Methodological Pluralism Research Articles

МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНІ ОСНОВИ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ДУХОВНОГО ПОТЕНЦІАЛУ ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНИХ ГРОМАД: ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЯ

Economic instability, increasing social problems, uncertainty of economic guidelines for the development of Ukraine indicate the need to review the problems and prospects for the development of economic science and practice. The purpose of the article is to determine the content of the main terms in the study of the spiritual potential of territorial communities. The main hypothesis of the study was the assumption that clarifying the essence and content of the terminology of the subject area of the study will provide constructive discussions regarding the definition of the main problems and prospects for its development. Presenting main material. The loss of controllability of the development of the spiritual potential of territorial communities requires a review of the technologies of its research based on methodological pluralism, focused on determining the possibilities of transforming an economy focused on the production of goods into an economy of expanded reproduction of potential human abilities to respond to the increase in non-traditional situations in life. Originality and practical significance of the research. The effectiveness of such a reaction depends on the managers' ability to diagnose the spiritual potential of subordinates, activate their desire to generate unique ideas for overcoming crises. Conclusions and prospects for further research. The effectiveness of using the spiritual potential of territorial communities depends on the constructive dialogue of the parties interested in its development. The initial stage of the dialogue should be to agree on the essence and content of the main terms. In further research, it is necessary to focus attention on the definition of such methodological constructions as a detailed analysis of unique situations, culturodigm, diagnostic technology of personal and collective spiritual potentials of members of the territorial community.

Metamodernism and Social Sciences: Scoping the Future

At this moment, humanity is confronting several global metacrises that demand a new image of science to deal with the complex problems associated with these crises. In addition to natural sciences and humanities, social sciences can become an equally efficient resource for use in this transformation if they succeed in constructing new frameworks congruent with the new reality. The purpose of this theoretical paper in the discourse of philosophy of science is to discern the features of the social sciences within a new paradigm of metamodernism. For the first time, the authors elaborate on the new principles of metamodernist philosophy and apply them to the ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology of the social sciences. The set of six transversal principles comprises the ontological principle of paradoxical simultaneity, caused by oscillation, epistemological principles of paradoxical understanding of truth and grand narratives, as well as metaxis-based thinking and dia/polylogue, axiological negotiation between rhizomatic and hierarchical social relations and values, and methodological pluralism. The last principle showcases the coexistence and interlinkage of previous stages of metamodernism. The application of these principles to the social sciences was designed from the perspectives of a specific discipline, inter/transdisciplinarity, and instrumental level of social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of additional avenues for the development of metamodernism in the social sciences.

The Third Site: Blending Polyphonic Methodology and Epistemology

This article discusses how art and academia can intervene in what the authors call the third site. The authors’ common ground lies in an interest in artistic encounters between people where art and academia bring new discoveries on both the personal and the professional level. The core of this article is the lecture performance in which the authors explore boundaries of the personal, academia and art. By using artistic, art-based, and scientific approaches, they explore how established positions in art and academia can blend polyphonic methodology and epistemology. In their performative writing they use this artistic competence as their starting point, using performativity as an active event that produces representations of lived lives, the production of existential empiricism. Their endeavour is to illuminate value-related and new questions through art making and establish an epistemological and methodological basis for working with art and academia. The authors believe that the blurring of borders between art and academia contributes to epistemological and methodological pluralism.
 Through artistic experiences, academia becomes vital and varied, creating a diversity of ways in which knowledge and the meaning of life can be represented.

Pluralism in the Cognitive Sciences: Theoretical, Methodological or Explanatory?

The article considers the opposition of the doctrines of pluralism and monism and their related principles of proliferation and unification in the context of the development of modern cognitive sciences in three important respects for philosophy of science: theoretical, methodological, and explanatory. The article criticizes T. Kuhn’s views of theoretical monism and extends the defense of theoretical pluralism undertaken in author’s previous publications devoted to the conception of theoretical complexes, aimed at the correct description of large groups of theories in the cognitive sciences, such as connectionism, moderate embodied cognition, etc. Pluralism is also defended in methodological dimension. Theoretical pluralism and methodological pluralism are represented as an inevitable consequence of the conception of theoretical complexes and its principle of proliferation calling for the creation/improvement of scientific theories and models which are both compatible and incompatible with respect to a number of basic ontological and methodological assumptions. Theoretical pluralism and methodological pluralism should promote progress with respect to a number of the so-called epistemic qualities, both associated with the approximation of the truth (e.g. predictive success, the ability to give unexpected explanations to known facts, etc.) and not so associated (empirical fit, simplicity according to some interpretations, and the broad scope of the proposed explanations). At the same time the author claims that it is currently not possible to draw a similar conclusion in relation to the explanatory context: if the strategy of explanatory monism or explanatory pluralism will turn out be the preferred strategy for the cognitive sciences should become clear in the course of further research.

Conceptual framework of analyzing development of threats to a social-economic system “city"

There is expediency of building a conceptual framework of analyzing development of threats to a social-economic system “City" justified in the article. Such conceptual framework is considered a system of axioms, principles and concepts that are used to analyze the development of threats. The mentioned system covers cognitive, hermeneutical and methodological functions of mesolevel economical security studies. Constructs of the conceptual framework of analyzing development of threats to the social-economic system “City" are the system of logical statements. Operationalization of such statements allows to define threats to the social-economical system “City”, evaluate their character, scope and sources, analyze development of threats and forecast consequences of their implementation. Constructs of the conceptual framework are built by implementation of imperatives of protective and harmonization approaches and post neoclassic ontological principles, the main of which is methodological pluralism. The content and specific features of the considered constructs as a part of the conceptual framework of analyzing development of threats to a social-economic system “City" are considered in the article. Research thesaurus is improved by specifying content of notions “threat to the social-economic system “City”, “danger”, “risk”, “economic interest”. Characteristics of considered constructs and boundaries of their employment are defined. Connection measure for the considered constructs by the possibility of negative changes in the social-economic system “City” is shown. Operationalization of considered constructs as a part of the conceptual framework of analyzing development of threats to the social-economic system “City" will allow making the necessary tools to identify processes and phenomena in the external and internal environment of the social-economic system “City” as threats to such system and to analyze any particular threat and/or sets of such a threats.

Pragmatism, skepticism, and over-compatibilism: on Michael Hannon’s What’s the Point of Knowledge?

ABSTRACT Function-first approaches illuminate phenomena by investigating their functional roles. I first describe virtues of this approach. By foregrounding normal instances of knowledge, for example, function-first theorising offers a much-needed corrective to epistemology's counterexample-driven momentum towards increasingly byzantine, marginal cases. And epistemic practices are shaped by human limitations, needs, vices, and power relations. These non-ideal, naturalistic forces of embodied sociality form the roots of function-first theorising, which creates a fecund foundation for social epistemology. Secondly, I consider an objection to function-first theorising. The objection holds that function-first approaches lack adjudicatory power. That is, function-first proposals are overly compatible with diverse claims about knowledge, which encourages “just so” speculation. In response to this concern, I advocate methodological pluralism in epistemological theorising. All methods have limitations; researchers must be mindful of those limits and fruitfully combine multiple methods. I illustrate with Hannon's function-first based arguments for “epistemic pragmatism”, which denies that the meaning of “knows” is determined by truth conditions. Finally, I argue that function-first theorising motivates staunch anti-skepticism about knowledge. Practical forces cannot chisel a sharp threshold for how much evidence is required for knowledge. But thinking this supports radical skepticism about knowledge conflates fuzzy thresholds and high ones.

The Value of Methodological Pluralism in the Study of Locke on Slavery and Absolutism

This article offers a rejoinder to Felix Waldmann. In a critical note published in Locke Studies, Waldmann challenges our recent reconstruction of Locke’s thesis, developed across the Second Treatise of Government, that humans cannot possibly agree to subject themselves to absolute rule. Call this thesis No Contractual Absolutism. Our reconstruction, Waldmann objects, “neglects a basic datum of scholarship”: i.e., that Locke’s Second Treatise intended to counter Filmer’s political theory. Our reply is two-pronged. First, we argue that No Contractual Absolutism cannot plausibly be construed as an attack on Filmer, since it challenges a thesis that he did not hold. Indeed, as for him no form of government can be contractual in origin, Filmer would have agreed with Locke that absolute rule cannot be instituted by agreement. As our initial article suggested, the standard view about whom the polemical target is of the Second Treatise requires qualification with respect to No Contractual Absolutism. Second, we contend that Waldmann’s concerns rest on discipline-specific methodological assumptions, which are unhelpful for the kind of analytical reconstruction we advanced. We conclude with a plea for methodological pluralism in the study of Locke’s thought.

Paradigm, specialty, pragmatism: Kuhn's legacy to methodological pluralism

AbstractAlongside claims that ‘the methodological pluralism debate has been won’, worries grow just why the victory is not shared by the wider social sciences and applied disciplines. Remedies are sought but mainly tinkering on presentation tactics. Against this status quo, this article argues for a critical reflection on theoretic approaches to methodological pluralism. Seemingly convenient for legitimating diverse methodologies though, the Paradigm root metaphor has from the very beginning trapped methodological pluralism theorising in a no‐win battle. Drawing on Kuhn's later perspective of scientific change as ‘proliferation of specialties’, this article posits that the enhanced evolutionist metaphor fits better with methodological pluralism by depicting the increasing variety of methodologies as deepened division of labour and combined‐use of methodologies as enlarging human competence. In Kuhn's spirit, this article calls for a strongly pluralist, responsive approach, not so much in flexibly ‘managing paradigms’ or ‘living with incommensurability’ as in reflexively deliberating the comparative advantages of adopting different theoretic approaches in terms of efficacy in facilitating compelling theorising and sharing ideas with practitioners.

Considering Comparison: A Method for Religious Studies

Considering Comparison: A Method for Religious Studies

Критическое мышление в образовании: вопрос метода трансляции знания

The study of critical thinking is carried out through the prism of the program “Logic and Critical Thinking”. The search for methodological foundations of modern pedagogy is undertaken through an appeal to the tradition of postmodernism. Among the postmodern ideas, the idea of “experience” stands out in all its diversity, which takes place in the learning process. The variability of experience authorizes the rejection of intellectual pressure and the possibility of methodological pluralism in the choice of teaching methods and approaches. Anti-pedagogy, postmodernly oriented in its theory and practice on the principles of “experiential learning”, contains grounds for the development of a problem-oriented method, considered as a trigger mechanism in the cognitive process aimed at the formation of critical thinking skills. The effective practice of implementing the problem approach in the development of intellectual, linguistic, logical dispositions of the personality of students and their transformation into a research community is shown. The conclusion is made about the priority of the problem-oriented method in teaching the art of thinking critically.

Development and evaluation of interventions in social work practice research

ABSTRACT Methodological pluralism is required in social work practice research to enable researchers to answer diverse practice-based questions. This is particularly the case for developing and evaluating interventions for use by social workers in multiple contexts. This paper illustrates the multiple methods required to develop and evaluate social interventions, using the example of Connecting People. The intervention model was developed from an ethnography of social work practice and piloted in a quasi-experimental study. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were used alongside a further quasi-experimental study to examine its implementation in one particular practice setting. A randomised controlled trial is currently underway to evaluate the effectiveness of the model in another country. Practice researchers need to develop expertise in multiple methods to respond flexibly to the demands of intervention development and evaluation in social work practice research.

Examining the use of methodological pluralism in Library and Information Science empirical research produced by Pakistani authors

Methodological pluralism or plurality is considered as the employment of more than one method in an inquiry. Methodological pluralism can be categorised into mixed methods and multi-method. The current study explored the use of methodological pluralism in Library and Information Science (LIS) research produced by Pakistani authors. Qualitative content analysis was used to explore latent and manifest use of methodologies in research articles authored by Pakistani published between 2001 and 2016 in national and international journals. Multiple searching strategies were used to identify the articles published in international journals. Findings show that high majority of Pakistani authors did not use the terms mixed methods and multi-method in the description of methodology. Nearly one third (30%) research articles used more than one method. The share of multi-method research (16%) is slightly higher than mixed methods research (14%). In multi-methods articles, combining of quantitative methods was less prevalent as compared to qualitative methods. Multi-method quantitative was used in only six articles. In case of multi-method qualitative design, interviews, personal communication and discussion with experts, literature review and content analysis are the most popular methods. In mixed methods research, interview and questionnaire are the most used methods. Growth in methodological pluralism is half than growth of articles with single method. Knowing and elaboration of the differentiation in mixed methods and multi-method can help in the education and use of methodological pluralism among LIS researchers. Authors should use and explore methodological plurality by treating multi-method designs as separate from mixed method designs.

Public criticism

ABSTRACT This essay presents public criticism as one answer to the question of why literary criticism has value in the twenty-first century. Reframing criticism in terms of its multiple functions, the essay moves beyond the critique-postcritique binary. It advocates for functional and methodological pluralism as crucial to the discipline’s vitality. It addresses the public functions of story, criticism, and critic. Public criticism draws out and conveys the cognitive and collective value of stories, deploying the most appropriate disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods to show how stories can provide multiple points of view, enable understanding of collective identities, function as narrative models enabling surrogative reasoning about target systems, and play a key public role in anticipations of the future, as narrative futures methods. Public criticism expands the available public roles for the critic, adapting Roger A. Pielke Jr’s framework to demonstrate how literary critics can function as humanities arbiters and honest brokers, as well as issue advocates, in the structures and institutions of public reasoning. Public criticism requires transparency about the methodological rigour of the discipline, and more prevalent practices of collaboration and knowledge synthesis. Overall, the essay provides an implementable framework for how stories, criticism and critic can inform public reasoning.

Social investment as a conceptual framework for analysing well-being returns and reforms in 21st century welfare states

AbstractWelfare provision is often conceived through the lens of decommodification and analysed in (re)distributive terms. This article argues that a distributive approach does not sufficiently capture the complexity of 21st century welfare state dynamics. It proposes re-conceptualizing provision as a mix of three policy functions: raising and maintaining human capital stock; easing the flow of gendered life-course and labour-market transitions; guaranteeing social safety-net buffers. This analytical perspective allows theorizing life-course multiplier effects and policy (non-)complementarities, both at the level of individual objective and subjective well-being and in terms of aggregate employment, poverty and fiscal sustainability. This perspective also enables us to extend the temporal horizon of welfare politics beyond short-term electoral logics for explaining welfare reform. The article underscores how methodological pluralism remains key for understanding contemporary welfare states, and for grasping welfare outcomes and institutional change in a research endeavour that involves both generalization and contextualization.

Construction Robotics and Human–Robot Teams Research Methods

Though studies in construction robotics and human–robot teams research have explored varying themes, an in-depth study of the state-of-the-art of methodological paradigms appropriate for construction robotics research is hitherto lacking, taking into consideration that several studies have highlighted conflicting methodological components such as research design, methods, data sources, data types and analytical techniques. To better understand this underexplored area, this study uses a four-stage review approach utilising a scientometric and systematic analysis method based on 112 articles. Using statistical analysis to evaluate the relationship between research components, the study reveals strong associations between components of research methods, data sources and analytical techniques. Researchers are also increasingly looking to mixed paradigms in data sources and designs, highlighting a methodological plurality in construction robotics research. Implications on what this means for the future of construction robotics, policy and stakeholders are discussed in the study.

Fifty years of capacity building: Taking stock and moving research forward1

AbstractThis paper assesses the literature on “capacity building” through a systematic literature review. Taking concepts as the ontological building blocks of theories, we ask: what is known about the evolution of capacity building as a concept and what can that history tell us about its strengths and weaknesses? To this end, we dig into the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of capacity building. Through this Foucauldian “archaeological description”, we show that capacity building discourse has evolved dialectically, with each new concept emerging to address the failings of earlier concepts. The paper suggests the “new pragmatism” as a theoretical framework to guide a more rigorous and relevant theory and practice of capacity building especially for public administration. Rooted in sensitivity to context and methodological pluralism, the new pragmatism embraces complexity, delivers “best‐fit” rather than “best practice” solutions, and involves researchers and practitioners in decolonial knowledge co‐creation to tackle capacity building challenges.

The meaning of scientific objectivity and subjectivity: From the perspective of methodologists.

Given the challenges to the notion of objectivity posed by social psychological research on investigator effects, constructivist and critical epistemological perspectives, and the introduction of qualitative research methods in psychology, the investigators examined how leading methodologists understand the function of objectivity and subjectivity in psychological science. The aim of the study was to learn how contemporary methodologists view these issues so as to communicate converging perspectives to the field and inform methods education. A brief historical review of the concept of objectivity in psychology is presented to contexualize this examination. Eleven accomplished methodologists with expertise in a range of methods and epistemological perspectives were interviewed. Findings from a grounded theory analysis demonstrated that all the participants expressed concern about the belief that science is unaffected by scientists' perspectives, believing researchers and educators should problematize this perspective. Recommendations from participants included that science be viewed as a value-laden endeavor in which scientists systematically conduct research from multiple epistemological perspectives, and/or utilize diverse methods tailored to address their questions. Scientific procedures were detailed that could curtail dangers of either unchecked subjectivity or a false sense of objectivity. A functional analysis of these constructs, objectivity and subjectivity, suggested they both serve a similar scientific and an ethical purpose-to prevent the premature foreclosure of possible understanding because of the expectations of researchers. The mainstreaming of disclosures about the perspectives and positions of investigators, as well as their management, and the implementation of epistemological and methodological pluralism are encouraged to support this ethic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Are we there yet? Mixed methods research in the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

Orientation: In 2015, a study was conducted to explore the prevalence of mixed methods research (MMR) in the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences (SAJEMS) between 2003 and 2011. This study builds upon that study to establish the extent to which the use of MMR has developed in SAJEMS.Research purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore and compare the levels of adoption of MMR in the present study to the one reported in the study of 2015.Motivation for the study: This study goes beyond the one of 2015 by exploring methodological transparency in the use of MMR by contributors to the Journal and answers the question: are we there yet?Research design, approach and method: The study analysed the methodology used by articles published in SAJEMS from 2012 to 2019. Content analysis was conducted on a total of 362 articles published in SAJEMS. Each of the nine articles identified as utilising MMR was analysed based on the indicators of use of MMR in the extant literature.Main findings: The findings show that studies neither stated the appropriateness of mixed methods nor specified the designs. Integration was done by a few articles in a limited way. The passing of 8 years has not brought about any difference in the results of the use of MMR in SAJEMS. The use of MMR remains underrepresented. It is evident that SAJEMS is not there yet.Practical/managerial implications: This article raises the need for methodological pluralism as an alternative to quantitative and qualitative methodologies.Contribution/value-add: Researchers are informed of the advantages of using MMR and incorporating the third methodological movement to obtain superior results.

Introducing the eventful temporality of historical research into international business

Historical research represents an alternative understanding of temporality that can contribute to greater methodological and theoretical plurality in international business (IB) research. Historians focus on the importance of events within their historical context and structure their accounts through periodisation, assume that the temporal distance between the past and present determines the temporal positionality of researchers, and seek to reconstruct past events through historical sources, which require critical interpretation. Historical research provides an alternative methodological approach to temporality, context, and distance with relevance to a range of IB theories.

Policing futures: transforming the evidence-based policing paradigm through interdisciplinarity and epistemological anarchism

ABSTRACT Evidence-based policing (EBP) has gained prominence in jurisdictions across the core anglosphere. Its paradigmatic approach to knowledge production, and the assessment and validation criteria for research designs and their outputs remains in contention. Concurrently, interdisciplinarity (ID) has proliferated in other areas of research and practice, yet EBP remains untouched by these global developments and it appears a neglected area of academic debate. In combination with limited uptake at institutional and practice levels, a troubled landscape, and predictions of an uncertain and extraordinarily complex future operating environment (FOE): the question arises whether the present EBP paradigm is sufficient to meet the challenges and implications for policing and police research. This conceptual paper makes an epistemic assessment of the paradigm and drawing on ID and epistemological anarchism (EA) it contributes a perspective on its theoretical and methodological innovation as a futures-focused endeavour. It concludes that if EBP is to be maximised as a knowledge enterprise in support of policing in the FOE, a broader epistemology is necessary, that embraces methodological pluralism, eschews epistemic monolithism and proactively applies ID and EA to research, policy and practice.