This paper represents an initial exploration of researcher-informant relationships which develop when naturalistic researchers spend long periods of time watching and recording the details of classroom activity for which a teacher has basic responsibility. The goals of this paper are to present a discussion of the significance of…

This paper describes data gathering and analytic procedures, and then presents examples regarding how each fits into the naturalistic research model. From the interactionist perspective, called symbolic interactionism, meaning is of central importance. Naturalistic inquiry is a way of doing social science research which provides the methodological…

Outlines the foundations of the qualitative and quantitative approaches to research and discusses the implications of these two completely different approaches in educational research. Points out they are not complementary as they are separate scientific paradigms.(MD)

This paper describes four problems that may confront researchers interested in capturing and describing participant perspectives when the participants of interest are young children in early childhood education settings. Problems were identified with interview data collected in three studies conducted in separate preschool and kindergarten…