Comparative Traditions Of Research Methodologies

Abstract

The existing body of literature on research methods indicates that investigators
persist with three methodological traditions. Either one is in the Humanities, Social
Sciences or Science. This study examined the nature of each of the existing three
research traditions and how they differ in their methodological approaches. The
literature on research methods describes how the investigators in the humanities
tradition depend heavily on the documentary methodology in their search for
truth. In contrast, reports indicate that social science investigators lean heavily
on the survey approach to establish evidence from their work. And for the scientist,
there have been reported cases of heavy reliance on experimental methodology.
This study was deducted from the theory of inter-subjectivity. This construction
facilitated the understanding of the common ground on which the investigators
from the three research traditions operate in their search for truth. Thus,
researchers in all three traditions emphasize the significance of "validity" for
which the inter-subjectivity theory provides a backbone. In order to analyze the
tradition of each research design, the approaches of the historian, social scientist,
and the natural and/or physical scientist were used as case studies. The conclusions
arrived at in this study were based on the objective analyses of these case studies.