Unit of analysis

What's your unit of analysis?

That was the coffee time question posed by our Resident Questioning Student. He often starts interesting discussions. I'd naïvely thought it a simple answer, but the more he posed questions, the more complicated the answer became.

The unit of analysis fits in with and stems from your research question. It governs the way you then design your research because it governs what kind of information you seek. That information builds up to give a central picture. I have a systems understanding of the unit of analysis; to me a unit of analysis must have a central focus, a purpose that all its components contribute to, and a unit of analysis consists of a number of components, any one of which, if it were removed, would create a different system. For example, RQS's unit of analysis concerns a process (a campaign) that takes input and outputs x or y, and along the way, there are regulatory processes, decision making processes and ethical processes that influence the outcome. If you took away the regulatory process, you'd have a different system (like the UK MPs could have a different expenses system if their regulatory process was different).

The B852 course that we did for the MRes gave us some useful readings on unit of analysis, especially the Block I papers by Michael Crotty on the research process, and the Bryman & Bell paper on research designs.

RQS is writing his methodology chapter, and warns us that it is pivotal to all your research, which is probably why my third party monitor suggested I start writing it now, this year.

Theoretical framework

Choosing a methodology for a research project involves choosing appropriate methods, depending on what access is possible and how the researcher is thinking. The research process is informed by the researcher’s theoretical perspective, which is a philosophical stance. The theoretical perspective is itself informed by the epistemology and ontology. So the research process has four elements that inform one another: epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology and methods (Crotty, 1998).

What the constructionist approach is
Constructionism is the idea that there is no objective truth but that we all construct our own reality, meaning is constructed and different people construct meaning in different ways. People need to have mechanisms for understanding what each of them is doing and need rich forms of conversations that are adequate to dealing with the complexity of social relationships so it’s sense making.

(Guba & Lincoln refer to the constructivist paradigm (Guba and Lincoln, 1989))

Why use the constructionist approach here
Clients and consultants can construct each others roles and clients are actors or agents who shape each others standing of what they do. Schein categorises those roles and so does Bovens.

Disadvantages of the constructionist approach
Czarniawska warns of the difficulties of employing the constructionist stance because the logic of representation is conventionally used between researchers but the medium of everyday organisational life is the logic of practice so there can be difficulties of communication between researchers and managers (Czarniawska, 2001).

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Crotty, M. (1998) 'Introduction: the research process'. The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process, Sage, London.
Czarniawska, B. (2001) 'Is it Possible to Be a Constructionist Consultant?' Management Learning, 32 (2), pp. 253.
Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. (1989) Fourth Generation Evaluation, Sage.

Difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'

The OU PhD skills web site points to a comprehensive list, which for skill A4: asks Can you articulate the difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'? so I'm revising what I had learnt in B852: management research.

Techniques

• Reading documents, searching for and retrieving them, filing them, taking notes from them.
• Contacting people, recording contacts

Perhaps this is the how of the research

Methods

Procedures for collecting and analysing data – like what you are going to do to get the data

Methodology

Strategy, and design behind choice of methods to reach outcome – like why are you doing it this way

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Crotty, M. (1998) 'Introduction: the research process'. The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process, Sage, London. 816

See Crotty (1998) in the ‘Introduction’ to his book, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process