Research Methods in Education
Research Methods in Education
This rewritten and updated sixth edition of the long-running bestseller Research Methods in Education covers the whole range of methods currently employed by educational research at all stages. It has five main parts: the context of educational research, planning educational research, styles of educational research, strategies for data collection and researching and data analysis. The book contains references to a comprehensive dedicated web site of accompanying materials. It continues to be the standard text for students and lecturers undertaking, understanding and using educational research.
This sixth edition comprises new material including:
complexity theory, ethics, sampling, sensitive educational research, researching powerful people, Internet-based research, interviewing and surveys
expanded coverage of, and practical guidance in, experimental research, questionnaire design and administration
an entirely new part, containing five new chapters covering qualitative and quantitative data analysis including content analysis, grounded theory, statistics and how to use them, effect size, and reporting data, all with practical examples
detailed cross-referencing to a major educational resource web site designed specifically to run alongside this book.
Research Methods in Education, sixth edition, is essential reading for both the professional researcher and anyone involved in educational research.
Louis Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Education at Loughborough University, UK. Lawrence Manion was former Principal Lecturer in Music at Didsbury School of Education, Manchester
Metropolitan University, UK. Keith Morrison is Professor of Education at the Inter-University Institute of Macau and formerly Senior
Lecturer in Education at the University of Durham, UK.
Research Methods in Education
Sixth edition Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion
and Keith Morrison
First published 2007 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business 2007 Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-02905-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0–415–37410–3 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–415–36878–2 (pbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–02905–4 (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–37410–1 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–36878–0 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–02905–3 (ebk)
For Lawrence Manion, a wise counsellor and a good friend
Contents
List of boxes
Research and evaluation
The context of educational research
Research, politics and policy-making
46 Methods and methodology
1 The nature of inquiry – Setting the field
Part 2
Introduction
5 Planning educational research
The search for truth
Two conceptions of social reality
Positivism
9 2 The ethics of educational and social
The assumptions and nature of
research
science
51 The tools of science
11 Introduction
52 The scientific method
14 Informed consent
55 Criticisms of positivism and the scientific
15 Access and acceptance
58 method
The field of ethics
58 Alternatives to positivistic social science:
17 Sources of tension
61 naturalistic approaches
Voices of experience
19 Ethical dilemmas
A question of terminology: the normative Ethics and research methods in and interpretive paradigms
69 Phenomenology, ethnomethodology and
21 education
70 symbolic interactionism
Ethics and evaluative research
22 Research and regulation: ethical codes and Criticisms of the naturalistic and interpretive
71 approaches
review
74 Critical theory and critical educational
25 Sponsored research
Responsibilities to the research research
75 Criticisms of approaches from critical
Critical theory and curriculum research
A summary of the three paradigms
32 3 Planning educational research
The emerging paradigm of complexity
78 theory
Introduction
78 Feminist research
33 A framework for planning research
34 A planning matrix for research 34 A planning matrix for research
Managing the planning of research
93 Part 3
A worked example
95 Styles of educational research
Conclusion
7 Naturalistic and ethnographic research
4 Sampling
Elements of naturalistic inquiry 167 The sample size
Introduction
Planning naturalistic research 171 Sampling error
Critical ethnography 186 The representativeness of the sample
Some problems with ethnographic and The access to the sample
naturalistic approaches 188 The sampling strategy to be used
Probability samples
8 Historical and documentary research
Non-probability samples
191 Planning a sampling strategy
Choice of subject
Data collection
5 Sensitive educational research
Writing the research report 195 What is sensitive research?
The use of quantitative methods 197 Sampling and access
198 Ethical issues in sensitive research
Life histories
Documentary research 201 Researching powerful people
Asking questions
9 Surveys, longitudinal, cross-sectional
Conclusion
and trend studies
Introduction
6 Validity and reliability
Some preliminary considerations 207 Defining validity
Planning a survey
211 Triangulation
Survey sampling
Longitudinal, cross-sectional and trend Ensuring validity
211 Reliability in quantitative research
studies
Strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal, Reliability in qualitative research
cohort and cross-sectional studies 214 Validity and reliability in interviews
Postal, interview and telephone Validity and reliability in
Event history analysis 224 Validity and reliability in
questionnaires
Validity and reliability in
10 Internet-based research and computer
Validity and reliability in tests
226 Validity and reliability in life
Introduction
Internet-based surveys 226 histories
Internet-based experiments 239 Internet-based interviews
CONTENTS ix
Searching for research materials on the
14 Action research
Internet
297 Evaluating web sites
Introduction
Defining action research 297 Computer simulations
Principles and characteristics of action Geographical Information Systems
299 Action research as critical praxis
11 Case studies
Procedures for action research 304 Reflexivity in action research
310 What is a case study?
Some practical and theoretical Examples of kinds of case study
311 Why participant observation?
matters
312 Recording observations
Planning a case study
Writing up a case study
Strategies for data collection and researching
12 Ex post facto research
Co-relational and criterion groups
317 designs
Introduction
317 Characteristics of ex post facto
Ethical issues
Approaching the planning of a research
318 Occasions when appropriate
questionnaire
Types of questionnaire items 321 Advantages and disadvantages of
Asking sensitive questions 333 ex post facto research
Avoiding pitfalls in question writing 334 Designing an ex post facto Sequencing the questions
336 investigation
Questionnaires containing few verbal Procedures in ex post facto research
items
337 The layout of the questionnaire
13 Experiments, quasi-experiments,
Covering letters or sheets and follow-up
single-case research and meta-analysis
339 Introduction
letters
Piloting the questionnaire 341 Designs in educational
Practical considerations in questionnaire experimentation
342 True experimental designs
Administering questionnaires 344
A quasi-experimental design: the Processing questionnaire data 346 non-equivalent control group design
Single-case research: ABAB design
Procedures in conducting experimental
16 Interviews
research
349 Examples from educational research
Introduction
Conceptions of the interview 349 Evidence-based educational research and
Purposes of the interview 351 meta-analysis
Types of interview
Planning interview-based research Parametric and non-parametric tests 414 procedures
Norm-referenced, criterion-referenced Group interviewing
and domain-referenced tests 415 Interviewing children
Commercially produced tests and Focus groups
researcher-produced tests 416 The non-directive interview and the
418 focused interview
Constructing a test
Devising a pretest and post-test 432 Telephone interviewing
Reliability and validity of tests 432 Ethical issues in interviewing
Ethical issues in preparing for tests 432 Computerized adaptive testing
20 Personal constructs
The ethogenic approach
435 Characteristics of accounts and
Introduction
Characteristics of the method 435 episodes
‘Elicited’ versus ‘provided’ constructs 436 Procedures in eliciting, analysing and
Allotting elements to constructs 437 authenticating accounts: an example
Laddering and pyramid constructions 439 Network analyses of qualitative data
Grid administration and analysis 439 What makes a good network?
Procedures in grid administration 439 Discourse analysis
Procedures in grid analysis 439 Analysing social episodes
Strengths of repertory grid technique 442 Account gathering in educational
Difficulties in the use of repertory grid research: an example
442 Problems in gathering and analysing
technique
Some examples of the use of repertory accounts
grid in educational research 443 Strengths of the ethogenic approach
Grid technique and audio/video lesson
A note on stories
recording
445 Focused grids, non-verbal grids, exchange grids and sociogrids
Structured observation
Critical incidents
448 Naturalistic and participant
Introduction
Role-playing versus deception: the observation
450 Natural and artificial settings for
argument
Role-playing versus deception: the observation
451 Ethical considerations
evidence
Role-playing in educational settings 452 Some cautionary comments
The uses of role-playing 452 Conclusion
Strengths and weaknesses of role-playing and other simulation exercises
455 Role-playing in an educational setting:
19 Tests
455 Introduction
an example
Evaluating role-playing and other What are we testing?
simulation exercises
CONTENTS xi
Data analysis
Exploratory data analysis: frequencies, percentages and cross-tabulations
506
22 Approaches to qualitative data analysis
Statistical significance
515
Hypothesis testing
519
520 Introduction
Effect size
461
525 Tabulating data
The chi-square test
463
527 Five ways of organizing and presenting
Degrees of freedom
528 Systematic approaches to data
data analysis
467
Measuring association
536 analysis
Regression analysis
469
Measures of difference between groups and means
542 Methodological tools for analysing
qualitative data
473
25 Multidimensional measurement and
23 Content analysis and grounded theory
factor analysis
Elementary linkage analysis: an What is content analysis?
475
559 How does content analysis work?
example
476
Factor analysis
560
A worked example of content Factor analysis: an example
570 analysis
483
Examples of studies using Computer usage in content analysis
487
multidimensional scaling and cluster Reliability in content analysis
576 Grounded theory
490
analysis
Multidimensional data: some words on Interpretation in qualitative data
491
579 analysis: multilayered texts
notation
495
Multilevel modelling
583
Cluster analysis
584
24 Quantitative data analysis
Introduction
501
26 Choosing a statistical test
Scales of data
586 Parametric and non-parametric data
502
How many samples?
591 Descriptive and inferential statistics
503
Assumptions of tests
503
One-tailed and two-tailed tests
593 Dependent and independent
504
Notes
599 variables
Bibliography
504
Index
633
Boxes
1.1 The subjective–objective
4.2 Distribution of sample means showing dimension
9 the spread of a selection of sample means
1.2 Alternative bases for interpreting social around the population mean 107 reality
10 5.1 Issues of sampling and access in
1.3 The functions of science
12 sensitive research 124
1.4 The hypothesis
15 5.2 Ethical issues in sensitive research 127
1.5 Stages in the development of
5.3 Researching powerful people 130 science
16 5.4 Key questions in considering sensitive
1.6 An eight-stage model of the scientific educational research 132 method
16 6.1 Principal sources of bias in life history
1.7 A classroom episode
20 research
1.8 Differing approaches to the study of
8.1 Some historical interrelations between behaviour
33 men, movements and institutions 192
2.1 The costs/benefits ratio
52 8.2 A typology of life histories and their
2.2 Guidelines for reasonably informed modes of presentation 199 consent
53 9.1 Stages in the planning of a survey 210
2.3 Close encounters of a researcher kind
56 9.2 Types of developmental research 214
2.4 Conditions and guarantees proffered
9.3 Advantages of cohort over cross- for a school-based research project
57 sectional designs
2.5 Negotiating access checklist
59 9.4 The characteristics, strengths and
2.6 Absolute ethical principles in social weaknesses of longitudinal, research
61 cross-sectional, trend analysis, and
2.7 An extreme case of deception
67 retrospective longitudinal studies 219
2.8 Ethical principles for the guidance of
10.1 Problems and solutions in action researchers
70 Internet-based surveys 231
2.9 An ethical code: an illustration
76 10.2 Geographical Information Systems in
2.10 Ethical principles for educational secondary schools 251 research (to be agreed before the research
10.3 Location of home postcodes using commences)
77 Geographical Information
3.1 The elements of research design
79 Systems
3.2 Elements of research styles
84 11.1 Possible advantages of case study 256
3.3 A matrix for planning research
88 11.2 Strengths and weaknesses of case
3.4 A planning sequence for research
94 study
3.5 A planning matrix for research
95 11.3 A typology of observation studies 259
3.6 Understanding the levels of
11.4 The case study and problems of organizational culture
96 selection
4.1 Sample size, confidence levels and
11.5 Continua of data collection, types confidence intervals for random
and analysis in case study samples
research
13.1 Independent and dependent
17.6 Parents and teachers: divergent variables
viewpoints on children’s
13.2 The effects of randomization
communicative competence 393
13.3 Interaction effects in an
17.7 Justification of objective systematic experiment
observation in classroom settings 394
13.4 The ABAB design
18.1 A structured observation schedule 399
13.5 An ABAB design in an educational
18.2 Non-participant observation: setting
a checklist of design tasks 401
13.6 Class size and learning in well-
18.3 Structured, unstructured, natural and controlled and poorly controlled
artificial settings for observation 409 studies
19.1 A matrix of test items 419
19.2 Compiling elements of test items 420 research for organizational change
14.1 A model of emancipatory action
20.1 Eliciting constructs and constructing
436 planning
15.1 A flow chart technique for question
a repertory grid
20.2 Allotting elements to constructs:
438 construction
15.2 A guide for questionnaire
three methods
15.3 A 10-point marking scale in a
20.4 Elements
20.5 Difference score for constructs 441
15.4 Potential problems in conducting
441 research
20.6 Grid matrix
21.1 Dimensions of role-play methods 449
21.2 The Stanford Prison experiment 450 postal survey
15.5 A flow chart for the planning of a
21.3 Critical factors in a role-play: smoking
16.1 Attributes of ethnographers as and young people 454 interviewers
21.4 Categorization of responses to four
16.2 Summary of relative merits of
456 interview versus questionnaire
video extracts
22.1 The effectiveness of English
16.3 Strengths and weaknesses of different
464 types of interview
teaching
22.2 The strengths and weaknesses of
16.4 The selection of response mode
English language teaching 464
16.5 Guidelines for the conduct of
22.3 Teaching methods 465 interviews
22.4 Student-related factors 466
16.6 Delineating units of general
24.1 Frequencies and percentages for a meaning
course evaluation 507
16.7 Units of relevant meaning
24.2 Cross-tabulation by totals 508
16.8 Clusters of relevant meaning
24.3 Cross-tabulation by row totals 509
17.1 Principles in the ethogenic
24.4 Rating scale of agreement and approach
17.2 Account gathering
24.5 Satisfaction with a course 510
24.6 Combined categories of rating
17.3 Experience sampling method
17.4 Concepts in children’s talk
24.7 Representing combined categories of
17.5 ‘Ain’t nobody can talk about things
511 being about theirselves’
rating scales
BOXES xv
24.8 How well learners are cared for,
24.32 Significance level in regression guided and supported
24.9 Staff voluntarily taking on
24.33 The beta coefficient in a regression coordination roles
24.10 Distribution of test scores
24.34 A summary of the R, R square and
24.11 A line graph of test scores
adjusted R square in multiple
24.12 Distribution around a mean with an
540 outlier
regression analysis
24.35 Significance level in multiple
24.13 A platykurtic distribution of
541 scores
regression analysis
24.36 The beta coefficients in a multiple
24.14 A leptokurtic distribution of
541 scores
regression analysis
24.37 Means and standard deviations for a
24.15 Type I and Type II errors
24.16 Mean and standard deviation in an
24.38 The Levene test for equality of effect size
variances in a t-test
24.17 The Levene test for equality of
24.39 A t-test for leaders and teachers 545 variances
24.40 The Levene test for equality of
24.18 Mean and standard deviation in a variances between leaders and paired sample test
24.19 Difference test for a paired sample
24.41 Means and standard deviations in a
24.20 Effect size in analysis of variance
paired samples t-test
24.21 A 2 × 3 contingency table for 547 chi-square
24.42 The paired samples t-test
24.43 Descriptive statistics for analysis of
24.22 A 2 × 5 contingency table for 548 chi-square
variance
24.44 SPSS output for one-way analysis of
variance
24.23 Common measures of relationship
24.45 The Tukey test
24.24 Percentage of public library members
24.46 Homogeneous groupings in the Tukey by their social class origin
24.25 Correlation scatterplots
24.47 Means and standard deviations in a
24.26 A Pearson product-moment two-way analysis of variance 551 correlation
24.48 The Levene test of equality of
24.27 A line diagram to indicate variances in a two-way analysis of curvilinearity
24.28 Visualization of correlation of 0.65
24.49 Between-subject effects in two-way between reading grade and arithmetic
552 grade
analysis of variance
24.50 Graphic plots of two sets of scores on
24.29 A scatterplot with the regression
552 line
a dependent variable
24.51 A cross-tabulation for a
24.30 A scatterplot with grid lines and Mann-Whitney U test 553 regression line
24.52 SPSS output on rankings for the
24.31 A summary of the R, R square and Mann-Whitney U test 553 adjusted R square in regression
24.53 The Mann-Whitney U value and analysis
significance level in SPSS 553 significance level in SPSS 553
24.54 Frequencies and percentages of
25.10 Factor analysis of the occupational variable one in a Wilcoxon test
satisfaction items
24.55 Frequencies and percentages of
25.11 Correlations between (dependent) variable two in a Wilcoxon test
stress and (independent) satisfaction
24.56 Ranks and sums of ranks in a factors and canonical variates 575 Wilcoxon test
25.12 Biographical data and stress
24.57 Significance level in a Wilcoxon
25.13 Students’ perceptions of social
24.58 Cross-tabulation for the
577 Kruskal-Wallis test
episodes
25.14 Perception of social episodes 579
24.59 Rankings for the Kruskal-Wallis
25.15 Person concept coding system 580 test
25.16 Reliability coefficients for peer
24.60 Significance levels in a Kruskal-Wallis
25.17 Sex, voting preference and social
24.61 Frequencies for variable one in the class: a three-way classification Friedman test
24.62 Frequencies for variable two in the
25.18 Sex, voting preference and social Friedman test
class: a three-way notational
24.63 Frequencies for variable three in the
581 Friedman test
classification
25.19 Expected frequencies in sex, voting
24.64 Rankings for the Friedman test
preference and social class 581
24.65 Significance level in the Friedman
25.20 Expected frequencies assuming that test
sex is independent of social class and
25.1 Rank ordering of ten children on voting preference 582 seven constructs
25.21 Sex and voting preference: a two-way
25.2 Intercorrelations between seven classification table
583 personal constructs
25.22 Cluster analysis
25.3 The structuring of relationships
26.1 Identifying statistical tests for an among the seven personal
25.4 Initial SPSS output for principal
26.2 Statistical tests to be used with components analysis
different numbers of groups of samples
25.5 A scree plot
26.3 Types of statistical tests for four scales
25.6 Three-dimensional rotation
of data
25.7 The rotated components matrix in
26.4 Choosing statistical tests for principal components analysis
parametric and non-parametric
25.8 Factor analysis of responsibility for
589 stress items
data
26.5 Statistics available for different types
25.9 Factor analysis of the occupational
590 stress items
of data
26.6 Assumptions of statistical tests 592
Acknowledgements
Our thanks are due to the following publishers and authors for permission to include materials in the text:
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Associates.
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a review, British Journal of Medical Psychology, The role of Geographic Information Systems in
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Introduction
It is seven years since the fifth edition of Research for materials, computer simulations and Methods in Education was published and we are
Geographical Information Systems indebted to Routledge for the opportunity to
very considerably expanded coverage of ex- produce a sixth edition. The book continues to
perimental research, reflecting the resurgence
be received very favourably worldwide and is of interest in this method in evidence-based the standard text for many courses in research
education.
methods. The sixth edition contains much new material,
Part Four:
including a completely new part on data analysis.
more detailed coverage of questionnaire design This means that the book now covers all stages of
and administration, with practical guidance on educational research, from planning and design,
these matters
through data collection to data analysis and
interviewing children and telephone inter- reporting. While retaining the best features of
viewing.
the former edition, the reshaping, updating and new additions undertaken for this new volume
Part Five:
now mean that the book covers a greater spread
an entirely new part, containing five new of issues than the previous editions. In particular, chapters, covering qualitative and quantitative the following new material has been included:
data analysis
Part One:
how to conduct a content analysis
grounded theory and ‘how to do it’
feminist theory
how to present and report qualitative data
computer usage in qualitative data analysis Part Two:
complexity theory and educational research.
an introduction to statistics and statistical concepts
ethical codes and responsibilities to sponsors
hypotheses and how to test them and the research community
variables and how to handle them
informed consent and deception
effect size and how to calculate and interpret it
sampling, confidence levels and confidence
practical ‘hands on’ advice for novice intervals, together with the calculation of
researchers, on which statistics to choose and sample sizes
how to use them, from the simplest statistics
an entirely new chapter on planning and to high-level factor analysis and multiple conducting sensitive educational research,
regression, and from descriptive to inferential including researching powerful people.
statistics
Part Three: O advice on how to select appropriate statistics, with charts and diagrams to ease selection
further coverage of documentary research
how to avoid selecting incorrect statistics, and
postal, interview and telephone surveys what are the assumptions underlying the main
an entirely new chapter on Internet-based
kinds of statistics
research and computer usage, covering Internet
plentiful examples of statistics and how to surveys, experiments, interviews, questionnaire
interpret them, with worked examples that use design, evaluation of web sites, searching
SPSS output and processing (the Statistical
2 INTRODUCTION
Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) is the manual for novice researchers, QSR data files and most widely used statistical package in the
manual for qualitative data treatment, together social sciences).
with further statistics and statistical tables. (Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR)
Additionally there are copious web site references is a company which had produced software in nearly every chapter, most of which provide
such as N-Vivo for qualitative data analysis.) free online materials. A signal feature of this
These are indicated in the book. A wealth edition is the inclusion of several worked examples,
of supporting materials is available on the particularly in the chapters on data analysis in the
web site.
new Part Five. We have refined the referencing, relocating To accompany this volume, a companion web
several backup references to the Notes, thereby site provides a comprehensive range of materials
indicating in the main text the most prominent to cover all aspects of research (including a full
sources and key issues.
course on research methods on PowerPoint slides), We hope that this volume will continue to exercises and examples, explanatory material
constitute the first port of call for educational and further notes, SPSS data files and SPSS
researchers.
Part One
The context of educational research
This part locates the research enterprise in critical theory links the conduct of educational several contexts. It commences with positivist
research with politics and policy-making, and this and scientific contexts of research and then
is reflected in the discussions here of research proceeds to show the strengths and weaknesses
and evaluation, arguing how much educational of such traditions for educational research.
research has become evaluative in nature. A more As an alternative paradigm, the cluster of
recent trend has been the rise of complexity theory, approaches that can loosely be termed interpretive,
originally from the natural sciences, but moving naturalistic, phenomenological, interactionist and
inexorably into social science research. This part ethnographic are brought together and their
introduces the field of complexity theory and steers strengths and weaknesses for educational research
readers to the accompanying web site for further are examined. The rise of critical theory
details. That educational research serves a political as a paradigm in which educational research
agenda is seen in the later sections of this part. is conducted has been spectacular and its
The intention here is to introduce readers to implications for the research undertaking are
different research traditions, with the advice that addressed in several ways here, resonating with
‘fitness for purpose’ must be the guiding principle: curriculum research and feminist research (this
different research paradigms for different research too has been expanded and updated). Indeed
purposes.
1 The nature of inquiry – Setting the field
Introduction
out to achieve these ends may be classified into three broad categories: experience, reasoning
This chapter explores the context of educational and research (Mouly 1978). Far from being research. It sets out several foundations on independent and mutually exclusive, however, which different kinds of empirical research are these categories must be seen as complementary constructed: and overlapping, features most readily in evidence
scientific and positivistic methodologies where solutions to complex modern problems are
naturalistic and interpretive methodologies
sought.
methodologies from critical theory In our endeavours to come to terms with the
feminist educational research. problems of day-to-day living, we are heavily dependent upon experience and authority. It
Our analysis takes an important notion must be remembered that as tools for uncovering from Hitchcock and Hughes (1995: 21) who sug-
ultimate truth they have decided limitations. The gest that ontological assumptions give rise to
limitations of personal experience in the form of epistemological assumptions; these, in turn, give
common-sense knowing, for instance, can quickly rise to methodological considerations; and these,
be exposed when compared with features of the in turn, give rise to issues of instrumentation and
scientific approach to problem-solving. Consider, data collection. This view moves us beyond regard-
for example, the striking differences in the way ing research methods as simply a technical exercise
in which theories are used. Laypeople base them and as concerned with understanding the world;
on haphazard events and use them in a loose this is informed by how we view our world(s), what
and uncritical manner. When they are required to we take understanding to be, and what we see as
test them, they do so in a selective fashion, often the purposes of understanding. The chapter also
choosing only that evidence that is consistent with acknowledges that educational research, politics
their hunches and ignoring that which is counter and decision-making are inextricably intertwined,
to them. Scientists, by contrast, construct their and it draws attention to the politics of educa-
theories carefully and systematically. Whatever tional research and the implications that this has
hypotheses they formulate have to be tested for undertaking research (e.g. the move towards
empirically so that their explanations have a firm applied and evaluative research and away from
basis in fact. And there is the concept of control ‘pure’ research). Finally, we add a note about
distinguishing the layperson’s and the scientist’s methodology.
attitude to experience. Laypeople generally make no attempt to control any extraneous sources of influence when trying to explain an occurrence.
The search for truth
Scientists, on the other hand, only too conscious of People have long been concerned to come to
the multiplicity of causes for a given occurrence, grips with their environment and to understand
resort to definite techniques and procedures to the nature of the phenomena it presents to
isolate and test the effect of one or more of the their senses. The means by which they set
alleged causes. Finally, there is the difference of
6 THE NATURE OF INQUIRY
attitude to the relationships among phenomena. Laypeople’s concerns with such relationships are loose, unsystematic and uncontrolled. The chance occurrence of two events in close proximity is sufficient reason to predicate a causal link between them. Scientists, however, display a much more serious professional concern with relationships and only as a result of rigorous experimentation will they postulate a relationship between two phenomena.
People attempt to comprehend the world around them by using three types of reasoning: deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and the combined inductive-deductive approach. Deductive reasoning is based on the syllogism which was Aristotle’s great contribution to formal logic. In its simplest form the syllogism consists of a major premise based on an a priori or self-evident proposition, a minor premise providing a particular instance, and a conclusion. Thus:
All planets orbit the sun. The earth is a planet. Therefore the earth orbits the sun.
The assumption underlying the syllogism is that through a sequence of formal steps of logic, from the general to the particular, a valid conclusion can be deduced from a valid premise. Its chief limitation is that it can handle only certain kinds of statement. The syllogism formed the basis of systematic reasoning from the time of its inception until the Renaissance. Thereafter its effectiveness was diminished because it was no longer related to observation and experience and became merely a mental exercise. One of the consequences of this was that empirical evidence as the basis of proof was superseded by authority and the more authorities one could quote, the stronger one’s position became. Naturally, with such abuse of its principal tool, science became sterile.
The history of reasoning was to undergo a dramatic change in the 1600s when Francis Bacon began to lay increasing stress on the observational basis of science. Being critical of the model of deductive reasoning on the grounds that its major premises were often preconceived notions which
inevitably bias the conclusions, he proposed in its place the method of inductive reasoning by means of which the study of a number of individual cases would lead to an hypothesis and eventually to a generalization. Mouly (1978) explains it by suggesting that Bacon’s basic premise was that, with sufficient data, even if one does not have a preconceived idea of their significance or meaning, nevertheless important relationships and laws would be discovered by the alert observer. Bacon’s major contribution to science was thus that he was able to rescue it from the death- grip of the deductive method whose abuse had brought scientific progress to a standstill. He thus directed the attention of scientists to nature for solutions to people’s problems, demanding empirical evidence for verification. Logic and authority in themselves were no longer regarded as conclusive means of proof and instead became sources of hypotheses about the world and its phenomena.
Bacon’s inductive method was eventually followed by the inductive-deductive approach which combines Aristotelian deduction with Baconian induction. Here the researcher is involved in a back-and-forth process of induction (from observation to hypothesis) and deduction (from hypothesis to implications) (Mouly 1978). Hypotheses are tested rigorously and, if necessary, revised.
Although both deduction and induction have their weaknesses, their contributions to the development of science are enormous and fall into three categories:
the suggestion of hypotheses
the logical development of these hypotheses
the clarification and interpretation of scientific findings and their synthesis into a conceptual framework.
A further means by which we set out to discover truth is research. This has been defined by Kerlinger (1970) as the systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical propositions about the presumed relations among natural phenomena. Research has three characteristics in
TWO CONCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL REALITY 7
Chapter
particular which distinguish it from the first means of problem-solving identified earlier, namely, experience. First, whereas experience deals with events occurring in a haphazard manner, research is systematic and controlled, basing its operations on the inductive-deductive model outlined above. Second, research is empirical. The scientist turns to experience for validation. As Kerlinger (1970) puts it, subjective, personal belief has to have
a reality check against objective, empirical facts and tests. And third, research is self-correcting. Not only does the scientific method have built-in mechanisms to protect scientists from error as far as is humanly possible, but also their procedures and results are open to public scrutiny by fellow professionals. Incorrect results in time will be found and either revised or discarded (Mouly 1978). Research is a combination of both experience and reasoning and must be regarded as the most successful approach to the discovery of truth, particularly as far as the natural sciences are concerned (Borg 1963). 1
Educational research has absorbed several com- peting views of the social sciences – the es- tablished, traditional view and an interpretive view, and several others that we explore in this chapter – critical theory, feminist theory and com- plexity theory. The established, traditional view holds that the social sciences are essentially the same as the natural sciences and are therefore concerned with discovering natural and universal laws regulating and determining individual and social behaviour; the interpretive view, however, while sharing the rigour of the natural sciences and the same concern of traditional social science to describe and explain human behaviour, em- phasizes how people differ from inanimate natural phenomena and, indeed, from each other. These contending views – and also their corresponding reflections in educational research – stem in the first instance from different conceptions of social reality and of individual and social behaviour. It will help our understanding of the issues to be developed subsequently if we examine these in a little more detail (see http://www.routledge.com/ textbooks/9780415368780 – Chapter 1, file 1.1. ppt).
Two conceptions of social reality
The views of social science that we have just identified represent strikingly different ways of looking at social reality and are constructed on correspondingly different ways of interpreting it. We can perhaps most profitably approach these conceptions of the social world by examining the explicit and implicit assumptions underpinning them. Our analysis is based on the work of Burrell and Morgan (1979), who identified four sets of such assumptions.
First, there are assumptions of an ontological kind – assumptions which concern the very nature or essence of the social phenomena being investigated. Thus, the authors ask, is social reality external to individuals – imposing itself on their consciousness from without – or is it the product of individual consciousness? Is reality of an objective nature, or the result of individual cognition? Is it a given ‘out there’ in the world, or is it created by one’s own mind? These questions spring directly from what philosophy terms the nominalist–realist debate. The former view holds that objects of thought are merely words and that there is no independently accessible thing constituting the meaning of a word. The realist position, however, contends that objects have an independent existence and are not dependent for it on the knower.
The second set of assumptions identified by Burrell and Morgan (1979) are of an epistemological kind. These concern the very bases of knowledge – its nature and forms, how it can be acquired, and how communicated to other human beings. How one aligns oneself in this particular debate profoundly affects how one will go about uncovering knowledge of social behaviour. The view that knowledge is hard, objective and tangible will demand of researchers an observer role, together with an allegiance to the methods of natural science; to see knowledge as personal, subjective and unique, however, imposes on researchers an involvement with their subjects and a rejection of the ways of the natural scientist. To subscribe to the former is to be positivist; to the latter, anti-positivist.
8 THE NATURE OF INQUIRY
The third set of assumptions concern human nature and, in particular, the relationship between human beings and their environment. Since the human being is both its subject and object of study, the consequences for social science of assumptions of this kind are indeed far-reaching. Two images of human beings emerge from such assumptions – the one portrays them as responding mechanically and deterministically to their environment, i.e. as products of the environment, controlled like puppets; the other, as initiators of their own actions with free will and creativity, producing their own environments. The difference is between determinism and voluntarism respectively (Burrell and Morgan 1979).
It would follow from what we have said so far that the three sets of assumptions identified above have direct implications for the methodological concerns of researchers, since the contrasting ontologies, epistemologies and models of human beings will in turn demand different research methods. Investigators adopting an objectivist (or positivist) approach to the social world and who treat it like the world of natural phenomena as being hard, real and external to the individual will choose from a range of traditional options – surveys, experiments, and the like. Others favouring the more subjectivist (or anti- positivist) approach and who view the social world as being of a much softer, personal and humanly created kind will select from a comparable range of recent and emerging techniques – accounts, participant observation and personal constructs, for example.
Where one subscribes to the view that treats the social world like the natural world – as if it were a hard, external and objective reality – then scientific investigation will be directed at analysing the relationships and regularities between selected factors in that world. It will be predominantly quantitative and will be concerned with identifying and defining elements and discovering ways in which their relationships can be expressed. Hence, they argue, methodological issues, of fundamental importance, are thus the concepts themselves, their measurement and the identification of
underlying themes in a search for universal laws that explain and govern that which is being observed (Burrell and Morgan 1979). An approach characterized by procedures and methods designed to discover general laws may be referred to as nomothetic.
However, if one favours the alternative view of social reality which stresses the importance of the subjective experience of individuals in the creation of the social world, then the search for understanding focuses upon different issues and approaches them in different ways. The principal concern is with an understanding of the way in which the individual creates, modifies and interprets the world in which he or she finds himself or herself. The approach now takes on a qualitative as well as quantitative aspect. As Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Kirk and Miller (1986: 14) observe, emphasis here is placed on explanation and understanding of the unique and the particular individual case rather than the general and the universal; the interest is in a subjective, relativistic social world rather than an absolutist, external reality. In its emphasis on the particular and individual this approach to understanding individual behaviour may be termed idiographic.
In this review of Burrell and Morgan’s analysis of the ontological, epistemological, human and methodological assumptions underlying two ways of conceiving social reality, we have laid the foundations for a more extended study of the two contrasting perspectives evident in the practices of researchers investigating human behaviour and, by adoption, educational problems. Box 1.1 summarizes these assumptions along a subjective–objective dimension. It identifies the four sets of assumptions by using terms we have adopted in the text and by which they are known in the literature of social philosophy.
Each of the two perspectives on the study of human behaviour outlined above has profound implications for research in classrooms and schools. The choice of problem, the formulation of questions to be answered, the characterization of pupils and teachers, methodological concerns, the kinds of data sought and their mode of treatment,
POSITIVISM 9
Chapter
Box 1.1
The subjective–objective dimension
A scheme for analysing assumptions about the nature of social science
The subjectivist
The objectivist
approach to