| Abstract: | An earlier study of the theoretical and methodological postures used by the authors of 1,434 sociological journal articles found that those with a realist or social factist theoretical approach tended not to involve empirical data gathering and analysis techniques. In contrast, nominalists or social behaviorists used more highly empirical research procedures. Using the same data set, this study investigates the direction and nature of changes which occur over time in the theoretical or methodological orientations for 67 authors of multiple journal articles. The theory-methods pairing used by authors in their first article, when compared to those of their last, shows that about 80 percent of the authors have gravitated to or toward those theory-methods relationships found earlier. Such movement toward theoretical-methodological consistency was more often the result of authors' changing their methodological rather than their theoretical perspective. Implications for the changes in the theoretical-methodological linkages of sociologists over their careers are discussed. |
