The subject of research in all social sciences is society. However, as one complex area, in its research opus, it draws a lot of additional elements and aspects that will represent subjects of the ...study of other sciences. It is precisely in their methodological orientation that the differences of rights, history and other social sciences and time coordinates, ie. by the historical-legal dimension they differentiate themselves from other abstract forms of study.
This paper discusses issues of methodological basis of contemporary economic theory, from the perspective of rival research orientations and their conceptual sensitization to the role and impacts of ...institutional structures. In this regard, the paper presents methodological individualism, research support of economic orthodoxy, based on a consistent interpretation of all social phenomena as outcomes of individual choice. It is shown that even in its most rigid versions this approach has to take to a certain degree into account the social interactions that go beyond the individualist framework. The opposing research orientation, methodological holism, gives explanatory primacy to (different) social collective entities and structures, characteristics of which are autonomous in nature and essential for the explanation of the individual as an entity of a lower order, whose individual properties are not significant. Both approaches are subjected to reductionist tendencies - whether explanations of the socioeconomic reality are individual or culturally over-determined. Integrating institutions in consideration of socioeconomic reality has repercussions on the mentioned methodological dichotomy, given that in conceptual terms it has the potential to bridge the extremely individualistic or collectivist methodological positions. Awareness of the impact of institutions on the socioeconomic reality has produced distinctive methodological orientations. Institutional individualism considers institutions as exogenous mechanism whose explanation is at the service of shedding light on the behaviour of the individuals as the main actors of social dynamics, and in that sense this approach can be considered as a milder variant of methodological individualism. The institutionalist extension of methodological holism, methodological institutionalism, understands individual acting as a product of an integrated institutional framework, whose dynamics takes place independently of the individuals, according to its own regularities. Some kind of balance between the aforementioned orientations is offered by methodological systemism, which affirms the dual nature of the actors of social dynamics - as both product of units of a lower order, but also as entities with autonomous, emergent properties. The contextualisation of relations between institutions and individuals in accordance with a system perspective may be a suitable way, with more tuned reality, theoretical valuation and overcoming differences between opponent methodological traditions.
Since the reflexive turn in sociology and social anthropology, ‘identity negotiation’ and the ‘insider/outsider’ dilemma have been central topics of ethnographic literature. Much of the writings have ...exposed how the sociocultural biography and the identity of Western researchers interact, contradict and collaborate with the constructed ‘self’ of the participants of research. However, African development researchers have largely focused on describing the substantive component, with only scant analysis of the research process. In this article, illustration of the author’s experiences in the process of undertaking fieldwork on Amhara Credit and Savings Institution, a microfinance institution located in Ethiopia, and its clients, demonstrates that African development ethnographers’ interaction with participants of research is affected by their methodological preference and by their political and cultural identity. The article exemplifies that African development ethnographers are partially inhibited in research process and interpretation by boundaries imposed by their own research orientation and by their political and cultural identity.
Undoubtedly, the field of social sciences research in general and sociological research is particularly hard hit by the vicissitudes experienced by the theoretical discourse in the field of ...investigation of the sciences of man and society and its corollary, the practical discourse. This great influence has profoundly shaped the direction of sociological research from classical doctrines to empirical propositions developed by contemporary sociologists.
Our paper attempts to analyze the relationship between the theoretical choice of academic social science research and practical content held within academic institutions.
In other words the proposed paper proposes to examine the impact of theoretical languages and practices on methodological orientations compared with deferent languages of sociological research in Algeria since the first studies.
Addressing meta-research is contemporaneous with a nascent call in the field of applied linguistics and L2 studies for methodological awareness. Adhering to synthetic techniques and bibliometric ...analysis, we manually examined and coded the methodological orientations and scientific collaboration of 3992 applied linguistics articles published in 18 leading journals from 2009 to 2018 and analyzed their citation impact. The results showed that 178 (4.5%) of articles were non-empirical and the rest were empirical. Among empirical articles, the most prevalent research approach was quantitative (42.6%), followed by mixed-methods research studies (25.9%) and qualitative studies (24.9%). Systematic reviews (2.2%) were the smallest groups. Systematic reviews had a bigger citation impact than the other three research approaches. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the number of citations of the other three approaches (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods). The rates of collaboration in general and international collaboration and interdisciplinary collaboration in particular were significantly higher in quantitative articles than the articles of other research approaches. Education and psychology were two disciplines that had the highest rate of collaboration with applied linguistics researchers.
As future researchers, can students and practitioners in language education just enter an actual research project without adequate theoretical understanding of it. Can they expect that they would ...understand it while doing the research. If not, what sorts of understanding should they possess. In other words, are there several issues which should be addressed in
order that they are well informed about how and what to carry out research satisfactorily.
The answer to this last question is „yes‟, even not only addressed to students, but also to school teachers and lecturers or the academic community at large. This is because theoretical understanding should continue to be developed berita terkini update and refreshed. Consequently, before embarking on a research project, one
should understand some key updated issues which develop around her/his field of specialization, both global and local issues. Global issues involve the development of new or popular trends in social sciences and particularly in language educational research. In addition the intertextual relations of research in the field and other related fields, the interconnection between and among researchers and other stakeholders should be taken into consideration. The local issues include the possibilities of carrying out research in a certain context which may differ depending on the contexts, the means available as well as the constraints which influence the research implementation. All these informing issues are of high contribution for making decisions about doing research.
The discussion is compelling because, as a matter of fact, literature in English language teaching (e.g., articles in TEFLIN Journal, „Indonesian Linguistic Journal‟, and many open access national and international journals) has not given a
comprehensive attention on how stakeholders in research should manage each of their power, how ethical issues should be dealt with properly, and how trustworthiness is particularly addressed. Generally informed by social sciences research literature and relevant ELT references, the author highlights the major decisions which researchers are faced with, in relation to power, ethics, truth claims and methodological considerations in research. Based on the highlights, the author then reflects on the issues for carrying out research in Indonesian English language teaching contexts as informed by his professional experience and observation
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