Lecture note on research types and their preferred research philosophies: for Housing Studies students

Lecture note on research types and their preferred research philosophies: for Housing Studies students

 

Do different research types (i.e. descriptive, exploratory, causal and evaluation) tend to work better with a particular research philosophy (i.e. positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism and critical realism) in the context of doing a 4-month part-time Housing Studies dissertation project?

Yes—but only as a tendency, not as a fixed rule. Research type describes the purpose of the study, while research philosophy describes your assumptions about reality, knowledge and values. The strongest dissertation design is one in which the research question, philosophy, methodology, data access and four-month timetable are coherent.

For a part-time Housing Studies dissertation, pragmatism or critical realism will often be the most flexible choices, particularly when the project addresses a practical housing problem and may combine resident experiences with policy, administrative or survey evidence. Critical realism is especially suitable when you want to explain why a housing outcome occurs differently across groups or contexts; it has been specifically discussed as a useful approach in housing research.insight.cumbria.ac+1

Typical philosophical fit

Research type	Main purpose	Often compatible philosophy	Suitable four-month design
Descriptive	To document “what exists” or “what is happening”	Positivism, interpretivism, pragmatism	Structured survey, secondary-data analysis, or a focused qualitative case
Exploratory	To investigate an under-researched issue and develop concepts or propositions	Interpretivism, critical realism, pragmatism	Semi-structured interviews, focus groups, documents, or a small mixed-methods study
Causal	To test whether XXX affects YYY	Positivism or postpositivism; critical realism for mechanism-based explanation	Secondary-data regression, quasi-experiment, or a carefully bounded comparative study
Evaluation	To judge the value, effectiveness or implementation of a policy or intervention	Pragmatism, critical realism, positivism, interpretivism	Outcome indicators plus stakeholder/resident interviews, or a realist “what works, for whom and under what conditions?” evaluation

These are not exclusive pairings. For example, a descriptive study can be interpretivist if it describes how residents understand “livability,” while an evaluation can be interpretivist if it focuses on residents’ experiences rather than measuring policy outcomes.

1. Descriptive research

A descriptive project asks questions such as:

• What are the main housing concerns of residents?
• What proportion of residents experience overcrowding?
• How do residents rate estate facilities?
• What housing-related services are available?

Positivist fit

Positivism is appropriate when the concepts can be operationalised into measurable variables—for example, rent burden, floor area per person, waiting time, satisfaction scores or perceived safety. A structured questionnaire or secondary dataset would support descriptive statistics.

This is likely the most efficient design if you need a clear, manageable dissertation within four months. However, avoid claiming that the findings represent all Hong Kong households if your sample is a convenience sample from one estate or online community.

Interpretivist fit

Interpretivism is suitable when “description” means understanding residents’ meanings and experiences. For example, “residential quality” may mean privacy, dignity, social belonging or control over the home, not merely physical space.

A small interview study could describe how residents experience a public-housing estate. Its strength would be depth, not statistical representativeness.

2. Exploratory research

Exploratory research is often particularly compatible with interpretivism, because it allows participants’ meanings, interpretations and experiences to shape the findings. It is useful where the literature is limited or where established concepts do not capture the housing issue well.

For example, you might explore:

How do residents perceive the potential use of artificial intelligence to improve daily life in public-housing estates?

Interviews with residents, estate managers and housing-policy stakeholders could identify perceived benefits, risks and implementation barriers.

However, exploratory research can also fit critical realism. A critical realist study would ask not only what residents say, but what underlying mechanisms may generate the observed problem. For example:

• How do landlord–tenant relationships affect maintenance reporting?
• How do income, household structure and housing allocation rules interact?
• Why does a supposedly universal housing policy produce unequal outcomes?

Critical realism recognises that social experiences are interpreted by actors but also shaped by real institutional, economic and material conditions. In housing research, this is valuable because housing outcomes are rarely caused by individual attitudes alone.insight.cumbria.ac+1

Four-month recommendation

Use a focused exploratory case study, rather than an open-ended investigation of “housing problems in Hong Kong.” Define:

• one population;
• one housing setting;
• one central issue;
• approximately 10–20 interviews, subject to supervisor and ethics requirements;
• a clear thematic or realist analysis procedure.

3. Causal research

Causal research asks whether one factor produces a change in another, such as:

• Does estate greening improve residents’ well-being?
• Does perceived management responsiveness influence housing satisfaction?
• Does access to digital housing services reduce perceived administrative burden?

Positivist fit

Positivism—or a more cautious postpositivist approach—is the most obvious fit where you intend to test hypotheses using measurable variables. Common designs include:

• regression using existing survey or administrative data;
• comparison between two estates;
• before-and-after analysis;
• quasi-experimental analysis where a policy affects one group but not another.

A four-month dissertation should generally avoid a full experiment unless the intervention, sample and data are already available. Collecting new longitudinal data is usually unrealistic in a part-time project.

Critical realist fit

Critical realism is better when your question is not simply:

Does policy XXX improve outcome YYY?

but:

Through what mechanisms, and under what conditions, does policy XXX produce different outcomes?

For example, a resident-engagement programme might improve satisfaction in one estate but not another because of differences in management trust, resident demographics, communication channels or implementation quality.

Critical realism typically supports abductive and retroductive reasoning: you move between empirical observations, existing theory and possible underlying mechanisms. The aim is not merely to identify correlation but to develop a plausible explanation of how the outcome was generated.pure.uva

Important limitation

Do not use the word “causal” loosely. A cross-sectional survey can identify associations, but it normally cannot establish that one variable caused another. If your design is cross-sectional, use language such as:

• “relationship”;
• “association”;
• “predictors”;
• “perceived influence.”

Reserve stronger causal claims for designs with temporal ordering, comparison groups, credible controls or a well-supported causal mechanism.

4. Evaluation research

Evaluation is probably the research type with the strongest case for pragmatism, because evaluation asks what a policy or intervention achieves in a particular setting and how evidence can inform decisions. Pragmatism allows the method to follow the evaluation question rather than requiring all evidence to be quantitative or qualitative. Mixed-methods evaluation literature explicitly treats method selection as dependent on the evaluation questions.onlinelibrary.wiley+1

For example, you could evaluate a housing-management initiative using:

• resident survey responses to assess satisfaction or perceived effectiveness;
• interviews to understand implementation and unintended effects;
• policy documents to establish the intended objectives;
• publicly available indicators to examine measurable outcomes.

A pragmatic evaluation might ask:

1.    What outcomes were intended?

2.    What outcomes were observed?

3.    How did residents and staff experience the intervention?

4.    What factors helped or hindered implementation?

5.    What improvements are feasible?

Critical realist evaluation

Critical realism is especially useful for a realist evaluation:

What works, for whom, in what circumstances, and through what mechanisms?

For instance, an online housing-service platform may work well for digitally confident younger residents but poorly for elderly residents or households with limited language access. The intervention is not treated as automatically effective or ineffective; its effects depend on context and mechanisms.

This is theoretically strong for Housing Studies, but a full realist evaluation can become too ambitious for four months. You would need to limit the study to one programme, one outcome and a small number of contextual conditions.

Best choice for your project

Given the part-time timetable, I would rank the options as follows:

Best overall: focused pragmatism

Choose pragmatism if your dissertation is applied and you need to combine different forms of evidence. It is suitable for questions such as:

How effective is a particular housing-management initiative, and how do residents experience its effects?

A feasible design might be:

• a short resident survey;
• 8–12 interviews with residents or housing stakeholders;
• document analysis;
• descriptive statistics plus thematic analysis;
• integration of the findings in a joint discussion.

Do not present pragmatism merely as “I used whatever methods were convenient.” Explain why each method answers a particular sub-question and how the evidence will be integrated. Pragmatism is often associated with mixed methods, but scholars also caution that it should not become a philosophical justification for methodological convenience.research.ed.ac+1

Best for explanation: critical realism

Choose critical realism if your central concern is inequality, policy implementation, institutional power or differences between housing outcomes. A suitable question might be:

Why does a housing-policy intervention improve perceived livability for some residents but not others?

You could combine:

• policy and literature analysis;
• a small number of interviews;
• descriptive comparisons across resident groups or estates;
• a conceptual model of context, mechanism and outcome.

This would fit your existing interest in critical realism and housing policy, but you should avoid claiming that you have discovered the definitive underlying mechanisms from a small sample. Describe them as plausible, theoretically informed explanations supported by the evidence.

Best for measurement: positivism

Choose positivism if you already have reliable numeric data and want a clearly bounded survey or statistical study. This is often the safest option for a short dissertation, provided the variables and dataset are available at the outset.

Best for lived experience: interpretivism

Choose interpretivism if the dissertation is primarily about how residents understand, experience or negotiate housing conditions. It is appropriate for questions concerning dignity, belonging, privacy, stigma, safety or perceived livability.

A practical decision rule

Use the following sequence:

1.    If your question begins with “what is the extent or pattern of…,” consider a descriptive positivist or pragmatic design.

2.    If it begins with “how do residents experience or understand…,” consider interpretivism.

3.    If it begins with “does X affect Y,” consider positivism or postpositivism, provided you have suitable data.

4.    If it begins with “why does X produce different outcomes,” consider critical realism.

5.    If it begins with “how effective, useful or implementable is X,” consider pragmatism or critical realism.

The philosophy should be selected after clarifying the question, not simply because a particular philosophy is associated with a particular research type. For your four-month part-time Housing Studies project, a defensible formulation would be:

This study adopts a pragmatic philosophy because it addresses an applied housing problem and requires complementary evidence from residents and documentary or quantitative sources. A mixed-methods case-study design is used to answer distinct descriptive and evaluative sub-questions.

Or, if explanation is more important:

This study adopts a critical realist philosophy to examine how housing outcomes are generated through the interaction of material conditions, institutional arrangements and residents’ interpretations. It uses interviews and documentary or quantitative evidence to develop a context-sensitive explanation.

The most important issue is alignment: research question → philosophy → methodology → methods → analysis → claims. A modest, coherent design will normally produce a stronger dissertation than an ambitious mixed-methods project that cannot be completed within four months.