Reflective Friend Research: The Relational Aspects of Social Scientific Research

Abstract

The starting point for this chapter is that the historically dominant research paradigm in the social sciences, Positivism, is based on a misunderstanding and an oversimplification of methodological principles and that social scientific research, if it is to be fully ‘social’, requires a more reflective and reflexive paradigm. Positivist research methodology has privileged experimental, quasi-experimental and quasi-clinical methods, structured, quantified measurement and assessment instruments (e.g. questionnaires, interviews, observation schedules), randomised controlled trials and ‘what works’ evaluation criteria (Farrington 2003 for a critique see Haines and Case 2014; Hope 2009; Sherman 2009) as the gold standard of methodolog- ical excellence. Moreover, these various methods are deployed — in fullest expression of the gold standard — in a cloak of quasi-clinical rationality and independence of the researcher from the individuals and organisations being researched. This quality of ‘independence’ (free from researcher bias) is at the core of the argument for the validity of Positivist research. The result, it is claimed, is the production of ostensibly ‘generalisable’, ‘reliable’ and (experimentally) ‘valid’ conclusions regarding the causes and predictors of human behaviour and ‘effective’ and ‘evidence-based’ responses to it — free from human ‘interference’. Our position is that the requirement for researchers to be independent — and the methods utilised in the service of this objective — has, in reality, offered at best restricted and partial explanations and, at worst, invalid knowledge and understandings of people’s lives and experiences.