon. • Cons: Subjectivity, everyone has differentiating opinions and descriptions of phenomena. Presenting findings of phenomenological research is hard because it is all based through human experience rather than scientific gathering.

Deductive • What is this research method? • Usually grouped with other research methods. • The sequence typically is as followed; • Pitfalls;

Real-world Example of deductive research and how they used it. • Dr Chatterjee and her team evaluated how mobile healthcare can benefit overall public health by incorporating IT solutions to help diagnose, treat and communicate findings while simultaneously on the move. • Using the deductive approach they were able to rigorously evaluate mainstream processes and revise a theoretical model which presents a consolidated view of available literature in the particular area of transportable healthcare. [3]

Inductive • Warwick. ac. uk states that the inductive research method "is the process by which we draw a general conclusion from individual instances or observations" (2) The inductive research approach is used when there is very little existing literature on the topic, it is very common to perform inductive research because there is no theory to test. • There are three stages to the inductive approach • Observation • Pattern Recognition • Developing theory

Inductive • Advantages • Inductive research gives you a starting point to begin your research • Fuels Further Exploration • Disadvantages • Limited in scope and inaccurate inferences

Real-world Example of Inductive and how they used it • One real world example in which the inductive research method is used is during the marketing that the companies use such as Facebook and twitter. This is where the organisation will make specific observations about the consumers in each marketplace using the quantitative data that they have. This will then allow them to be able to see what the people might look at and can then tailor the advertisements to them.

Bibliography • [1] Disadvantages & advantages of the deductive approach, IPI. org, Published; 21/02/2014, Accessed; 06/10/2020 https: //www. ipl. org/essay/Disadvantages-Of-Deductive-Approach. FJT 9 ZNNNSG • [2] inductive or deductive approaches [Internet]. Warwick. ac. uk. 2020 [cited 6 October 2020]. Available from: https: //warwick. ac. uk/fac/soc/ces/research/current/socialtheory/maps /when • [3] Examining the success factors for mobile work in healthcare: A deductive study, Dr Sutirtha Chatterjee, 03/04/2009; Accessed; 06/10/2020 https: //www. sciencedirect. com/science/article/abs/pii/S 016792360800202 9