ERIC Number: ED279714
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1986-Aug-23
Pages: 17
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
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The Question of Research Methodologies.
Aanstoos, Christopher M.
This paper argues that a human science approach should be included in the American Psychological Association's (APA) pending reconsideration of accreditation specifications. Psychology's curriculum will remain incomplete and sterile until it assimilates this approach. Some of the key procedures of human science research methodology are outlined, and their relevance and value are demonstrated in relation to APA curriculum. Human science methodology is designed to foster understanding of the intrinsic coherence or meaningfulness of psychological life as it is lived in ordinary experience, as contrasted with the natural science aim to formulate explanations--specifications of extrinsic cause-effect relations between variables. It is possible to conduct psychological research in such a way as to elucidate the meanings given in our immediate experience, yet psychology continues to be notoriously delinquent in this regard. Traditional psychology's preoccupation with abstractions as its content is structurally correlated to its methodology. Whereas the practice of science may, in its ideal form, aim to be value free, this prior choice of abstractions or concretions as the field within which to conduct one's inquiry is an intrinsically value laden choice. (LMO)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Researchers
Language: English
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Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association (Washington, DC, August 22-26, 1986).