Statistics and Probability Have Always Been Value-Laden: An Historical Ontology of Quantitative Research Methods
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Statistics and Probability Have Always Been Value‑Laden: An Historical Ontology of Quantitative Research Methods Michael J. Zyphur1 · Dean C. Pierides2 Received: 18 April 2018 / Accepted: 17 May 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Quantitative researchers often discuss research ethics as if specific ethical problems can be reduced to abstract normative logics (e.g., virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology). Such approaches overlook how values are embedded in every aspect of quantitative methods, including ‘observations,’ ‘facts,’ and notions of ‘objectivity.’ We describe how quantitative research practices, concepts, discourses, and their objects/subjects of study have always been value-laden, from the invention of statistics and probability in the 1600s to their subsequent adoption as a logic made to appear as if it exists prior to, and separate from, ethics and values. This logic, which was embraced in the Academy of Management from the 1960s, casts management researchers as ethical agents who ought to know about a reality conceptualized as naturally existing in the image of statistics and probability (replete with ‘constructs’), while overlooking that S&P logic and practices, which researchers made for themselves, have an appreciable role in making the world appear this way. We introduce a different way to conceptualize reality and ethics, wherein the process of scientific inquiry itself requires an examination of its own practices and commitments. Instead of resorting to decontextualized notions of ‘rigor’ and its ‘best practices,’ quantitative researchers can adopt more purposeful ways to reason about the ethics and relevance of their methods and their science. We end by considering implications for addressing ‘post truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ problems as collective concerns, wherein it is actually the pluralistic nature of description that makes defending a collectively valuable version of reality so important and urgent. Keywords Quantitative research methods · History · Research ethics · Historical ontology · Statistics and probability · Rigor · Relevance · Best practices · Questionable research practices Discussions about research ethics have placed significant emphasis on the avoidance of harm to individual participants, downplaying the importance of reflective thinking, or reflexivity, throughout the entire research process (Greenwood 2016). This has meant that the question of how ethics are embedded in methods beyond the context of data collection has received relatively less attention. The absence of a discussion about the relationship between methods and ethics is especially noticeable in the case of quantitative
* Michael J. Zyphur [email protected] Dean C. Pierides [email protected] 1
Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia
University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK
2
methods, because quantitative researchers often claim their methods are value-neutral, or ‘objective.’ In response to this sit
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