Another measure from Jan’s paper:
For King, Keohane and Verba (1994),
“good research, that is, scientific research” has four characteristics:
- The goal is inference. There are two types of inference: descriptive and causal. Descriptive inference involves “using observations from the world to learn about unobserved facts.” Causal inference involves “learning about causal effects from the data observed”
- The procedures are public
- The conclusions are uncertain
- The content is method.
@Jan goes on to say:
Interpretation meets all four criteria: (1) it relies on inference to connect observed phenomena (signifying elements) with the (unobserved) meanings (signified elements); (2) its procedures are (or at least are supposed to be) public and repeatable; (3) its result are provisional (uncertain) and always subject to verification and updating; and (4) its content can be construed as method. The task, whose realization has already begun, is to systematically demonstrate the validity of these points as well as
specify and examine the method’s:
(1) ontological affiliations (How are society and politics understood and defined?);
(2) epistemological commitments (How are societies and politics defined in a specific manner knowable?);
(3) rules and procedures;
(4) disciplinary varieties (semiotics, hermeneutics); and
(5) specific techniques (for example, content analysis, [critical] discourse analysis, ethnographic accounts of meaning-formation through rituals, etc.).