Importance Of Interpretive Research

Interpretive research is also sometimes referred to as interpretivism, qualitative research or phenomenological research. It does not rely on numerical or statistical analysis of data or evidence. Interpretivists acknowledge that their research problems exist in a social context that exists as a human construction with many attributes that cannot be quantitatively observed or measured, thus it is a reality that can only be accessed through social constructions using language, consciousness and shared meanings. Interpretive research does not predetermine dependent and independent variables but rather focuses on the involvedness of human sense-making as the circumstances emerge and thus this methodology endeavours to understand phenomena through

Furthermore, positivist researchers are believed to be impartial observers who can evaluate and predict actions or processes objectively. The criteria for judging the quality of such positivist studies as opposed to the interpretive and critical case studies, involve the traditional validity and reliability tests used in the natural sciences (Yin, 2003). Sixthly, Archer (1995) argued that social ontology plays a powerful regulatory role vis-`a-vis the explanatory methodology for the basic reason that it conceptualises social reality in certain terms, such that it helps identifying what there is to be explained and also ruling out explanations in terms of entities or properties which are deemed non-existent. Such consistency between the social ontology and explanatory methodology is a general requirement usually requiring two-way adjustment. This two-way adjustment requires a contingent ontology or philosophy in order to

Conclusion

IS research can be classified as interpretive if it is assumed that our knowledge of reality is gained only through social constructions such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, documents, tools, and other artefacts. Interpretive research does not predefine dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges (Kaplan and Maxwell 1994); it attempts to understand phenomena through the meanings that people assign to them (Boland