Test Bank + Answers | - Breaking Down The – Chapter 26

Chapter 26 - Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide

Test Bank

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 01

01) There is full agreement on the epistemological basis of the natural sciences.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 02

02) Which features of the natural science model does qualitative research frequently exhibit? Please select all that apply.

• Empiricist overtones. Although empiricism (see Key concept 2.3) is typically associated with quantitative research, many writers on qualitative research display an equal emphasis on the importance of direct contact with social reality as the springboard for any investigation. Thus, writers on qualitative research frequently stress the importance of direct experience of social set- tings and fashioning an understanding of social worlds via that contact. The very idea that theory is to be grounded in data (see Chapter 24) seems to constitute a manifesto for empiricism, and it is unsurprising, therefore, that some writers claim to detect ‘covert positivism’ in qualitative research. Another way in which empiricist overtones are revealed is in the suggestion that social reality must be studied from the vantage point of research participants but that the only way to gain access to their interpretations is through extended contact with them, implying that meaning is accessible to the senses of researchers. The empiricism of qualitative research is perhaps most notable in conversation analysis, which was examined in Chapter 22. This is an approach that takes precise transcriptions of talk as its starting point and applies rules of analysis to such data. The analyst is actively discouraged from engaging in speculations about intention or context that might derive from an appreciation of the ethno- graphic particulars of the social setting.
• A specific problem focus. As noted in Chapter 17, qualitative research can be employed to investigate quite specific, tightly defined research questions of the kind normally associated with a natural science model of the research process.
• Hypothesis- and theory-testing. Following on from the previous point, qualitative researchers typically dis- cuss hypothesis- and theory-testing in connection with hypotheses or theories generated in the course of conducting research, as in analytic induction or grounded theory. However, there is no obvious reason why this cannot occur in relation to previously specified hypotheses or theories. A. Scott’s (1994) ethnographic study of British workers under HRM, for example, was designed to test the theory that British management was operating according to a ‘new’ model of industrial relations, based on a unitaristic view of organizational life, where workers and man- agers are seen to have a similar interest in the success of the firm. Scott wanted to test whether workers and managers in his case study firms actually shared similar interests or if they still adhered to ideas based on an ‘old’ industrial relations model founded on adversarial relationships. In the event, the research showed a complex picture, concluding that ‘any cultural transformation of British management has only been partial, and the embrace of the “new IR” piecemeal’ (A. Scott 1994: 131).
• Realism. Realism (see Key concept 2.8) is one way in which the epistemological basis of the natural sciences has been construed. It has entered into the social sciences in a number of ways, but one of the most significant of these is Bhaskar’s (1989) notion of critical realism. This approach accepts neither a constructionist nor an objectivist ontology and instead takes the view that the ‘social world is reproduced and trans- formed in daily life’ (1989: 4). Social phenomena are produced by mechanisms that are real, but that are not directly accessible to observation and are discernible only through their effects. For critical realism the task of business research is to construct hypotheses about such mechanisms and to seek out their effects. Within business and management there is increasing interest in this ontological approach, which is undergoing something of an intellectual revitalization at the moment (Reed 1997). Critical realism has also become popular in marketing research because it offers an alternative to the predominantly positivist paradigm in marketing (Easton 2002). Fleetwood (2005) suggests that critical realism offers a more fruitful alternative to postmodernism (see Key concept 17.2) for organization and management studies because it over- comes the ambiguity associated with postmodernism, which stems from ‘ontological exaggeration’ of the role of language in determining reality. Critical realists occupy a middle position between positivism and post- modernism by claiming that an entity can exist independently of our knowledge of it, while also asserting that access to the social world is always mediated and thus subjective. Critical realists also believe in the notion of material entities that are said to be real if they have an effect on behaviour. In addition to the empirical domain of observable events, there is a real domain ‘in which generative mechanisms capable of producing patterns of events reside’ (Tsang and Kwan 1999: 762). Fleetwood concludes: ‘As many postmodernists come to realize that critical realism is absolutely opposed to the empirical or naïve realism of positivism, they have begun to realize that there may be some common ground between themselves and critical realists’ (2005: 217). An example of the application of a critical realist perspective is provided by Research in focus 26.1. Porter’s (1993) critical realist ethnography is also interesting in this connection (see Research in focus 26.2), because it demonstrates the use of ethnography in connection with an epistemological position that derives from the natural sciences. It also relates to the previous point in providing an illustration of hypothesis-testing qualitative research.

a. Empiricist overtones

b. A specific problem focus

c. Realism

d. Subjective experience

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 03

03) In discussing research approaches, the term “positivist” can sometimes be used in a polemical way

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 04

04) Only qualitative research can focus upon the study of meaning and seeing the world through the eyes of the people studied

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 05

05) Respondent validation is extensively used in qualitative studies in business research.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 06

06) It is possible for quantitative research to be underpinned by a constructionist epistemology

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 07

07) Quantitative and qualitative research tend to be associated with ontological and epistemological positions but there are important exceptions to this general trend.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 08

08) Quantitative researchers are concerned with behaviours and don’t really take much interest in meanings

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 09

09) Survey research can often be quite exploratory in nature as opposed to hypothesis testing

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 10

10) Quantitative research never uses words and qualitative research never uses numbers

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 11

11) Qualitative research is always more naturalistic while quantitative research is always more artificial

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 12

12) It is possible to analyse the writings of quantitative researchers using some of the methods associated with qualitative research

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 13

13) It is philosophically and practically inappropriate to analyse qualitative data using quantitative analysis

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 14

14) Some qualitative researchers engage in quasi-quantification of research data

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 26 - Question 15

15) One of the criticisms of qualitative research is that it is overly anecdotal

a. True

b. False