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Values and Data Collection in Social Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Julie Zahle
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Abstract

In this article, I offer a partial analysis of the role of values in qualitative data collection in social research. The partial analysis shows that nonepistemic values have both required and permissible roles to play during this phase of research. By appeal to the analysis, I reject the ideal of value-free science as applied to qualitative data collection, and I demonstrate why two alternative ideals should likewise be dismissed as standards for values in qualitative data collection. Also, I briefly discuss the extent to which the partial analysis carries over to quantitative data collection in social research.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 144 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†.

The research for this article was funded by the University of Copenhagen’s Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research. I would like to thank Klemens Kappel, Manuela Fernández Pinto, Kristina Rolin, and Michael Root for their helpful comments and criticisms. Also, I have presented the paper as part of the ToPHHS Lectures on Science and the Value-Free Ideal, Central European University (2016); at the Philosophy of Science (PoS) Seminar, Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, University of Helsinki (2016); at the Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz Universität Hannover (2016); and at the PSA Conference in Atlanta (2016). I have benefited from the suggestions made by the audiences on these occasions.

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