Methodology of cultural-historical psychology

Abstract

G. P. Zeljonyi points out correctly, that with the word “method” [metod] two different things are understood by us: (1) a procedure [metodika] of study, a technical action [prijom], and (2) a method of cognition [metod poznanija] that determines the aim of the study, the place of a science and its nature. (Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 346, my translation) Method is a term which has a complex meaning in science. From the original Greek méthodos – which means pursuit, following after – the term entered English vocabulary through the Latin methodus – which means way of teaching or proceeding. Later in history, the term came into use in an extended sense; method began to refer to any special procedure or way of doing things (Barnhart, 1988). What is understood by ‘method’ in scientific psychology today is reasonably well expressed in the structure of empirical articles commonly applied in the majority of Anglo-American psychological journals. According to the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2001), the Method section can be divided into the following subsections: participants or subjects, apparatus or materials, and the procedure. Altogether, the Method section contains information about what was done and how it was done. So, method refers to who is selected to be studied, which apparatus or materials are used, and the steps taken in the execution of the research. In principle, such an understanding of methods is acceptable also from a cultural-historical psychology perspective, with one addition. Conceptually, scientific method as “any special procedure of doing things” – developing knowledge, in this case – also includes algorithmic procedures of data interpretation, either quantitative (usually statistical) or qualitative methods of data analysis where steps of analysis are explicitly defined before the analysis.