Methodological Community – Research Community

Before conducting research, it’s essential to understand the different communities that shape knowledge production. Research is not a singular pursuit but a collection of distinct traditions, each grounded in different epistemological assumptions and methodological approaches. Whether you identify as a Creative, a Designer, an Empiricist, an Interpreter, a Scientist, an Integrator, or a Scholar, your research will be shaped by the ways of knowing valued within your field. This article explores the major research communities, helping you recognize their underlying frameworks and engage more effectively with your audience’s expectations.

Photo Credit: "UFV - Student Research Day" by University of the Fraser Valley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Table of Contents

What Are Methodological Communities?

A methodological community, also known as a research community, is a type of discourse community or community of practice in which members share not only research methods but also epistemological assumptions about how knowledge is generated and interpreted. Research communities are groups of scholars, researchers, and practitioners who share a common set of epistemological assumptions, methodological approaches, and scholarly conversations in their pursuit of knowledge. These communities form within diverse, dynamic ecosystems, often arising around

archives or texts specific research methods
how to ask research questions
how to choose subjects
how to analyze information
shared assumptions about the kinds of knowledge their methods can generate
agreement regarding what sorts of knowledge matter

Because each community faces different problems and goals—and holds differing beliefs about what knowledge is—members develop distinct ways of conducting research, framing questions, writing literature reviews, and citing sources. Their collective works (research genres) reveal unique voices, perspectives, and discourse conventions.

Just as people who share cultural or religious beliefs can form a community—even if they have never met—researchers who share methods and ways of knowing can also be seen as a community. Academic disciplines and professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association (APA) or the Modern Language Association (MLA), serve as examples: they prescribe best practices in field-specific handbooks, publish on research methods, and train newcomers in those methods through professional or graduate programs.

More often than not, members of a methodological community agree on how to gather and interpret data and on what counts as acceptable knowledge-making. However, they may not always agree on the final meaning of their findings—a point illustrated by, for example, ethnographers who disagree about whether their work yields generalizable or context-dependent truths.

Researchers across communities engage in ongoing dialectic—argument—over epistemology, disciplinary histories, research methods, and future directions. As new digital tools, ideas, and cross-disciplinary foraging arise, the beliefs and actions of methodological communities evolve, much like language and literacies do.

Major Research Communities

The Creatives (Creative Methods)
The Designers (Design Research Methods)
The Empiricists (Empirical Research Methods)
- The Interpreters (Qualitative Research Methods
- The Scientists (Quantitative Research Methods
The Integrators (Mixed Research Methods
The Scholars (Scholarly Research Methods

Research communities are so called because they share particular expectations for data collection, interpretation, and citation. To participate in a community, a researcher must be aware of its epistemological assumptions and adopt a stance, voice, and ethos that peers consider legitimate.

The Creatives

rhetorical stance - Writing Commons — Rhetorical stance refers to the position or attitude that a writer or speaker takes when communicating with a particular audience Its the lens through which a writer views their topic audience and themselves Rhetorical stance is informed by a variety of factors including the writers individual personality culture personal experiences and literary history Photo Credit Moxley

Who They Are & How They Work

The Creatives are individuals who rely on internal inspiration—imagination, introspection, emotional resonance—rather than primarily on external data or large-scale scholarly conversations. They see the act of writing, painting, composing, or otherwise creating as a way to uncover new ideas. Rather than extensively reviewing existing literature, The Creatives often start with their own inner impulses, trusting that creative production will lead to fresh insights or breakthroughs. They deeply value what psychologist Eugene Gendlin called the “felt sense,” allowing embodied intuition to guide their process.

Key Principles

Imagination: Fueling originality and discovery
Subjectivity & Context: Acknowledging personal and cultural frameworks
Iteration: Refining creative work through revision and reflection
Fluidity & Adaptation: Letting ideas evolve organically rather than adhering to rigid structures

Roles

Fiction writers, poets, screenwriters
Musicians and composers
Visual artists, sculptors, multimedia creators
Entrepreneurs exploring ideas by “feeling their way forward”
Innovators who prototype from raw inspiration rather than data

Genres of Discourse

Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction
Screenplays, speculative narratives, worldbuilding notes
Performance art pieces, musical compositions
Reflective or personal essays, journals, memoirs

How They Generate Knowledge

The Creatives tap into intuition and inner speech to draw unexpected connections. Their work often anticipates technological, cultural, or scientific developments long before they appear in mainstream reality. Epistemologically, they emphasize constructivism (building meaning through creating) and pragmatism (judging creations by how well they resonate with audiences or personal vision). They also draw on phenomenology, paying meticulous attention to lived and felt experience, and occasionally invoke a form of dialectic—an internal conversation that refines a project over time.

[ More on the Creatives ]

The Designers

Who They Are & How They Work

The Designers are problem-solvers who fuse creative exploration with structured inquiry to improve products, services, and experiences. They often incorporate elements of user-centered design, design thinking, and interdisciplinary collaboration. While they may occasionally tap into deep creative inspiration, The Designers also foreground observational studies, interviews, usability testing, and iterative feedback as crucial steps in refining solutions.

Core Principles

Iterative Problem-Solving: Rapid cycles of brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and refining
User-Centered Focus: Using interviews, surveys, and observational studies to identify real user needs
Interdisciplinary Integration: Drawing on engineering, psychology, sociology, marketing, and more
Bridging Theory and Practice: Balancing conceptual frameworks with tangible prototypes or final products

Roles

UX/UI designers and researchers
Industrial designers and architects
Product managers creating or refining consumer goods
Service designers in healthcare, government, nonprofits
Urban planners addressing community and city design challenges

Genres of Discourse

Design briefs (problem statements, constraints, user needs)
Prototypes, wireframes, sketches (visual or functional models)
User journey maps, personas, user-flow diagrams
Case studies and portfolios documenting design processes
Design logs or journals recording idea development

How They Generate Knowledge

The Designers make testable “best guesses” (abductive reasoning) and refine them with real-world feedback. They rely on pragmatism—does the design actually work for users?—and constructivism—each user’s reality shapes how they interact with a design. Since solutions often involve complex systems, The Designers commonly embrace systems thinking, appreciating that social, economic, and technical factors intersect in any design challenge.

[ More on the Designers ]

The Interpreters (Qualitative Researchers)

A woman in jungle gear looking through binoculars at gorillas far in the distance in a dense jungle or forest setting. The woman appears focused on her observation, with the gorillas visible in the background engaging in their natural behavior. The scene emphasizes the realistic and qualitative research environment in the wild. — Qualitative research involves observing and analyzing subjects in their natural environment to gather deep insights and valuable data

Who They Are & How They Work

The Interpreters explore human experiences in context, aiming to understand the nuanced ways people make sense of their worlds. They employ ethnographies, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and other qualitative techniques to gather detailed, context-rich data. Because they believe knowledge is shaped by social, cultural, and historical factors, The Interpreters often emphasize the importance of subjective narratives and localized truths.

Roles

Sociologists, anthropologists
Psychologists conducting qualitative or clinical work
Educators and curriculum designers
Journalists and investigative writers
Public health researchers, social workers, community activists

Genres of Discourse

Ethnographic monographs and case studies
Interview transcripts, thematic analyses, grounded theory papers
Reflective field journals documenting the researcher’s evolving perspective
Long-form investigative features or documentary reports

How They Generate Knowledge

The Interpreters adopt interpretivism—the view that reality is socially constructed and best understood through rich narratives. They gather stories through immersive engagement (e.g., fieldwork) and then analyze them using coding, categorization, or iterative comparison. Their aim is not to generalize universally but to draw profound insights about how specific people in specific contexts experience life, power, education, health, and more.

[ More on the Interpreters ]

The Scientists (Quantitative Empiricists)

elements-of-style - Writing Commons — Webb Space Telescope image of Quasars taken about 700 million years after the big bang Credits NASA ESA CSA Joseph Olmsted STScI

Who They Are & How They Work

The Scientists prioritize measurement, controlled experimentation, and replicability. They seek to uncover patterns that can be documented numerically and tested via statistical analysis. Although commonly associated with positivism—the idea that objective truths can be approximated—most modern scientists incorporate elements of post-positivism, acknowledging that bias is always possible, data are never perfect, and results remain probabilistic.

Roles

Natural scientists (physics, chemistry, biology)
Social scientists applying large-scale surveys (economics, political science)
Experimental psychologists in controlled lab settings
Data scientists and corpus linguists running numeric analyses
Epidemiologists and public health researchers running clinical trials

Genres of Discourse

Peer-reviewed journal articles detailing hypotheses, methods, results, discussion
Conference proceedings offering preliminary findings and frameworks
Systematic reviews or meta-analyses synthesizing multiple studies
Data repositories and technical white papers
Lab reports and specialized grant proposals

How They Generate Knowledge

The Scientists test hypotheses using experiments, surveys, or observational data. They rely on statistical methods to gauge whether a result is significant, seeking to minimize bias and maximize reliability. Because each new finding is incremental, they see science as an ongoing conversation where no single study is definitive—reproducibility is key, and cumulative evidence shapes accepted theories over time.

[ More on the Scientists ]

The Synthesizers (Mixed Methods Researchers)

A human user is wearing eye-tracking software. she is looking at a computer screen, which displays a mockup of a web page. Behind her, an investigator stands, holding a clipboard. They are in a lab. — Mixed method researchers may use eye tracking software to assess the usability of a prototype as well as scholarship on usability

Who They Are & How They Work

The Synthesizers believe that combining quantitative and qualitative methods yields deeper, more holistic insights than either approach alone. They are pragmatic in embracing multiple viewpoints, collecting diverse data sets, and weaving them into a cohesive understanding of a complex issue.

Roles

Public policy analysts and consultants
Health researchers merging interviews (qual) and health outcomes (quant)
Education specialists uniting classroom observations with standardized test scores
Market researchers blending surveys, statistical modeling, and in-depth user narratives

Genres of Discourse

Mixed-methods journal articles integrating numeric and narrative data
Implementation/action research reports, often in applied settings (e.g., schools, communities)
Triangulation studies that explicitly combine parallel data sources
Policy briefs merging large-scale data with localized stories

How They Generate Knowledge

The Synthesizers may conduct concurrent (parallel) or sequential (one-after-another) data collection. They emphasize triangulation, looking for convergences or discrepancies between different data types, and often produce a more nuanced picture of phenomena. By blending “the what” (quantitative statistics) with “the why” (qualitative accounts), they hope to capture the breadth and depth of an issue.

[ More on the Synthesizers ]

The Scholars (Textual Researchers)

image-2 - Writing Commons — Founding Scholars Writing and Technology

Who They Are & How They Work

The Scholars hold that knowledge emerges from critically reading, writing about, and debating texts—whether novels, historical documents, philosophical treatises, or media artifacts. They rely on hermeneutics (interpretation) and rhetorical reasoning rather than lab experiments or large-scale data collection, seeing meaning as continuously shaped by cultural context and the evolving “conversation of humankind.”

Roles

Historians, philosophers, literary theorists
Media analysts, critical legal scholars, theologians
Cultural studies and humanities scholars
Critics in any domain focusing on textual evidence

Genres of Discourse

Literature reviews, annotated bibliographies, theoretical essays
Scholarly articles on rhetorical or discourse analysis
Critical editions of key texts with in-depth commentary
Conference presentations debating canonical and emerging theories

How They Generate Knowledge

The Scholars practice close reading, interpret texts in light of historical or cultural contexts, and challenge existing interpretations through argumentation. They consider truth to be provisional and open-ended, shaped by ongoing dialogue and reinterpretation. Their hallmark is rhetorical analysis, connecting what a text says with how it is crafted and how it resonates (or conflicts) with other texts and cultural moments.

[ More on the Scholars ]

What Values & Dispositions Do Researchers Share Across Methodological Communities?

It’s true that researchers across methodological communities — scholarly/theoretical, design/creative, and empirical approaches (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods — have different ideas about how to research a topic. They disagree with one another regarding what constitutes a valid knowledge claim. They may even dispute the authority of one’s research methods. For instance, a scientist who solely values positivistic knowledge may reject an educator’s ethnography as frivolous — subjective dribble.

Yet, researchers across professional and academic communities also share many values, dispositions, and practices. According to the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries), researchers across methodological communities share six core values:

Authority is Constructed & Contextual

Professional researchers are critical readers. They distrust even research studies published in top peer-reviewed journals. They are especially careful to distinguish fact from opinion or speculation. They distrust appeals to ethos and pathos, preferring works grounded in logos. When they across new information, they question its Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.

In various fields, researchers understand that authority is not a given; it is shaped by context and the specific circumstances in which information is produced:

Scholars, such as historians and philosophers, look closely at the sources of information, considering who created it, why, and how it reflects the time and place of its creation.
Quantitative empiricists, like scientists and social scientists, rely on data and rigorous methods to determine whether a source is trustworthy. They assess whether the methods used to collect and analyze data are sound.
Qualitative empiricists, such as sociologists and educators, emphasize understanding the perspectives of individuals or groups. They recognize that authority can also come from lived experiences, not just from formal credentials.
Designers and creatives value imagination and innovation but also rely on usability studies, focus groups, and customer discovery to evaluate authority. They determine whether the information or product meets the needs and expectations of its intended audience.
Mixed-methods researchers draw from these diverse perspectives, understanding that authority is constructed differently depending on the method and context of the inquiry.

[ More on the Scholars ]

Information Creation as a Process

All researchers agree that information is not static but is created through a dynamic and iterative process of inquiry, analysis, and synthesis. Although research studies are often presented as if the research question was clear from the outset, in reality, investigators frequently rephrase and refine their questions as they delve deeper into their topics.

For scholars, particularly those in the humanities, the research process often involves continuous engagement with texts and theories. As they write, they may integrate new sources and perspectives, allowing their arguments or theories to evolve and mature over time.
Quantitative empiricists, who rely on data-driven methods, may revise their hypotheses as they collect and analyze data. The initial hypotheses serve as starting points, but the interpretation of results often leads to new questions and refinements, demonstrating that information creation is a process of discovery and adjustment.
Qualitative empiricists, working inductively, engage in “hypothesis generation” rather than hypothesis testing. Through immersive fieldwork and deep exploration of social contexts, they uncover nuanced understandings that emerge gradually, shaping their research focus and the information they create.
Designers and creatives, much like qualitative empiricists, prioritize the creation of innovative solutions or products over proving a hypothesis. Their process is inherently iterative, with ideas and designs evolving in response to feedback, user experiences, and emerging needs.
Mixed-methods researchers recognize that information creation is a multifaceted process, blending various methodologies to address complex questions. By integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches, they acknowledge the dynamic nature of research, where information is continually shaped by diverse perspectives and methods.

Information Has Value

Across disciplines, scholars and researchers recognize that information possesses both intellectual and economic value. Citations are essential in this process, enabling researchers to trace the development of ideas, differentiate between established theories, significant findings, and emerging concepts, and contribute to the broader intellectual dialogue. Copyright and intellectual property rights safeguard the financial interests of creators, ensuring that their contributions are properly acknowledged and compensated. The value of information lies not only in its capacity to inform, challenge, and advance human understanding but also in its potential to drive economic growth. New knowledge can lead to the development of innovative products, services, and solutions, generating economic returns and fostering further advancements.

Research as Inquiry

Scholars and researchers across all methodological communities embrace inquiry as a fundamental process in their work. They begin by formulating research questions that arise from gaps in existing knowledge or from the need to reexamine conflicting information. Whether addressing simple or complex issues, they determine the appropriate scope of investigation, breaking down intricate questions into manageable parts. Inquiry requires them to use a variety of research methods tailored to their needs and circumstances.

As they gather and analyze information, researchers monitor for gaps in understanding or weaknesses in others’ studies. They synthesize ideas from multiple sources, drawing reasonable conclusions based on their interpretation of the data. Across disciplines, whether in quantitative or qualitative fields, inquiry is a dynamic, iterative process that involves critical thinking, strategic exploration, and the continual refinement of scholarly conversations and methods to advance knowledge.

Scholarship as a Conversation

Scholars and researchers across methodological communities engage in sustained discourse, recognizing that research is an ongoing conversation enriched by varied perspectives and counterarguments. This dialogue involves formulating, debating, and weighing ideas, with studies often attempting to replicate results across different subjects and contexts. By incorporating diverse methodologies, researchers aim to ensure that their work is inclusive and reflective of broader realities. In this dynamic exchange, they contribute to advancing knowledge, understanding that new insights emerge over time through critical evaluation and the integration of multiple viewpoints.

Searching as Strategic Exploration

Searching for information, whether in peer-reviewed literature, social media, or other sources, requires a strategic approach similar to how an apprentice learns by studying a seasoned expert. Scholars and researchers across disciplines recognize that effective searching is not a straightforward process; it involves refining search strategies based on the scope of the inquiry and the types of sources available. This process demands flexibility, as initial searches may not always provide the desired results. By employing a variety of search techniques and tools, such as controlled vocabulary, keywords, and natural language, researchers can navigate different information systems more effectively. Successful searching also involves self-reflection, allowing researchers to adjust their strategies as they uncover new information, ensuring their search is both thorough and targeted.