Methodological controversies between social and medical sciences

If doctors find sociological methods unreliable, the results unsound, and the approach irrelevant, this is due to the essential differences between the procedures and interests of the exact and the social sciences. When sociologists raise doubts concerning the one-sidedness of the medical approach, its exaggerated professionalism, lack of concern for the social context of cure, those are latent requirements which do not match the current paradigm of medical knowledge. It is assumed here that the difference between experimental method and the interpretive procedures of sociology has a basic character and cannot be overcome by the methodological refinement of the latter. Understanding sociological knowledge must be based only against a background of a special interest in practical social affairs. Doubst are raised whether such an interest can develop within the prevailing paradigm of medical practice. Nevertheless, some improvements in the presentation of sociological research and in its method, especially as related to conclusiveness and applicability, can enhance the chances of its effective use in medical practice. Possible postulates addressed to medical research do not have methodological consequences requiring a change in the organization of medical services or in the relations with associated industry for the needs of the health care system.

The Research Critique Approach to Educating Sociology Students

In recent years, instructors of methods courses have made a repeated plea in pedagogical journals for teaching students research techniques through doing or simulating a real project (Ballard 1987; Cutler 1987; Irish 1987; Ransford and Butler 1982; Stoddart 1987; Takata and Leiting 1987; Weiss 1987). Approaches are varied; they include individual, group, or class research projects that generate data for class-specific projects, collect data for external consumption, or use existing data. It is argued that the disembodied knowledge of scientific inquiry presented in the classroom must be supplemented concurrently by an exposure to the actual process of research. Only by making decisions regarding methodology, feasibility, and ethics, as required at various junctures during the research project, can a student appreciate the art, as distinguished from theabstract science, of research