What Are The Different Types Of Scientific Methods?
You can use different types of scientific methods to get answers and define and organize a study. In methodology, the scientific methods can be empirical or theoretical.
On the one hand, you can use empirical methods to discover and accumulate data and facts as a basis for proving a hypothesis, answering scientific questions or having a basis for discussing something.
But some methods are not really deep enough to be able to go into depth.
The rational methods allow you to systematize and analyze the results you obtained with an empirical method. These scientific methods can therefore help you to draw conclusions about a scientific problem.
Empirical methods can give you tips on how to develop theories by using rational methods.
Different types of scientific methods
The rational methods are classified according to how they are used in a study. Some of them are:
The analytical-synthetic method
The analytical-synthetic methods refer to the analysis and the synthesis processes.
An analysis is a logical process that helps you mentally break down a whole and its properties, its multiple relationships and components.
The synthesis process, on the other hand, will establish a combination of the previously analyzed parts. It therefore helps you to discover the general relationships and properties between the different elements of the subject.
The analysis and synthesis process function as a dialectical unit. During the course of the research, one can dominate the other depending on where one is in the research.
Types of scientific methods: the inductive-deductive method
This method represents two opposite processes: induction and deduction.
The induction process addresses special cases to achieve broader knowledge. This knowledge reflects what these cases have in common.
The English philosopher Francis Bacon was the first to propose induction as a method of research. Bacon said that if you want to gain knowledge, you have to observe nature. You have to collect data and make generalizations.
This process is nowadays called inductive reasoning and follows these steps:
- Observation
- Formulation
- Verification
- Thesis
- Law
- Theory
The induction and the deduction therefore complement each other. Through induction, one can establish generalizations with the help of what the case studies have in common.
Based on these generalizations, several logical conclusions are then deducted. The induction is used to arrive at conclusions that are enriched generalizations that form a didactic unit.
Hypothetical-deductive method
The hypothetical-deductive method begins with hypotheses. These are based on principles or laws, or they were established through empirical data.
By applying deduction techniques, you reach conclusions that you can verify empirically.
This method is used, for example, in clinical diagnoses.
Types of scientific methods: historical-logical method
To discover the essence of things, logic needs history. This method allows you to describe facts through their logical development.
You can use this method to investigate the background information of the scientific problem.
The genetic method
This method is used when studying a company’s development and the factors that govern this development. You can also perform a cross-sectional study.
An analogy and an analogical method
This means that one finds relationships or consequences among similar phenomena. You can use this method to create new knowledge.
By using this method, one can, for example, find similar consequences among similar historical time periods.
Modeling method
Through modeling method, you can create models to investigate reality. First, you define the object to be studied.
Once you have done this, you must separate the important from the non-important. One can therefore get a clear idea of the essence of the object, and this abstraction of reality is your model.
Types of scientific methods: the systemic-functional method
For Aristotle, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. This is because the interactions between the parts had properties that were not part of the mechanical sum of the properties of each separate part.
This method is based on this and is built to create new knowledge.
The systematization method
This method is related to the development of the scientific method. This method is mainly used in the systematization of data and information or in the systematization of experiences.
This classification of these types of scientific methods according to what they are used for in research can be summarized in two ways.
First you have the research methods. This means all the empirical methods, the analytical-synthetic method, the historical-logical method, the genetic method and the systematization of information.
On the other hand, there are methods for creating new knowledge.
Among these are the hypothetical-deductive method, the analogical method, systematization, the inductive-deductive method, the modeling method and the systemic-functional method.
You should think of two things. First, the perfect methodology does not exist. Some are safer than others, but also slower.
There are some that are easier to fail than others, but from which one can draw conclusions more quickly. One should also understand that knowledge is as important as the method that has given rise to it.
