I used to think this was a synonym for, or a rather pompous term for, method(s) but I learn that it’s not and I think the distinction is useful.
Details #
Methodology can mean the study of methods and I class myself as a methodologist: I’m more driven by interest in “how it is that we think we know what it is that we think we know” to quote my earliest (20s) statement of my primary concern. I now think that’s a mix of epistemology and methodology and the methodology both in the sense of my fascination with methods and how they have evolved historically, sociologically, anthropologically: they shape cultures because they shape agreed knowledge systems. Some of that is the deeply philosophical side of how we think we know anything, but some of it is methodology: the techniques we use within our ideas about how we might know anything.
In this other sense, not of the study of methods, but of the methods we use, “methodology” really sits between the investigators’ epistemological position and the actual method(s) used in the work. It maps the methods into a widely accepted set of methods (a paradigm perhaps).
Methodologies are typically partitioned into quantitative and qualitative and of course there is some sense in that but I also think it has become a trap: a deeply unhelpful polarisation at least in the realm of MH/therapy evidence.
Try also #
Epistemology
Mixed methods
Blended and woven methods
Qualitative methods
Quantitative methods
Chapters #
These ideas are really in every chapter (except perhaps Chapter 9 but even there watch out for your client and/or your supervisor and/or manager espousing different methodologies from the ones you espouse!
Online resources #
None?
Dates #
First created 10.xii.23.
