Métodos y técnicas empleados en investigaciones teológicas latinoamericanas publicadas entre 2018 y 2020

The objective of this research was to quantitatively analyze the methods and techniques of theological research in Latin American Spanish-speaking countries, between 2018 and 2020, for the promotion of tools that favor studies in the area. The study was quantitative, positivist and descriptive, examining the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) 2018, reviewing articles published between 2018 and 2020, nine university publications that offer the Theology program, degree studies and theses in digital repositories, to a total of 402 systematized investigations, using content analysis to discriminate methods and techniques used. The information was registered in a matrix for its percentage analysis by criteria. It is concluded that a fifth of the investigations used exclusively social methods, mostly with a quantitative approach and a descriptive level. Among the qualitative social ones, the following stood out: Phenomenology, IAP, comparative and biographical method. Traditional theological methods were mostly used: Hermeneutic, Exegetical, Latin American Praxeological and Historical-critical, but the former is still preferred. The techniques were varied, mixing approaches and methods, especially reflection, semantic analysis, historical-grammatical analysis and narration. Of the social techniques, the favorite was survey-questionnaire. The country with the most publications was Colombia (45.7%) and the year with the highest number of these was 2018 (55%). The preferred approach was qualitative (87.1%), used mostly in Catholic Universities (78.6%). The rest (21.4%) corresponds to Adventist Universities, with more equality in the approaches.