Normative versus Actual Methodologies in Planning Research: A Hybrid Picture

Abstract

What methodologies do we write about, and what type of research do we actually conduct and build upon in planning? Since the 1980s, planners have argued for more qualitative research within an interpretative paradigm. A content analysis of articles in Journal of Planning Education and Research do show a majority of qualitative studies, but cast within a pragmatic rather than an interpretative paradigm. More recently, planners have reiterated the need for qualitative research, especially participatory and applied forms of research within a critical social science paradigm. Some recommendations for planning education and research are discussed.

Why Do Some Articles in Planning Journals Get Cited More than Others?

“…Berke and Godschalk 2009; Ewing and Cervero 2010; Fang 2015; Park, Huang, and Newman 2016; Stevens 2017), and meta-research articles (cf. Du Toit, Boshoff, and Mariette 2017; Goldstein and Carmin 2007; Goldstein and Maier 2010; Lyles and Stevens 2014; Sanchez 2017; Stevens, Lyles, and Berke 2014) having been published in the past decade or so.…”

An Argument for Action Research-Inspired Participatory Mapping

“…Within the 2012 JPER symposium dedicated to the engagement of planning research with practice, Campbell (2012) argued that planning research has increasingly abandoned any ambition to make the world a better place and made a plea for researchers to change direction towards a more engaged approach to scholarship. More recently, Du Toit, Boshoff and Mariette (2017) discussed the scarcity of academic publications coming out of action research, raising concerns regarding its real compatibility with academic publishing conventions. As already addressed elsewhere (Saija 2014b), this issue of compatibility comes from some of the epistemological differences between action research and traditional research, which lead to substantial dissimilarities in their written outcomes.…”

The Impact of Residential Densification on Perceptions of Public Space

“…The absence of experimental methods is not unique to the Journal of the American Planning Association. A review of the methods used by planners in the Journal of Planning Education and Research similarly shows that planners rarely experiment (Du Toit et al, 2017). We understand that experimentation is rare in planning because it is difficult.…”