{"id":34,"date":"2019-05-10T17:11:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T21:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=34"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:50:44","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:50:44","slug":"inductive-approaches-to-research","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/chapter\/inductive-approaches-to-research\/","title":{"raw":"Inductive Approaches to Research","rendered":"Inductive Approaches to Research"},"content":{"raw":"In addition to considering paradigms, researchers must also give thought to whether or not they plan to employ an inductive or a deductive approach.\u00a0 While each approach is quite different, they can also be complementary.\u00a0 In the following sections we will examine how these approaches are similar and dissimilar.\r\n\r\nAn <strong>inductive approach <\/strong>to research begins by collecting data that is relevant to the topic of interest. Once a substantial amount of data has been collected, the researcher will then take a breather from data collection, stepping back to get a bird\u2019s eye view of the data. At this stage, the researcher looks for patterns in the data, working to develop a theory that could explain those patterns. Thus, when researchers take an inductive approach, they start with a set of observations and then they move from those particular experiences to a more general set of propositions about those experiences. In other words, they move from data to theory, or from the specific to the general (see Figure 1.4).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_424\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1524\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research.jpg\" alt=\"1. Gather data. 2. Look for patterns. 3. Develop theory.\" class=\"wp-image-424 size-full\" width=\"1524\" height=\"342\" \/> Figure 1.4: Steps involved with an inductive approach to research.[\/caption]\r\n<h3>Text Attributions:<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>This chapter has been adapted from <a href=\"https:\/\/saylordotorg.github.io\/text_principles-of-sociological-inquiry-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods\/s05-03-inductive-or-deductive-two-dif.html\">Chapter 2.3 in <em>Principles of Sociological Inquiry<\/em><\/a>, which was adapted by the Saylor Academy without attribution to the original authors or publisher, as requested by the licensor. \u00a9 <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License<\/a><em>.<\/em><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","rendered":"<p>In addition to considering paradigms, researchers must also give thought to whether or not they plan to employ an inductive or a deductive approach.\u00a0 While each approach is quite different, they can also be complementary.\u00a0 In the following sections we will examine how these approaches are similar and dissimilar.<\/p>\n<p>An <strong>inductive approach <\/strong>to research begins by collecting data that is relevant to the topic of interest. Once a substantial amount of data has been collected, the researcher will then take a breather from data collection, stepping back to get a bird\u2019s eye view of the data. At this stage, the researcher looks for patterns in the data, working to develop a theory that could explain those patterns. Thus, when researchers take an inductive approach, they start with a set of observations and then they move from those particular experiences to a more general set of propositions about those experiences. In other words, they move from data to theory, or from the specific to the general (see Figure 1.4).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_424\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-424\" style=\"width: 1524px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research.jpg\" alt=\"1. Gather data. 2. Look for patterns. 3. Develop theory.\" class=\"wp-image-424 size-full\" width=\"1524\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research.jpg 1524w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-300x67.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-768x172.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-1024x230.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-65x15.jpg 65w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-225x50.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/728\/2019\/05\/Inductive-Research-350x79.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1524px) 100vw, 1524px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1.4: Steps involved with an inductive approach to research.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Text Attributions:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>This chapter has been adapted from <a href=\"https:\/\/saylordotorg.github.io\/text_principles-of-sociological-inquiry-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods\/s05-03-inductive-or-deductive-two-dif.html\">Chapter 2.3 in <em>Principles of Sociological Inquiry<\/em><\/a>, which was adapted by the Saylor Academy without attribution to the original authors or publisher, as requested by the licensor. \u00a9 <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License<\/a><em>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"media-attributions clear\" prefix:cc=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/ns#\" prefix:dc=\"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/\"><h2>Media Attributions<\/h2><ul><li about=\"https:\/\/saylordotorg.github.io\/text_principles-of-sociological-inquiry-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods\/s05-03-inductive-or-deductive-two-dif.html\"><a rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" href=\"https:\/\/saylordotorg.github.io\/text_principles-of-sociological-inquiry-qualitative-and-quantitative-methods\/s05-03-inductive-or-deductive-two-dif.html\" property=\"dc:title\">Inductive Research<\/a>      is licensed under a  <a rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike)<\/a> license<\/li><\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"author":103,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":"cc-by-nc-sa"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[56],"class_list":["post-34","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","license-cc-by-nc-sa"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions\/506"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/researchmethods\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}