34 CHAPTER 2

 

Doing Research

 

Developing Concepts
Characteristics
Approaches
Preconceptions

Formulating Hypotheses
Classifying hypotheses
Explanatory hypotheses

Empirical Testing

Observing
Sampling

 

 

 

Anyone can become a researcher by doing normal, everyday things in an
orderly way and for interesting purposes that can be generalized. The orderly
way to do research can be learned rationally and impersonally. The ability to
develop interesting concepts—to go beyond the information given—can also be
learned, but it is a creative ability to be learned as one learns a skill.

DEVELOPING CONCEPTS

(a In a research project investigators aim to define a concept with which to order
information. A research concept does not pop out of the data; it is formed slow-
ly7 Investigators may have a faint vision of it when their project begins. They
may glimpse it when they start to analyze a particular bit of data/They may
realize how to organize their study findings only when the last piece of infor-
mation becomes clear.

In the beginning of a project, emerging concepts are visions defining what
data to gather. In the middle, information clarifies the concepts. At the end of
a successful research project, clearly stated concepts summarize increased
insight and define areas where further research can increase precision.

Characteristics

Creative researchers invent and discover. In E-B studies innovation has given us
concepts to order what we see: personal space (Sommer, 1969), the hidden (spa-
tial) dimension (Hall, 1966), urban villages (Gans, 1962), and the image of the
city (Lynch, 1960). Sommer, Hall, Gans, and Lynch carried out research to its
full creative potential, giving others new images with which to illuminate part
of the world.