Appropriation of knowledge in and through classroom interaction takes places as a course of events that qualitative research on teaching and learning aims to analyse. Qualitative research projects on classroom interaction may employ a range of interpretative methodological approaches, and many of them suggest strategies for data analysis that show similarities in research practice. Concomitantly, each methodology sets up different strategic foci for analysis, foci that regularly remain tacit and are imposed on the research subject of teaching and learning without further notice. In order to analyse and model the course of events of imparting and appropriating knowledge in social science classes, qualitative methodologies have to focus on analytic strategies on several levels. This consideration leads to research questions concerning qualitative methodology and its application in teaching and learning research: Which focus do methodologies provide for analysis of events of imparting and appropriating knowledge? How can analytic foci of neighbouring interpretative methodologies complement each other in order to uncover and illustrate events of imparting and appropriating knowledge?

These questions are raised in respect to two methodologies, Grounded Theory Methodology and Objective Hermeneutics, that both provide a set of strategies for data analysis and modelling. Analytic strategies from both methodologies have been successfully used complementarily in sociological research projects (Peter 2004; Hildenbrand 2004) and suggest that strategies for microanalysis from Objective Hermeneutics can be combined with strategies for conceptualising analysis from Grounded Theory Methodology (Hildenbrand 2007). This complementary approach is based on the argument that comprehension of teaching and learning events in class requires strategies for rigorous interpretation, while modelling them requires strategies on a different methodological level. A combination of rigorous strategies for microscopic analysis from Objective Hermeneutics and modelling strategies from Grounded Theory Methodology is likely to enhance the development of a grounded model of imparting and appropriating knowledge in and through classroom interaction (Wieser 2013, 108). This presentation will provide a methodological review of Grounded Theory Methodology and Objective Hermeneutics that highlights strategic foci and indicates ways of complementary qualitative research. This review endorses the argument that “promiscuity is the procedure of choice” (Hildenbrand 2004, 193) in order to use different strategic methodological foci and complement strategies from both methodologies to leverage qualitative research on teaching and learning.

The paper directly takes account of two methodologies that are extensively used in different European educational research contexts. The comparative analysis of methodologies and illustration of respective methodological foci and strengths aims to inspire a European dialogue on methodological traditions in which educational research on teaching and learning takes place. 

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