Book chapter
Bridging the Gap Between Philosophy and Empirical Research: A Critical Realist Methodology Using Quantitative Methods
Working with Critical Realism: Stories of Methodological Encounters, pp.29-40
Taylor & Francis, 1
2022
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
Metrics
11 Record Views
Abstract
After discovering critical realism early in my PhD, my approach to research fundamentally changed. The assumptions of the philosophy made sense to me: they explained and provided solutions to issues I had been wrestling with in my research work for years. This chapter describes a number of these challenges in the context of my doctoral research on the causes of Australian family homelessness and how critical realism enabled me to tackle them. I elaborate the methodological approach I took to my quantitative empirical project, showing my journeying with critical realist ontology, which framed what I did and why. Consequently, I present one way it is possible to operationalise critical realism whilst using statistical methods. The chapter also highlights how an ontological feature of critical realism - stratification - provided frameworks for interdisciplinary explanation and integration of structure and agency into my account. I show how I used its philosophical ideas as analytical tools to inspire questions facilitating abstraction, abduction, and retroduction as I worked with my data, the literature, and social theory.
Details
- Title
- Bridging the Gap Between Philosophy and Empirical Research
- Creators
- Catherine Hastings (Author)
- Contributors
- Alpesh Maisuria (Editor)Grant Banfield (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Working with Critical Realism: Stories of Methodological Encounters, pp.29-40
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis; London
- Edition
- 1
- Identifiers
- 991013125991802368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter