What counts as data

I have attended several scientific conferences where the positivists and constructivists, often the minority, meet. Coming from a social science background, I have developed a strong appreciation of the qualitative line of inquiry, while not discounting the strengths of the quantitative measures. 

During my thesis, I used predominantly qualitative methods owing pretty much on the questions that I asked (methods used depend on questions asked). Hence, most of the papers that I am writing now are drawn from my thesis, and thus, qualitative in nature.

While it was very fulfilling pursuing my research questions, I oftentimes encounter people who frown on my method. They are those who “only believe in things that can be weighed and measured”, so to speak. The problem is even more confounded when my work is evaluated by someone coming from a related, but not similar field. In not one instance, my work was evaluated by people working in the area of regulations. While I appreciated the transdisciplinary encounter, we did have some issues on what we consider as data. Generalizability has always taken precedence over transferability, if the latter even exists in their vocabulary.

I happened to discuss this once with a known scholar in social science, and she told me that I just need to accept the fact that it’s a numbers game when it comes to regulation. She added that what I can do is to influence whenever I can, but numbers would always be attractive to policymakers.

While it really pays to know how things work in reality, this is frustrating for people who have developed strong appreciation for the narratives of those being researched. While numbers are oftentimes regarded as the so called hard evidence, the fact remains that there are cases when the numbers generated will be put to question. And these cases, minority or what, should likewise merit attention if the goal is greater social equity.

People should likewise recognize the rigour involved in generating qualitative data. Oftentimes, rigour is equated to coming up with sophisticated formula—the more complex, the more comprehensive. Hence, they are guilty of getting trapped in the language of obfuscation.

This post is not meant to provoke any discord between positivists and constructivists. I have earlier mentioned that they both have their strengths and limitations. This, however, wishes to emphasize that the complexities in explaining social phenomena require more nuanced methods, requires digging deeper into the lives of the research participants. Policymakers and laypeople alike should recognize that there are a lot of ways of knowing.

In closing, let me quote Albert Einstein: Not all that counts can be counted, and not all that can be counted counts.