Monthly Archives: August 2019

The Positivist Pitfall

First and foremost Humanists describe what is and only in a second step answer why it is that way. Qualitative Data Analysis and many similar research techniques often follow a simple scheme: creating categories/variables/topics, applying them to text and then analysing meaningful groups by qualitative and quantitative comparison. By this, we easily fall into the “Positivist Pitfall” of only describing, instead of explaining our data. However, we must strive to create meaningful interpretations that can be disputed or even be proven wrong.

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