Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 07:48:54 -0500
From: Marshall Feldman <marsh-AT-URIACC.URI.EDU>
Subject: Re: BHA: great minds think alike


At 08:20 PM 2/12/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Andrew Sayer's book, Methods in Social Science, is a realist approach.
>
>Howard

Yeah, but it hardly goes into the detail needed for teaching research
methods.  Besides, I used it last year in a graduate research methods
course, and the students nearly shot me at sunrise.  I love the book, but
the students thought he was an arrogant and overly difficult writer.  They
also thought the subject matter was esoteric.  The sort of methods book I'm
thinking of would be written more like the Babbie text or even Ollman's
_Dialectical Investigations_.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > From owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU  Wed Feb 12 18:14:34
1997
> > X-Sender: marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
> > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 07:29:29 -0500
> > To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> > From: Marshall Feldman <marsh-AT-URIACC.URI.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: BHA: great minds think alike
> > Sender: owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> > Reply-To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> >
> > >>                     Indeed, maybe someone
> > >> should undertake editing a volume with a title like Critical
Realism: An
> > >> Introductory Reader, laying out the basics and showing the
application of
> > >> (D)CR to various fields.
> > >
> > >Actually, I've had the same thought.  I think it could prove enormously
> > >helpful.  (See?  Great minds *do* think alike!)
> >
> > Actually, something that might be even more useful would be a "methods"
> > textbook written from a CR perspective.  I think the philosophy and
> > advanced PhD student markets would like use the introductory reader, but
> > not many other courses address methodology on its own.  Most students
> > encounter methods for the first time in a methods course.  Babbie is the
> > most popular text for this purpose, and he has a section entitled,
"measure
> > anything that's real."  The other texts of this genre are even worse.  The
> > field is very much in need of a CR antidote.
> >
> > Unfortunately, much original research still needs to be done to write such
> > a text.  What, for instance, meaning does CR ascribe to a regression
model?
> > Is there a CR way to do a survey?  My intuition tells me the difference
> > between CR and positivism is more like a difference between architects
than
> > one between builders who use screw drivers vs hammers in constructing the
> > building.  We need to separate the tools from the way they're used. Yet
the
> > statistics literature and quantitative research methods in general are
> > saturated by a positivist language, just as the qualitative research
> > literature has a strong subjectivist coloration.
> > >
> > >---
> > >Tobin Nellhaus
> > >nellhaus-AT-gwi.net
> > >"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
> > >
> > >
> > >     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> > >
> >
> >
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> > Marshall Feldman, Associate Professor
marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
> > Graduate Curriculum in Community Planning and Area Development
401/874-5953
> > The University of Rhode Island					401/874-5511 (FAX)
> > 94 West Alumni Avenue, Suite 1; Kingston, RI 02881-0806
> >
> >
> >      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
Marshall Feldman, Associate Professor		                marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
Graduate Curriculum in Community Planning and Area Development	401/874-5953
The University of Rhode Island					401/874-5511 (FAX)
94 West Alumni Avenue, Suite 1; Kingston, RI 02881-0806


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