Metode de Cercetare Diponibile pentru Proiecte în Turism și Evenimente

Introduction

Performing a good research can never be done only by combining opinions about what is wrong and what is right, the practice matter of research reveals a multi faced decision making. Each choice will clear the path on the subject you are investigating and will also have advantages and disadvantages towards helping you get the write answer.

One type might increase the information towards a particular direction, in which the other might not even help at all. The interestng part of a research is that there is never a right direction to take, but you might find that some of the social methodologies are better suited in a subject, more than in others. In practice you will often find yourself choosing between the two approaches, because they will solve the problem more efficiently and faster.

Usually the decision about the methodology that will be used during the research must be made before the actual research starts and has to be done very carefully; changing the strategy in the middle of the research might even result in total failure. (Denscombe, 2003)

The two philosophical perspectives chosen for comparison are epistemology and ontology. Understanding these perspectives is essential before starting an actual research, without knowing that and without establishing which of the two is more appropriate for solving the problem, we could not start the actual research.

The issue solved in this essay refers to the way in which hotels that organise social events would have a larger promotion than those who don’t have the means to organise that type of events. The goal in solving this particular issue is to give hotels the perspective they need towards using this type of events for promotional needs also.

At the end of this essay you will have enough information to decide which of the two paradigms analyzed, positivism and interpretivism would provide the best information for resolving our chosen problem.

The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate which of the two paradigms, positivism or interpretivism is more suited for providing the necessary information to get the chosen problem solved.

Argument

Before starting the examination between the two paradigms it is important to define the basic theory of social research.

As we can find in many research sources, science and knowledge are not the same thing. The scientific way describes the process and construction of theory, while knowledge is all about generating from creativity and a cognitive accumulation of information.

According to Britannica (2009); a philosophical theory of value, axiology is the study of value, or goodness, in its widest sense. The distinction is commonly made between intrinsic and extrinsic value; between that which is valuable for its own sake and that which is valuable only as a means to something else, which itself may be extrinsically or intrinsically valuable. According to subjective theories of value, things are valuable only insofar as they are desired; objective theories hold that there are at least some things that are valuable independently of people's interest in or desire for them. Cognitive theories of value assert that ascriptions of value function logically as statements of fact, whereas non cognitive theories assert that they are merely expressions of feeling or prescriptions.

Ontology refers more to the actual nature of things, “how knowledge is represented or the vocabulary used to describe it” (Getz, 2007, p.356). This is a set of specific information accepted as true without proof, which support a theory or a group of ideas. Having a larger extension than epistemological studies, ontology brings up problems about subjects like the way the world works or the pledge towards a particular point of view.

In research there are a number of characteristics that the ontological approach can be identified with. First of all, the characteristics of the truth are dealt with from a more deductive perspective rather than an inductive one, the conclusion follows necessarily from a stated premises. Another characteristic of the ontological research could be the way of perceiving the world as working in a cause – effect manner.

The person doing an ontological research is considered as being more of an outsider than actual part of the study and would probably have an objective relationship with the participants. He/she would also determine the identity and evaluate the association between the variables. (Jennings, 2001)

The plan used to examine the research is systematic, structured and can be accurately reproduced, mostly because the information used is of a numerical kind. Statistical tables and/or graphic representations would probably be the most utilised for interpreting the results.

The studied participants are not picked in a previously established way, especially to give the result a more credible characteristic, but this does not mean that the information can not be widened by generalisation of the people’s replies. (Jennings, 2001)