Session Information
Session 3A, Educational Research Methodology: Philosophical Questions
Symposium
Time:
2005-09-08
09:00-10:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Volker Kraft
Contribution
The ongoing debates about the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methods and the vigorous critique of the quality and utility of educational research led to a wish to contribute to the potential enhancement of research practice by systematically analysing several scorching questions of research methodology. The preliminary study, undertaken at Cambridge University during 1998-1999, focused on the paradigmatic confrontation of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The analysis of various texts on methodological issues and a small-scale empirical investigation suggested that the dichotomous nature of educational research, advocated by certain influential writers and many textbooks, is not characteristic of the actual research practice, nor proved the incompatibility thesis to be an ideal by which educational research could be enhanced. The results of a preliminary study, stating that quantitative and qualitative methodologies are not mutually exclusive and incompatible paradigms, and depending on the nature and the complexity of particular research problem, the design of a study can be either qualitative, quantitative or a combination of both, form the basic assumption for the main study. As the field of combined designs (also called as "mixed methods research") is only in its early development, this study set the aim to enhance and extend the existing systematic knowledge about the ways combined designs can be and are used in research practice, to explore possible justifications for a new kind of practice and to analyse the implications that might have in the context of educational research. The main study integrates theoretical knowledge on and recent developments in the combined use of qualitative and quantitative approaches with the results of an original empirical study. The empirical part of the inquiry adopts a content analytical method with the aim to analyse the actual use of combined designs to filter out common ways quantitative and qualitative approaches are merged within different research projects. A meta-analysis was conducted, focused on methodological aspects of a purposive but relatively representative sample of articles, presenting the results of studies using various combined designs published in English-language academic educational research journals. This paper will be focused on the purposes and rationales given to support the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods in educational research. It also explores the relationship between overall aims set for the study and the chosen type of combined design.
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