Summaries for Chapter 4 of the NMQ (First Steps in Research - Second edition) handbook. These notes are ideal for students studying for their Honours degree in Education (BEdHons). I got 98% for this module using these notes and still use them in my PhD research today.
NMQ 745 Chapter 4
Introducing qualitative research
Ϫ Distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative research strategies or approaches
Ϫ Research can be conducted using qualitative or quantitative approaches. It is necessary
however to look at the way researchers attempt to classify or categorize (place into different
categories) research in the first place.
Ϫ These categories are Positivist, interpretive and critical.
Ϫ Paulson and Liebman:
ɷ Argue that research attempts to indicate to us what the given situation is (‘Be-ing’),
how it possibly could be (‘Can be’), how it will be if certain conditions are met (‘Will
be’) and how it must be (’Must be’).
Ϫ Differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Ϫ Quantitative approaches are associated with long established traditions of empiricism,
behaviourism and positivism characterised by notions such as the following:
• that the truth can be discovered by science;
• that knowledge is value neutral;
• that facts speak for themselves;
• that objectivity is realisable;
• that personal values and preferences should be controlled and not influence the
research process and;
• that researchers remain detached and distanced from the phenomenon under
study.
Ϫ Standard methodology that flowed from this approach was experimental methods,
commonly used in studies of animal behaviour, and statistical methods where
generalisability from a small set of things (the sample) to a larger set of things (the
population) was held at a premium.
Ϫ Qualitative approaches: Associated with non-experimental methods in which the study of
phenomena in their natural environments was privileged - hence the emergence of terms
such as naturalistic research. In this approach, objectivity was reconceived as inter-
subjective agreement not as something in outer space detached from the influence of the
researcher; values, in this approach, should be acknowledged and taken account of during
research, rather than frozen out of the process.
Ϫ Subjectivity was seen as holding value, and granting insights not possible in detached
research. The standard methodology that flowed from this approach included action
research, ethnography and narrative inquiry.
Ϫ Important to understand in which tradition of research you locate yourself.
Ϫ Also important to recognise that few researchers remain dogmatic about the differences
between qualitative and quantitative approaches to social and educational inquiry. I
Ϫ t is possible, for example, that a research team conducts a statistical survey study of
teacher attitudes in Pretoria towards sexuality education in the curriculum (a typical
quantitative approach) followed by a smaller set of ten case studies that probe the deeper
meaning of these attitudes in the five largest black and largest white schools in the Pretoria
area (a typical qualitative approach).
Ϫ Possible to follow a mixed methods approach. The approach and methods used will depend
on the purpose and context of the proposed research.
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