How Do Philosophical Positions Influence the Social Science Research Process? A Classification and Metaphor Analysis of Researchers’ Descriptions

ABSTRACT

Textbooks for social science research suggest that studies are necessarily grounded in foundational philosophies that shape the research process. However, the literature does not provide a consistent picture of how philosophical positions shape research, and few studies have investigated researchers’ own ideas about this process. This study aimed to classify researchers’ descriptions of how philosophical positions connect to aspects of the research process and to investigate metaphors used to describe these connections. From a sample of 1500 journal articles, 73 papers were found that directly mentioned a philosophical position. The analysis found that philosophical positions are most often connected with study design and methodology, or with concepts and theories. The connections include that philosophical positions result in, support, match and result from aspects of the research process, and that philosophical assumptions could be inherent in methodologies and theories. Metaphorically, philosophical positions were a tool, path, location, support, resource, person and seeing. These classification frameworks can be used in future research to understand how researchers conceptualize philosophical positions and how this influences their decision making.

KEYWORDS:

• Research philosophy
• research process
• conceptual metaphor theory
• metaphor

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Metaphors are underlined in this paper for the purpose of clarity.

2. Conceptual metaphors are traditionally written in small caps.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adam Coates

Adam Coates is assistant professor in the CEEC at Hanyang University. His research focuses on research processes in social science and how these are represented in journal articles. His recent publications include an investigation of the role of research philosophy in mixed methods research and a study of basic details in social science research writing.