Concept-Driven Research Strategy
To explain interpretive or concept driven research, consider an detective story, you know the sort so common in books and TV which usually starts with a dead body and detectives trying to get at the truth of what happened. Isn't research like that? We start with a problem like world poverty and try to get at the truth of why it exists or how it happens. Whilst the search for the truth is of considerable interest to many it is not the primary interest of concept driven research as I see it. Going back to the detective story, the motive is the concept or idea that drove the murderer. Typically this is greed, jealousy, or revenge. While of interest to our truth seeking detective who is trying to work out what happened, once the killer is found, these action driving ideas are not really central. In concept driven or interpretive research they are. The same killing can be interpreted using a variety of ideas or concepts. Evil jealousy is one, perhaps social pressures may be another. The killer was encouraged by his upbringing to be a jealous person. Equity might be another useful concept to use, did the killed person live a privileged life? A prevention concept would ask why it was not prevented, the capitalist concept might note that envy and jealousy are the main drivers of economic growth (materialism and careers). Thinking up and carefully justifying the usefulness of concepts to critique something is my research strategy.
The files available through the left hand menu on Critiquing Social Research and the papers on argumentative inquiry thought relevant to understanding concept driven research. Below are some other papers also thought relevant.
- Argument Map of Interpretive or Concept Driven Research
- Workshops for PhD Candidates
- Review-form: Summary of Checklist Questions as received
- Review-form2: Review Questions Sorted by Key Issues and Comments
- Critique PhD: Argumentative Inquiry Review Questions for PhDs
- Doing Research in Business and Management Extracts from Dan Remeny's book on evaluation of a thesis
- It's a PhD not a Nobel Prize Examiner's Comments by M. Kiley and G. Mullins
- Writing an Interpretive Literature Review An article by Mike Metcalfe
- Factifuging Some humorous advice on defending a thesis...
- Standards of Social Research by Franz Breuer and Jo Reichertz
- Book on ensuring your thesis (book) has a thesis (argument)
- Chapter on difference between process theory (how it works) and variance theory (how they vary)
- Article on Boolean Comparative Analysis for process theory analysis
- A critique of logical positivism by one of its original advocates, Ayer