RESEARCH STRATEGIES

Many factors make it very difficult to do research on the questions outlined in the previous sections, particularly the kind of idealized research that most researchers would prefer to do.

Given this reality, what kind of research can be done that is worth doing? Here we outline several mutually supportive research strategies of potential value.

Experimental and Quasiexperimental Research

Experimental research involves small-scale studies that can be conducted in research laboratories, experimental classrooms, or experimental workshops. It is most suitable for questions related to basic or developmental research, ques­tions specific as to what is to be investigated. Thus, such approaches would be appropriate if one sought to test the hypothesis that role reversal does not facil­itate constructive conflict resolution when the conflict is about values (such as euthanasia) but does when it centers on interests. Similarly, it would be appro­priate if one wished to examine the relative effectiveness of two different methods of training in improving such conflict resolution skills as perspective taking and reframing.

This kind of research is most productive if the hypothesis or question being investigated is well-grounded in theory or in a systematic set of ideas rather than when it is ad hoc.

In good conscience, one other point must be made. It is very difficult and perhaps impossible to create a true or pure experiment involving human beings. The logic involved in true experiments assumes that complete randomization has occurred for all other variables except the causal variables being studied. But human beings have life histories, personalities, values, and attitudes prior to their participation in a conflict workshop or experiment. What they bring to the experiment from their prior experience may not only influence the effectiveness of the causal variables being studied but also be reflected directly in the mea­surement of the effects of these variables.

Thus, an authoritarian, antidemocratic, alienated member of the Aryan Nation Militia Group may not only be unresponsive to participation in a CRI but also, independently of this, score poorly on such measures of the effectiveness of the CRI as ethnocentrism, alienation, authoritarianism, and control of vio­lence because of his or her initial attitudes. Such people are also less likely to participate in CRIs than democratic, nonviolent, and nonalienated people. The latter are apt to be responsive to CRIs and, independently of this, to have good scores on egalitarianism, nonviolence, lack of ethnocentrism, and the like, which also reflect their initial attitudes.

With appropriate “before” measures and correlational statistics, it is possi­ble to control for much (but far from all) of the influence of initial differences in attitudes on the “after” measures. In other words, a quasiexperiment that has some resemblance to a true experiment can be created despite the prior histo­ries of the people who are being studied.

Causal Modeling

Correlations, by themselves, do not readily permit causal inference. If you find a negative correlation between amount of exposure to CRIs and authoritarian­ism, as I have suggested, it may be that those who are authoritarian are less apt to expose themselves to CRIs, or those who have been exposed to CRIs become less authoritarian, or the causal arrow may point in both directions. It is impos­sible to tell from a simple correlation. However, methods of statistical analysis developed during the past several decades (and still being refined) enable one to appraise with considerable precision how well a pattern of correlations within a set of data fits an a priori causal model. Although causal modeling and exper­imental research are a mutually supportive combination, causal modeling can be employed even if an approximation to an experimental design cannot be achieved. This is likely to be the case in most field studies.

Consider, for example, a study we completed several years ago on the effects of training in cooperative learning and conflict resolution on students in an alternative high school (Deutsch, 1993; Zhang, 1994). Prior theoretical analysis (Deutsch, 1949, 1973; Johnson and Johnson, 1989) as well as much experimental and quasiexperimental research (see Johnson and Johnson, 1989, for a comprehensive review) suggested what effects such training could have and also suggested the causal process that might lead to these effects. Limitation of resources made it impossible to do the sort of extensive study of many schools required for an experimental or quasiexperimental study or to employ the statistical analysis appropriate to an experiment.

The results of the study were consistent with our causal model. Even though the study was quite limited in scope—having been conducted in only one alter­native high school—the results have some general significance. They are con­sistent with prior theory and also with prior research conducted in very different and much more favorable social contexts. The set of ideas underlying the research appears to be applicable to students in the difficult, harsh environment of an inner-city school as well as to students in well-supported, upper-middle­class elementary and high schools.

Nonexperimental field research is either exploratory or testing of a causal model, or some combination of both. Exploratory research is directed at describing the relations and developing the set of ideas that underlie a causal model. Typically, it is inappropriate to test a causal model with the data collected to stimulate its devel­opment. Researchers are notoriously ingenious in developing ex post facto expla­nations of data they have obtained, no matter how their studies have turned out. A priori explanations are much more credible.

Survey Research

This form of research is widely used in market research; pre-election polling; opinion research; research on the occurrence of crime; and collection of economic data on unemployment, inflation, sales of houses, and so on. A well-developed methodology exists concerning sampling, questionnaire construction, interview­ing, and statistical analysis. Unfortunately, little survey research has taken place in the field of conflict resolution. Some of the questions that could be answered by survey research have been discussed earlier, under the heading of consumer research. It is, of course, important to know about the potential (as well as exist­ing) consumers of CRIs. Similarly, it is important to know about current CR prac­titioners: their demographics, their qualifications to practice, the models and frameworks they employ, how long they have practiced, the nature of their clien­tele, the goals of their work, and their estimation of the degree of success.

Experience Surveys

Experience surveys are a special kind, involving intensive in-depth interviews with a sample of people, individually or in small focus groups, who are con­sidered to be experts in their field. The purpose of such surveys may be to obtain insight into the important questions needing research through the experts’ identification of important gaps in knowledge or through the opposing views among the experts on a particular topic. In addition, interviewing experts, prior to embarking on a research study generally improves the researcher’s prac­tical knowledge of the context within which her research is conducted and applied and thus helps her avoid the minefields and blunders into which naivete may lead her.

More important, experts have a fund of knowledge, based on their deep immersion in the field, that may suggest useful, practical answers to questions that would be difficult or unfeasible to answer through other forms of research. Many of the questions mentioned earlier under the heading of field research are of this nature. Of course, one’s confidence in the answers of the experts is even­tually affected by how much they agree or disagree.

There are several steps involved in an experience survey. The first is to iden­tify the type of expert you want to survey. For example, with respect to CRIs in schools, one might want to survey practitioners (the trainers of trainees), teach­ers who have been trained, students, or administrators of schools in which CRIs have occurred. The second step is to contact several experts of the type you wish to interview and have them nominate other experts, who in turn nominate other experts. After several rounds of such nominations, a group of nominees usually emerges as being widely viewed as experts. The third step is to develop an interview schedule. This typically entails formulating a preliminary one that is tried out and modified as a result of interviews with a half dozen or so of the experts individually and also as a group. The revised schedule is formulated so as to ask all of the questions one wants to have answered by the experts, while leaving the expert the opportunity to raise issues and answer the questions in a way that was not anticipated by the researcher.

Many years ago, Deutsch and Collins (1951) conducted an experience survey of public housing officials prior to conducting a study of interracial housing. The objective was to identify the important issues that could be the focus of a future study. It led to a study of the effects of the occupancy patterns: whether the white and black tenants were housed in racially integrated or racially segregated buildings in a given housing project. Additionally, the survey created a valuable handbook of the various other factors that, in the officials’ experi­ence, affected race relations in public housing. It was a useful guide to anyone seeking to improve race relations in public housing projects.

Although it is possible for the experts to be wrong—to have commonly held, mistaken, implicit assumptions—their articulated views are an important start­ing point either as constructive criticism or as a guide to informed practice.

Learning by Analogy

Not only can the conflict resolution field learn from its experienced practitioners, it can also learn from the work done in other closely related areas. Many of the issues involved in CRIs have been addressed in other areas: transfer of knowl­edge and skills is of considerable concern to learning theorists and to the field of education generally; communication skills have been the focus of much research in the fields of language and communication as well as social psychology; anger, aggression, and violence have been studied extensively by various specialties in psychology and psychiatry; and there is an extensive literature related to cooperation and competition. Similarly, creative problem solving and decision making have been the focus of much theoretical and applied activity. Terms such as attitude change, social change, culture change, psychodynamics, group dynamics, ethnocentrism, resistance, perspective taking, and the like are com­mon to CRIs and older areas. Although the field of conflict resolution is rela­tively young, it has roots in many well-established areas and can learn much from the prior work in these areas. The purpose of this handbook is, of course, to provide knowledge of many of these relevant areas to those interested in con­flict resolution.

As an educational and social innovation, CRIs in the form of training, work­shops, and intergroup encounters are also relatively young. There is, however, a vast literature on innovation in education and the factors affecting the success or lack of success in institutionalizing an innovation in schools. In particular, by analogy cooperative learning could offer much useful experience for CR train­ing in this regard. Cooperative learning, which is conceptually closely related to CR training, has accumulated a considerable body of experience that might help CR practitioners understand what leads to success or failure in institu­tionalizing a school program of CR training.