Perspectives on human communication research: Behaviorism, phenomenology, and an integrated view

The rift between behaviorists and phenomenologists is responsible for much of the misunderstanding about the subject matter of human communication and appropriate research methodology. A comparison and contrast of two perspectives on research suggests that an integrated perspective focuses on meaningful behavior, carefully considers the relation between the research problem and its methodology, and operationalizes subjective experiences by including reliable and valid means of measurement. Essentially, an integrated view allows diversity of methods and maximizes perspective to render meaningful judgments.