The Wholistic, Organic Researcher: Central Issues in Clinical Research Methodology

A challenging look at research methodology is necessary because of the confusion of terminology that has come about by the accretion over the last century of research methods and the vocabulary for describing them.
Probably the most ambiguous term of all is the term 'methods' itself. Many different meanings of this word can be found within the literature. Indeed, one text book that has a title 'Research Methods in Psychology' may be totally different in its coverage from another book. The term 'methods' can be used to describe statistical manipulations. By contrast it can be seen as an exploration of the issues of research planning and design. Yet another usage is to describe the instruments that are utilised to collect the actual data that is at the heart of the study. There are yet other usages that put the term 'method' into a more ideological framework by
contrasting phenomenological methods, for example, with positivist ones. Many other different usages can be found in the literature, but even these few serve to illustrate that there is no clear framework as to what really is the appropriate focus to any discussion of research procedures.