Some Insight

I've been reading two books recently that have offered some insight into resolving the metaphysical debate and crisis I have been feeling regarding methodology. The two books are:

Newman, Isadore and Carolyn R. Benz. Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1998.

and

Seale, Clive. The Quality of Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications, 1999.

Clive seems to know just what I have been feeling regarding landing on "the right" methodological perspective for research as well as the quandry and tension I have felt attempting to resolve modernist (quantitative) and postmodernist (quanlitative) world views.

He opens by summarizing a research project by Denzin and reveals some of its gaps and inadequacies. Special attention is paid to critical analysis and political analysis that seems to characterize post-modern research. Ultimately, he points out these modes of inquiry become as foundational as modernist view points. He says, "we are left with the view that such work may be a useful source of ideas, but cannot be proposed as a wholly adequate successor to more scientific conceptions of social research" (7). He points out though that a "return to modernist assumptions seems impossible" (7). Clive then goes on to point out that his book takes this tension--the exact one I have been feeling--as the starting point for his book.

I am reading the book with interest, and I find that I sympathize with his position. He describes his own stance toward research and the resolution of this tension: "I am in favor of a fallibilistic approach to research, within a 'subtle realist' orientation, that does not give up on scientific amis as conventionally conceived, but also draws on the insights of postscientific conceptions of social research" (x). He seems to take the stance that no ONE right way or approach to research and knowledge is possible, and that we can benefit from all of them. I'm still reading.

The second book by Newman and Benz is short and excellent also. I need to think about their thesis and ask others what they think, but this quote basically sums up their thinking: "We take the position that the two philosophies [quant and qual] are neither mutually exclusive (i.e., one need not totally commit to either one or the other) nor interchangeable (i.e., one cannot merge methodologies with no concern for underlying assumptions)" (xi). Just hearing this viewpoint of a more expansive view toward the two approaches is helpful for me to hear. But they go on: "Rather, we present them as interactive places on a methodological and philosophical continuum based on the philosophy of science" (xi). The see inquiry as starting from a RESEARCH QUESTION. The question is more important than determining the methodology. In this continuum, the researcher applies qualitative approaches to inquiry to generate a theory. Then he or she applies quantitative approaches to test and generalize (if possible?) the theory. I'm oversimplifiying their view of the continuum. What I have to ponder is it seems to maintain a scientific approach (i.e. positivistic or postpositivistic) view.

I'll close with one statement that struck me from Clive's book: "These all involve a moral commitment to use research activity to aid intersubjective understandings" (15). This statement struck me because is does two things: 1) it acknowledges that "knowledge" is of a postmodern form, an interpretation, but 2) it also highlights that we share interpretations, "intersubjective" understandings of reality that as I.A. Richards pointed out form something substantial as if real. These intersubjective realities can be studied--no?