Professional Documents
Culture Documents
115
@ 1991 Kfuwer A~~~ernic Publishers. Printed in the ~etherfa~~s.
NORMAN W. H. BLAIKIE
Victoria University of Technology, RMIT Campus G.P.O. Box 2476V, Melbourne, Vie. 3001,
Australia
Introduction
This paper examines the origins and use of triangulation in social research,
it explores the use of triangulation in navigation and surveying and how this
differs from its use in social research, it outlines a framework of methodolog-
ical perspectives in order to identify the major differences in ontology and
epistemology, and it then examines the problems which the use of triangu-
lation has produced. Some suggestions are made about what needs to be
done to overcome these problems.
No single method is always superior. Each has its own special strengths
and weaknesses. It is time for sociologists to recognise this fact and to
move on to a position that permits them to approach their problems with
all relevant and appropriate methods, to the strategy of methodological
triangulation (Denzin, 1970b: 471).
Denzin has taken the work of Campbell and Fiske, and Webb et al., as his
starting point and has shared their concern with bias and validity. However,
he has gone beyond their use of multiple methods in the study of the same
object, to advocate the use of multiple triangulation which involves a variety
of data sources, investigators, theories and methodologies.2 Denzin also