NEITHER RIGOROUS NOR OBJECTIVE? 69in a conceptually prior relationship to reliability and validity: the way the latter are operationalized
in methods discussions presumes that the data in question have been generated through rigorous
and objective research procedures.
Interpretive researchers have countered that such expectations misunderstand their research
procedures. A counterargument can be prosecuted, then, in procedural terms, stipulating what it is
that interpretive research actually does. But in the process of detailing such an argument—explor-
ing the criteria for being scientific, for example, including, specifically, for generating trustworthy
evidence—it becomes clear that, definitionally and terminologically, the two terms are used in
various methods textbooks and arguments to mean different things, which makes it difficult to
articulate a substantive-procedural defense. Definitionally, interpretive research is rigorous, if by
that one means the rigor of logic, drawing on a broader understanding of “rigor” than the restricted
one that emerges from methodological positivism and textbook “common sense.”
Moreover, there is the matter of philosophical differences undergirding the charges. These
come from a position that assumes that there is only one way of demonstrating rigor and objectivity—
and that is the one informed by positivist ontological and epistemological presuppositions. Philo-
sophically, interpretive work rejects the possibility that a human sciences researcher can stand
outside the subject of study, which renders positivist-inflected objectivity an inapplicable criterion
(although methodological interpretivists could do a better job of making these presuppositions
explicit and showing how interpretive methods relate to them, the project of this book).
On Rigor
What does it mean for research to be conducted in a rigorous fashion? Most textbooks do not
begin with either definitional statements or philosophical discussions. One typically finds a sen-
tence in the opening section, where the hallmarks of scientific work are enumerated, that simply
posits that science is “rigorous.” At times, the sentence may suggest one or more antonyms, al-
though they are rarely positioned specifically in opposition to “rigor” itself. Rather, direct, ex-
plicit contrast is commonly made between scientific work and metaphysical explanations or casual
observation (such as in the statement, “Indeed, the distinctive characteristic that sets social sci-
ence apart from casual observation... ,” which appears in King, Keohane, and Verba [1994, 6]).
Absent textbook definitions or classroom discussion, the reader is left to infer what rigor means
from the broader context of the textbook’s treatment of what constitutes science, as distinct from
unscientific ways of knowing. The term is often taken to be a procedural descriptor, characteriz-
ing how the researcher goes about accessing (gathering, collecting, generating) and/or analyzing
data. Because “rigor” typically occurs in the descriptive textbook phrase “systematic and rigor-
ous,” a common inference is that rigorous means “stepwise,” inflexible, unyielding. Its opposite,
again by inference rather than explicit textbook definition or discussion, is unsystematic, without
plan, and chaotic. Formal definitions corroborate this inferred, common sense. “Rigor” means:
- Strictness or severity (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th
- ed. 2000)^4
- Rigidity; stiffness (Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1998)
- Exactness without allowance, deviation, or indulgence; strictness (Webster’s 1998)
These give the etymological derivation as “stiff,” from the Latin.^5
Its textbook meaning is adumbrated in procedural distinctions, such as in discussions of “the
scientific method,” typically introduced shortly after the initial sections on the attributes of science.