Guide to Advanced Empirical
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| Critical Theory judges scientific knowledge by its ability to free people from restrictive systems of thought (Calhoun, 1995). Critical theorists argue that research is apolitical act, because knowledge empowers different groups within society, or entrenches existing power structures. Critical theorists therefore choose what research to undertake based on whom it helps. They prefer participatory approaches in which the groups they are trying to help are engaged in the research, including helping to set its goals. Critical theorists therefore tend to take emancipatory or advocacy roles. In sociology, critical theory is most 292 S. Easterbrook et al. closely associated with Marxist and feminist studies, along with research that seeks to improve the status of various minority groups. In software engineering, it includes research that actively seeks to challenge existing perceptions about software practice, most notably the open source movement, and, arguably, the process improvement community and the agile community. Critical theorists often use case studies to draw attention to things that need changing. However it is action research that most closely reflects the philosophy of critical theorists. ● Pragmatism acknowledges that all knowledge is approximate and incomplete, and its value depends on the methods by which it was obtained (Menand, 1997). For pragmatists, knowledge is judged by how useful it is for solving practical problems. Put simply, truth is whatever works at the time. This stance therefore entails a degree of relativism what is useful for one person to believe might not be useful for another therefore truth is relative to the observer. To overcome the obvious criticisms, many pragmatists emphasize the importance of consensus – truth is uncovered in the process of rational discourse, and is judged by the participants as whatever has the better arguments. Pragmatism is less dogmatic than the other three stances described above, as pragmatists tend to think the researcher should be free to use whatever research methods shed light on the research problem. In essence, pragmatism adopts an engineering approach to research – it values practical knowledge over abstract knowledge, and uses whatever methods are appropriate to obtain it. Pragmatists use any available methods, and strongly prefer mixed methods research, where several methods are used to shed light on the issue under study. Although there are examples of research from each of these stances in the software engineering literature, the underlying philosophies are never mentioned. We believe this has contributed to confusion around the selection of empirical methods and appropriate evaluation of empirical research. In particular, it is impossible to avoid some commitment to a particular stance, as you cannot conduct research, and certainly cannot judge its results, without some criteria for judging what constitutes valid knowledge. Download 1.5 Mb. Share with your friends:
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