My first reaction after reading the NYT article (which I shared with the entire faculty):
Great point (not because it's new but because it's so relevant to the problems in social science research) -- esp. the second argument in the article: "the analysis of empirical data can be valuable even in the absence of a grand theoretical model."
So often I see irrelevant models "installed" on a study because the researcher tries to avoid this common (sometimes cheap) question from peer reviewers: "Where is the theory?" What's worse, there are so few theories in communication.
I agree that empirical analysis can be valuable in itself, but this puts a greater responsibility on the author in the introduction and discussion sections of the paper to put the data in context and explain why it is significant. When there is a theory to work from, the significance is often in developing the theory or validating its applicability in the real world. But if the data is meant to stand alone, my guess is it would take more work on the researcher's part to explain its context and significance.
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ReplyDeleteIn a sense, I think the “analysis of empirical data that can be valuable even in the absence of a grand theoretical model” is a kind of ‘grounded theory’ method, which is mainly used in qualitative research and contradicts the traditional social research (“where is the theory?”). On the contrary to the traditional model of research, as you know, GT is for the discovery of theory through the analysis of data; that is, a series of the process of data collection, codes extracted from the data, concepts (grouped codes), categories, and then theory. The ultimate goal of analysis of data without theoretical framework, I believe, is also not just ‘analysis’ itself, but finding ‘something’ from the analysis. That is because ‘science (natural or social)’ is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge by finding out a certain law or something in common from phenomena.
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