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3. A SECOND MIRAGE: IS THIS THE END OF THE PATH?
3.1 The goal of completeness
As well as identifying the 'confirmatory' function of triangulation in the social sciences, which has been seriously questioned in this chapter, Knafl and Breitmayer (1989) suggest that 'multiple data collection techniques contribute to the completeness function of triangulation by providing explanatory insights about data from varying sources (pp.234-5).' This seems similar to Jick's (1983:138) holistic type of triangulation which enables the researcher to elicit data and suggest conclusions 'to which other methods would be blind.' The general idea behind the 'completeness' idea is that triangulation, in this form equated simply with multiple methods, leads to a 'holistic' account where all the 'gaps' are plugged by each successive method/data source. However, the 'completeness' application of the term triangulation in sociology falls so far outside the definition or use of it in land surveying, it is difficult to see why it is applied at all in this context (Knafl and Breitmayer 1989).
4. JOURNEY'S END: CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have argued that a number of philosophical assumptions within the original conception of triangulation (as practised in land surveying etc.) simply do not translate into the field of multiple methods research in the social sciences. At least seven types of logical error have been identified in the practices which can be generally grouped under the designation of methodological triangulation. In addition, the goal of completeness bears little or no relation to the original concept of triangulation. Several conclusions follow from this.
First, the adoption of the term triangulation by the social sciences is often inappropriate. None of the practices carried out in multiple method research such as ethnography under the name of methodological triangulation is in fact triangulation at all. Each is simply a unique technique to construct a unique kind of data or information.
Second, this misappropriation of the term would not be a problem but for the fact that the resonances and associations of the word are just too powerful and misleading. Morgan (1986:382) stresses that we must "recognise that our seeing and understanding of the world is always 'seeing as', rather than a 'seeing as is'." The mistake of those social researchers who have retained the term triangulation is that they have stretched the metaphor too far, taking it too literally, and believing that they can reach the same kind of certainty about social reality as land surveyors can about physical reality. Insistence on using the term may be the result of a need to establish authority for one's claims beyond one's own subjectivity. Whatever the reason, for the unsuspecting, it leads to claims of convergence, truth, validity, control of bias, completeness and so on looking far more solid than they really are.
Third, it is hard to see how completeness could be achieved without the existence of a fixed social reality. Even if there were such a thing, how could one know it had been achieved? What could count as a workable definition of completeness? Jick (1983:144) claims:
Implicit in this seems to be a post-modern idea that the world is coherent and that any commentary on it must reflect this. However, it has been argued in this chapter that the capacity for methods to complement each other in the drive towards 'completeness' should not be assumed; nor should 'corroboration' between methods (whatever that might mean) automatically be considered unproblematic, and therefore precluding the need for further investigation.
Fourth, I agree with Blaikie (1991:131) that there is a need to 'identify appropriate and inappropriate combinations of methods'. Ideally, those methods or combinations which are governed by one or more of the errors identified in this chapter should be seen for what they are - seriously flawed -, so that researchers can properly evaluate under what circumstances such methods should still be used, if at all.
Finally, the current confusion which characterises the use of methodological triangulation leads to weak research and plays unnecessarily into the hands of those who are already keen to discredit mixed or multiple method research. If this chapter has encouraged in social researchers - ethnographers especially - a healthy distrust of the term triangulation and those techniques it is used to signify in social science research, then perhaps it will help provide more tools for evaluating work which uses so-called methodological triangulation, and strengthen future multiple method research such as ethnography.
5. REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Geoffrey Walford for his close reading of and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. Thanks also go to Thomas Spielhofer for his feedback on earlier drafts.
Methodological Triangulation,
Or How To Get Lost Without Being Found Out
by Alexander Massey BA PGCE MA MSc
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