Comments on several other articles in this issue of the journal regarding standards for reading research methodologies. Distinguishes between conceptions of inquiry concerned with human actions and events. Sees the ends of inquiry as "design features" of different types of rational features, controlled inquiries, of which natural, social, and…

Notes that publication of special section of eight qualitative studies marks growing recognition of contribution that qualitative research can make to counseling field. States that researchers of eight studies used adaptation of grounded theory method and that theories generated are positively evaluated with constructivist criteria. Suggests that…

Vocational education research can benefit from clearly identifying epistemological and ontological difficulties between qualitative and quantitative research and from using hermeneutics, which incorporates lived interpretation of experiences and challenges the methodological mentality. (SK)

Expresses concerns about importing qualitative research methods from education to family therapy. Argues that qualitative researchers cannot establish the trustworthiness of their findings, regardless of the methods they use. Further contends that the legitimacy of research knowledge cannot be determined by researchers, but rather requires the…

A humanly-constructive critical theory of environmental education called "a critical ecological ontology for educational inquiry" provides a necessary complement to the socially-critical perspective by focusing on our individual and collective being in the world. A critical ecological ontology highlights the personal politic required for…

A National Research Council report, "Scientific Research in Education," has elicited considerable criticism from the education research community, but this criticism has not focused on a key assumption of the report--its Humean, regularity conception of causality. It is argued that this conception, which also underlies other arguments for…

Among the different qualitative approaches that may be relied upon in family theorizing, grounded theory methods (GTM), developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, are the most popular. Despite their centrality to family studies and to other fields, however, GTM can be opaque and confusing. Believing that simplifying GTM would allow them to be…

Qualitative research exists in a time of global uncertainty. Around the world, governments are attempting to regulate scientific inquiry by defining what counts as "good" science. These regulatory activities raise fundamental, philosophical epistemological, political and pedagogical issues for scholarship and freedom of speech in the…

Provides an introduction to the theme of this issue, the limits of educational research methodology. Advocates a combination of research methodologies and identifies three approaches to educational research. Includes sections on the nature of research and common research problems. (JDH)

This article identifies some of the unique characteristics of qualitative research, enumerates its areas of weakness, and offers solutions for overcoming these weaknesses. Concludes that the criticisms leveled at qualitative research and analysis can be applied to all research paradigms, and that qualitative research does work when it is done…

Based on the work of William Stephenson, the "Q methodology," formulated in 1935, is compared to classic oral history in a case study of urban renewal. Results showed the methods to be complementary, both providing the same general description of citizen reaction to the project. (JDH)

The discipline of teacher education and technology is poised to leave poor research behind and to remove the false wall between qualitative and quantitative methods of describing, predicting, and controlling education. The arguments used by Dewey early in the century against the dualisms of his day are still powerful and have a bearing on the…

The increased use of qualitative research methods has spurred interest in developing formal standards for assessing its validity. These standards, however, fall short if they do not include public disclosure of methods as a criterion. The researcher must be accountable in documenting the actions associated with establishing internal validity…

Argues that interrater reliability, traditionally used in phenomenographic research, is unreliable for establishing the reliability of research results; it does not take into account the researcher's procedures for achieving fidelity to the individuals' conceptions investigated, and use of interrater reliability based on objectivist epistemology…

Quantitative methods such as logical positivism often view nondominant groups as deviant and purport to be objective. Qualitative methods such as ethnography help educational gerontologists understand diverse elderly populations and allow elders to participate in the process of defining reality and producing knowledge. (SK)