Page 120 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

simply be tested by direct observation. The ultimate aim is to find general laws and causal statements about social phenomena. This implies that objectivity is possible. Positivists usually use quantitative methods as research tools, as these are objective and the results are generalisable and replicable (Osborne, 2010; Davies & Hughes, 2014). In positivistic research, “objective” facts are sought through the use of methodology, which keeps the researcher out of the frame because of the fear of contaminating the outcome. AR recognizes that by doing so the reality is being distorted because it is not possible to exclude oneself from the field of inquiry.
The opposite position is taken by interpretists (Bernstein, 2015; Midgley, 2011). For them it is not possible to make objective statements about the real world because there is no such thing accepted as a real world, since it is constructed socially and discursively. The ontological position here is clearly anti-objectivist. Because the world is only socially constructed, it is not possible to examine social phenomena by sheer observation, as they do not exist independently of interpretation and every observation concomitantly affects what we observe. Of course, interpretists researchers also operate within discourses or traditions. Consequently, knowledge is theoretically or discursively laden. Again, the problem of the double hermeneutic should be taken into consideration here. Suiting the claims of not possible objectivity, interpretists usually employ qualitative research methods. Unlike positivists, they look to understand social behaviour rather than explain it and focus on its meaning.
When testing hypotheses of the current research, predominantly a method from the positivist angle is used. The quantitative method that relies on quantitative data with the possibility of statistical or mathematical processing is used for the research. A reasonable degree of reliability and validity can be awarded to the researched outcome. However, not all the questions are suitable for the application of a quantitative approach. The phenomenological or qualitative research does not rely on statistical processing of data, but the empathetic understanding of phenomena and concepts by the researcher. The phenomenological approach recognizes that there is a shortage of the quality of the results obtained by the lesser validity and reliability, more generated by the interpretation of the data and firmly grounded in the arguments of the researcher.
The analysis of the phenomena that arise, poses a certain degree of subjectivity. Qualitative research is largely used to develop hypotheses through which theory is developed step-by-step. As discussed by Gall, Gall and Borg (2003), the quantitative paradigm stands for the objective reality of facts and for the primacy of the chosen method. The researcher takes an exclusive outsider’s point of view. As for the research
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