Chapter 5: Research Design, Methodologies, and Methods

It is important to recognize that paradigms and theories are intertwined with one another, as well as with the research methodologies and methods chosen by investigators. As Poole and McPhee (1994) explain, the domains of theory and methodology overlap in significant ways; what theories we use indicate what methods are available to us. The overlap occurs because both theory and method must be concerned with our type of explanation (e.g., is our goal to demonstrate that one variable influences another?) and our approach to inquiry (e.g., whether we use a theory to guide observation, or whether we start making observations to build a theory). These points are also explored by Dervin (2005) and Given (2016).