You say sociological methodology leads the researcher to project their own biases onto the data, but the method you criticise- open questions - is precisely de

You say sociological methodology leads the researcher to project their own biases onto the data, but the method you criticise- open questions - is precisely designed to avoid this. The sociological methodology most focussed on avoiding researcher bias is Grounded Theory[1]. It follows the collection of data via open-ended questions and interviews with further techniques to analyse this unstructured data in a way that avoids introducing preconceived ideas from the researcher (coding, etc). The problem with pointing to qualitative techniques as more rigorous and less biassed, is that the bias - when it comes to data about people- often lies in the decision what to measure - especially when categorising - and how to interpret the numerical result when you have (rigorously) processed it. That is as susceptible to preconceptions of the researcher. It's just easier for an economist to hide behind the rigour applied to the quantitative part. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grounded_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grounded_theory