Research Design

I just got my hands on Research Design: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches by John Creswell (2nd ed. 2003), and I want to reexamine my research project based upon his opening section on research design. (I should have done this thinking a month ago...but I'm learning as I go.)

Creswell uses Crotty's model to consider three key questions to the design of research:

1. What knowledge claims are being made by the researcher (including a theoretical perspective)?
2. What strategies of inquiry will inform the procedures?
3. What methods of data collection and analysis will be used? (5)
   

Creswell in #1 combines Crotty's first two items of his framework--what epistemology informs the research and what theoretical perspective lies behind the methodology? I see from my own project that I have skipped consideration of question #1 and thought immediately of #3. Plus, I've tried to understand #3 in terms of #2--that is, I've selected my methods and then tried to understand whether I'm really doing qualitative or quantitative methodologies (or field methods). Basically, I'm all mixed up. So this post is about backtracking a bit to frame the knowledge claims behind this research.

In Table 1.1 on page 6, Creswell presents four "Alternative Knowledge Claim Positions" that reflect more current scholarly positions on research. Creswell defines a knowledge claim as "certain assumptions about how they [researchers] will learn and what they will learn during the inquiry" (6). Creswell presents four schools of thought on knowledge claims:

• Postpostitive knowledge claims
  This appears to be a post-modern modified positivist approach to research. It employs experiemental research and traditional positivist assumptions and still is after describing causal relationships. The interesting post-modern alteration is it takes knowledge to be conjectural (anti-foundational) so rather than proving hypotheses is seeks a failure to reject. The methods Creswell discusses for this knowledge claim is experimental and survey research (survey!!??).
  
• Socially Constructed knowledge claims
  I won't summarize all that he says about social construction, but only part. The stance here is based more on subjective understanding and that these meanings are varied and multiple. The researcher looks for the complexity of views rather than a narrow meaning placed into categories or ideas. Open-ended inquiry of participants and analysis of data is important. The intent of the researcher is "to make sense of (or interpret) the meanings others have about the world. Rather than starting with a theory (as in postpositivism), inquirers generate or inductively develop a theory or pattern of meaning" (9).
  
• Advocacy/Participatory knowledge claims
  I wasn't familiar with this approach, but it has a political/social agenda to enact reform. Janie is talking about taking this approach. What is odd to me is that participatory research (and design) seems to be lumped in here, and it seems that participatory methods don't have to be limited to advocacy/critical research.
  
• Pragmatic knowledge claims
  Based on Dewey, Peirce, Mead and others, this stance appeals to me. This approach believes "knowledge claims arise out of actions, situations, and consequences rather than antecedent conditions (as in postpositivism)" (11). The concern is with what works and solves problems: "Instead of methods being important, the problem is most important." This sounds somewhat like how we have framed "field methods" in Tech Comm--it is practically motivated to solve specific, contextually-based problems. Creswell describes this approach as using mixed methods--whatever works.

As I step back and think also interms of my "Strategy of Inquiry," I see that I am not clear in my philosophical position. I am just about all over the map (except for advocacy). I can't seem to get away from the positivist (postpositivist) inclination I have. I suppose it comes from my case study where I believe I employed a constructivist position to formulate some theories. Now that I have these theories about the role of reflection in the writing process, I am eager to test them. But... . But this research project is not predominantly about testing my theories about reflection. Beneath the surface is my hope that I can see some indication about the truth or validity of my theories. This hope may be subversive to the current research project, and I have to weigh that danger.

One thing I am finding out (also from reading some on surveys, specifically Earl Babbie's Survey Research Methods (1973) is that surveys fall into the more positivist (or postpositivist) quantitative camp. Their intent is to generalize from a sample to a population. On the other hand, my survey may also include some rather open ended questions (I have to decide that), so I may have to use some constructivist, qualitative methods (most likely rhetorical analysis of textual responses and interviews) to make some of these generalizations. What I am struggling with is using a method that is postpositive, but my ultimate goal is not to make a postpositive claim--I don't think I can reach the point where I can confirm a hypothesis on the basis of failing to reject it. Yet, survey research has its own tradition and epistemological claim that I certainly can feel comfortable in relying on. At least that is what I am finding from reading Babbie. Since Babbie was written in 1973, he comes out of a pretty strong scientific, positivistic grounding. I know I will need to find more current perspectives on doing survey research, but he is a good start.

I would have to say that my knowledge claim in this project is more postpositivistic in that I am seeking to make some generalizations about a population; however, I also believe that I will be more constructivist in terms of the interpretation of my data. That is, my purpose in the research is not so much to present and prove hypotheses of causal relationships (though it may be possible to theorize about some of these), but it will be more about describing the place of this one learning activity (writer's reviews) within the larger "activity system" that is Freshman Composition and the delivery of that curriculum to students. With this purpose in mind, I would have to say that my predominant epistemological stance is constructivist in nature. Yet their is that postpositivistic nature of survey research?

Does this discussion of research design help me? How?
At this point, I'm in a bit of a quandry as to how I understand this mixed nature of my knowledge claim. But it has made me think of perhaps other methods or inquiries that might be interesting (such as some numbers on the percentage of students who skip doing writer's reviews, even though they lose points).