Research Methods in Education

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This completely rewritten and updated fifth edition of the long-running bestseller, Research Meth- ods in Education covers the whole range of methods currently employed by educational research- ers. It continues to be the standard text for students undertaking educational research whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level.

This new edition constitutes the largest reshaping of the text to date and includes new material on:

• qualitative, naturalistic and ethnographic research methods;

• curricular and evaluative research;

• critical theory and educational research;

• feminist perspectives on research;

• research and policy-making;

• planning educational research;

• critical action research;

• statistical analysis;

• sampling reliability and validity;

• event-history analysis;

• meta-analysis and multi-level modelling;

• nominal group technique and Delphi techniques;

• case study planning;

• qualitative data analysis;

• questionnaire design and construction;

• focus groups;

• testing;

• test construction and item response theory;

• recent developments in educational research including Internet usage, simulations, fuzzy logic, Geographical Information Systems, needs assessment and evidence-based education.

This user-friendly text provides both the theory that underpins research methodology and very practical guidelines for conducting educational research. It is essential reading for both the professional researcher and the consumer of research—the teacher, educational administrator, adviser, and all those concerned with educational research and practice.

Louis Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Education at Loughborough University. Lawrence Manion is former Principal Lecturer in Music at Didsbury School of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University. Keith Morrison is Senior Professor of Education at the Inter-University Institute of Macau.

Research Methods in

Education

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Research Methods in Education

Fifth edition

Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison

London and New York

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11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeFalmer 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Cohen, Louis

Research methods in education/Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion, and Keith Morrison.—5th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-415-19541-1 (pbk.)

1. Education—Research. 2. Education—Research—Great Britain. I. Manion, Lawrence.

II. Morrison, Keith (Keith R.B.) III. Title.

LB 1028 .C572 2000 370’.7’2–dc21

ISBN 0-203-22434-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-22446-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-19541-1

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‘To understand is hard. Once one understands, action is easy.’

(Sun Yat Sen, 1866–1925)

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List of boxes xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction xv

Part 1

The context of educational research 1 The nature of inquiry

Introduction 3

The search for truth 3

Two conceptions of social reality 5

Positivism 8

The assumptions and nature of science 10

The tools of science 13

The scientific method 15

Criticisms of positivism and the

scientific method 17

Alternatives to positivistic social

science: naturalistic approaches 19 A question of terminology: the

normative and interpretive paradigms 22 Phenomenology, ethnomethodology

and symbolic interactionism 23 Criticisms of the naturalistic and

interpretive approaches 26

Critical theory and critical educational

research 27

Criticisms of approaches from critical

theory 31

Critical theory and curriculum research 32 A summary of the three paradigms 34

Feminist research 34

Research and evaluation 38

Research, politics and policy-making 43

Methods and methodology 44

Part 2

Planning educational research 2 The ethics of educational and social

research

Introduction 49

Informed consent 50

Access and acceptance 53

Ethics of social research 56

Sources of tension 58

Voices of experience 59

Ethical dilemmas 60

Ethics and research methods in

education 66

Ethics and teacher evaluation 67

Research and regulation 69

Conclusion 71

3 Research design issues: planning research

Introduction 73

A framework for planning research 73 A planning matrix for research 80 Managing the planning of research 88

Conclusion 90

4 Sampling

Introduction 92

The sample size 93

Sampling error 96

The representativeness of the sample 98

The access to the sample 98

The sampling strategy to be used 99

Conclusion 104

‘Elicited’ versus ‘provided’ constructs 338 Allotting elements to constructs 339 Laddering and pyramid constructions 341 Grid administration and analysis 341 Procedures in grid administration 341 Procedures in grid analysis 342 Strengths of repertory grid technique 344 Difficulties in the use of repertory

grid technique 345

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Some examples of the use of repertory grid in educational research 346 Grid technique and audio/video lesson

recording 347

20 Multi-dimensional measurement

Introduction 349

Elementary linkage analysis:

an example 349

Steps in elementary linkage analysis 350 Cluster analysis: an example 351 Factor analysis: an example 354 Multi-dimensional tables 364 Multi-dimensional data: some words

on notation 365

Degrees of freedom 367

A note on multilevel modelling 369 21 Role-playing

Introduction 370

Role-playing versus deception:

the argument 372

Role-playing versus deception:

the evidence 373

Role-playing in educational settings 374 The uses of role-playing 375 Strengths and weaknesses of role-playing and other simulation exercises 377 Role-playing in an educational setting:

an example 378

Evaluating role-playing and other

simulation exercises 379

Part 5

Recent developments in educational research

22 Recent developments

The Internet 383

Simulations 385

Fuzzy logic 389

Geographical Information Systems 389

Needs analysis 390

Evidence-based education 394

Notes 396

Bibliography 407

Index 438

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1.1 The subjective—objective dimension 7 1.2 Alternative bases for interpreting

social reality 9

1.3 The functions of science 11

1.4 The hypothesis 15

1.5 Stages in the development of a science 16 1.6 An eight-stage model of the scientific

method 16

1.7 A classroom episode 21

1.8 Differing approaches to the study of

behaviour 35

2.1 The costs/benefits ratio 50

2.2 Guidelines for reasonably informed

consent 51

2.3 Close encounters of a researcher kind 54 2.4 Conditions and guarantees proffered

for a school-based research project 56 2.5 Negotiating access checklist 57 2.6 Absolute ethical principles in social

research 58

2.7 An extreme case of deception 64 2.8 Ethical principles for the guidance of

action researchers 68

2.9 An ethical code: an illustration 71 3.1 Elements of research styles 78 3.2 Statistics available for different types

of data 81

3.3 A matrix for planning research 83 3.4 A planning sequence for research 89 3.5 A planning matrix for research 90 4.1 Determining the size of a random

sample 94

4.2 Sample size, confidence levels and

sampling error 95

4.3 Distribution of sample means showing the spread of a selection of sample means around the population

mean 96

5.1 Principal sources of bias in life history

research 133

7.1 Some historical interrelations between men, movements and institutions 159 7.2 A typology of life histories and their

modes of presentation 166

8.1 Stages in the planning of a survey 170 8.2 Types of developmental research 175 8.3 Advantages of cohort over cross-sectional

designs 177

8.4 The characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal, cross-sectional, trend analysis, and

retrospective longitudinal studies 178 9.1 Possible advantages of case study 184 9.2 Nisbet and Watt’s (1984) strengths and

weaknesses of case study 184

9.3 A typology of observation studies 186 9.4 The case study and problems of selection 189 9.5 Continua of data collection, types and

analysis in case study research 190 10.1 Common measures of relationship 192 10.2 Correlation scatter diagrams 194 10.3 A line diagram to indicate curvilinearity 198 10.4 Visualization of correlation of 0.65

between reading grade and arithmetic

grade 201

10.5 Correlations between the various

estimates of academic rank 203 12.1 The effects of randomization 214

12.2 The ABAB design 220

12.3 An ABAB design in an educational

setting 221

12.4 Class size and learning in

well-controlled and poorly controlled

studies 225

13.1 Action research in classroom and school 234 13.2 A model of emancipatory action

research for organizational change 236 14.1 A flow chart technique for question

planning 247

14.2 A flow chart for the planning of a postal

survey 264

15.1 Attributes of ethnographers as

interviewers 268

15.2 Summary of relative merits of

interview versus questionnaire 269 15.3 Strengths and weaknesses of different

types of interview 271

15.4 The selection of response mode 278

Boxes

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16.1 Principles in the ethogenic approach 294

16.2 Account gathering 295

16.3 Experience sampling method 296 16.4 Concepts in children’s talk 299 16.5 ‘Ain’t nobody can talk about things

being about theirselves’ 301

16.6 Parents and teachers: divergent

viewpoints on children’s communicative

competence 302

16.7 Justification of objective systematic

observation in classroom settings 303 17.1 A structured observation schedule 307

18.1 A matrix of test items 323

18.2 Compiling elements of test items 323 19.1 Eliciting constructs and constructing a

repertory grid 338

19.2 Allotting elements to constructs: three

methods 340

19.3 Laddering 342

19.4 Elements 343

19.5 Difference score for constructs 343

19.6 Grid matrix 344

20.1 Rank ordering of ten children on seven

constructs 350

20.2 Intercorrelations between seven personal

constructs 351

20.3 The structuring of relationships

among the seven personal constructs 351 20.4 Central profiles (percentage occurrence)

at 12-cluster levels 352

20.5 Factor analysis of responsibility for

stress items 355

20.6 Factor analysis of the occupational

stress items 356

20.7 Factor analysis of the occupational

satisfaction items 358

20.8 Correlations between (dependent) stress and (independent) satisfaction

factors and canonical variates 359 20.9 Biographical data and stress factors 359 20.10 Students’ perceptions of social episodes 361 20.11 Perception of social episodes 362 20.12 Person concept coding system 363 20.13 Reliability co-efficients for peer

descriptions 363

20.14 Sex, voting preference and social class: a three-way classification table 365 20.15 Sex, voting preference and social class: a

three-way notational classification 366 20.16 Expected frequencies in sex, voting

preference and social class 367 20.17 Expected frequencies assuming that

sex is independent of social class and

voting preference 368

20.18 Sex and voting preference: a two-way

classification table 368

21.1 Dimensions of role-play methods 371 21.2 The Stanford Prison experiment 372 21.3 A flow chart for using role-play 375 21.4 Critical factors in a role-play: smoking

and young people 376

21.5 Categorization of responses to the four

video extracts 378

22.1 Geographical Information Systems in

secondary schools 390

22.2 Location of home postcodes using

Geographical Information Systems 391

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Academic Press Inc. London, for Bannister, D.

and Mair, J.M.M. (1968) The Evaluation of Personal Constructs, Box 19.2; words from LeCompte, M., Millroy, W.L. and Preissle, J.

(eds) (1992) The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education.

Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Wokingham, for words from Boyd-Barrett, D. and Scanlon, E., (1991) Computers and Learning.

Allyn & Bacon, Boston, Massachusetts, for words from Bogdan, R.G. and Biklen, S.K.

(1992) Qualitative Research for Education (second edition).

Associated Book Publishers Ltd., London, for Fransella, F. (1975) Need to Change? Box 19.3.

Carfax Publishing Co., Abingdon, for McCormick, J. and Solman, R. (1992) Teach- ers’ attributions of responsibility for occupational stress and satisfaction: an organisa- tional perspective, Educational Studies, 18 (2), 201–22, Box 20.5, Box 20.6, Box 20.7;

Halpin, D. et al. (1990) Teachers’ perceptions of the effects of inservice education, British Educational Research Journal, 16 (2), 163–

77, Box 10.5.

Cassell, London, for words from Tymms, P.

(1996) Theories, models and simulations:

school effectiveness at an impasse, in J.Gray, D.Reynolds, C.T.Fitz-Gibbon and D.Jesson (eds) Merging Traditions: the Future of Re- search on School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 121–35.

Centre for Applied Research in Education, Nor- wich, East Anglia, for words from MacDonald, B. (1987) Research and Action in the Context of Policing, paper commis- sioned by the Police Federation.

Corwin Press, Newbury Park, California, for words from Millman, J. and Darling- Hammond, L. (eds), (1991) The New Hand- book of Teacher Evaluation.

Countryside Commission, Cheltenham, for Davidson, J. (1970) Outdoor Recreation Sur- veys: the Design and Use of Questionnaires for Site Surveys, Box 8.1.

Deakin University Press, Deakin, Australia, for words from Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R.

(1981) The Action Research Planner, and Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1992:8 and 21–8) The Action Research Planner (third edition).

Elsevier Science Ltd, for words from Haig, B.D.

(1997) Feminist research methodology, in J.P.

Keeves (ed.) Educational Research, Method- ology, and Measurement: an International Handbook, Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd, 222–31.

Forgas, J.P. (1976) Journal of Personal and So- cial Psychology, 34 (2), 199–209, Box 20.10.

George Allen & Unwin, London, for Plummer, K. (1983) Documents of Life: Introduction to the Problems and Literature of a Human- istic Method, Box 2.8; Whyte, W.F. (1982) Interviewing in field research. In R.G.Burgess (ed.) Field Research: a Sourcebook and Field Manual, 111–22.

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, for Tuckman, B.W. (1972) Conducting Educa- tional Research, Box 16.5, and Box 15.2.

Harper & Row Publishers, London, for Cohen, L. (1977) Educational Research in Class- rooms and Schools, Box 20.1, Box 20.2, and Box 20.3.

Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, London,

Acknowledgements

Our thanks are due to the following publishers and authors for permission to include materials in the text:

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for Hoinville, G. and Jowell, R. (1978) Sur- vey Research Practice, Box 8.1.

Hodder & Stoughton, Sevenoaks, for words from Frankfort-Nachmias, C. and Nachmias, D.

(1992) Research Methods in the Social Sciences.

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, for words from Reynolds, P.D. (1979) Ethical Dilemmas and Social Science Research.

Kogan Page, London, for words from Norris, N. (1990) Understanding Educational Evalu- ation.

Krejcie, R.V and Morgan, D.W. (1970) Deter- mining sample size for research activities, Edu- cational and Psychological Measurement 30, 609, copyright Sage Publications Inc, reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc.

Kvale, S. (1996) Interviews, pp. 30, 88, 145, copyright Sage Publications Inc., reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc.

Lincoln, Y.S. and Guba, E.G. (1985) words from Naturalistic Inquiry, copyright Sage Publica- tions Inc., reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc.

Methuen & Co, London, for words from Shipman, M.D. (1974) Inside a Curriculum Project.

Mies, M. (1993) for words from Towards a methodology for feminist research, in M.

Hammersley (ed.) Social Research: Philoso- phy, Politics and Practice, reprinted by per- mission of Sage Publications Inc.

Multilingual Matters Ltd, Clevedon, for figures from Parsons, E., Chalkley, B. and Jones, A.

(1996) The role of Geographic Information Systems in the study of parental choice and secondary school catchments, Evaluation and Research in Education, 10 (1), 23–34; for words from Stronach, I. and Morris, B. (1994) Polemical notes on educational evaluation in an age of ‘policy hysteria’, Evaluation and Research in Education, 8 (1 & 2), 5–19.

Open Books, London and Shepton Mallet, for Bennett, S.N. (1976), Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress, Box 20.4.

Open University Press, Milton Keynes, for words from Bell, J. (1987) Doing Your Re-

search Project; Hopkins, D. (1985) A Teach- er’s Guide to Classroom Research; Pilliner, A. (1973) Experiment in Educational Re- search, E 341, Block 5; Rose, D. and Sullivan, O. (1993) Introducing Data Analysis for So- cial Scientists.

Parsons, E., Chalkley, B. and Jones, A. (1996) The role of Geographic Information Systems in the study of parental choice and second- ary school catchments, Evaluation and Re- search in Education, 10 (1), 23–34, published by Multilingual Matters Ltd, Clevedon, Boxes 22.1 and 22.2.

Patton, M.Q. (1980) Qualitative Evaluation Methods, p. 206, copyright Sage Publications Inc., reprinted by permission of Sage Publi- cations Inc.

Peter Francis Publishers, Dereham, Norfolk, for material from Morrison, K.R.B. (1993) Plan- ning and Accomplishing School-Centred Evaluation.

Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for words from Denzin, N.K. (1989) The Re- search Act (third edition).

Routledge, London, for words from Hitchcock, G. and Hughes, D. (1989) Research and the Teacher: a Qualitative Introduction to School-based Research, Box 7.2; words from Hitchcock, G. and Hughes, D. (1995) Re- search and the Teacher (second edition);

words from Carspecken, P.F. (1996) Critical Ethnography in Educational Research;

Wragg, E.C. (1994) An Introduction to Class- room Observation.

Taylor & Francis, London, for words and fig- ure from: Zuber-Skerritt, O. (ed.) (1996) New Directions in Action Research, published by Falmer, pp. 99 and 17; James, M. (1993) Evaluation for policy: rationality and political reality: the paradigm case of PRAISE, in R.G. Burgess (ed.) Educational Research and Evaluation for Policy and Practice, published by Falmer.

University of Chicago Press, Chicago, for words from Diener, E. and Crandall R. (1978) Eth- ics in Social and Behavioral Research.

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It is six years since the fourth edition of Research Methods in Education was published and we are indebted to RoutledgeFalmer for the oppor- tunity to produce a fifth edition. The book continues to be received very favourably worldwide and we should like to thank reviewers for their constructive comments which have helped in the production of this fifth edition. In particular, this has led to the substantial increase in the coverage of qualitative approaches to educational research, which has resulted in a fairer balance to the book. This new edition constitutes the largest reshaping of the book to date, and includes a reorganization of the material into five parts that catch the range of issues in planning educational research: (a) the context of educational research; (b) planning educational research; (c) styles of educational research; (d) strategies for data collection and researching;

(e) recent developments in educational research.

Much of the material from the previous editions has been relocated within these five parts to make them more accessible to the reader, and the careful titling of chapters is designed to increase this accessibility. Within these main parts the book includes considerable additional material to give this edition greater balance and coverage, and to provide examples and greater practical guidance for those who are planning and conducting educational research. This edition includes, also, guidance on data analysis within both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and issues in reporting research. In particular the following are included:

Part One:

• additional material on interpretive, ethnographic, interactionist, phenomenological and qualitative perspectives;

• additional material on curricular and evaluative research;

• new material on critical perspectives on educational research, including ideology critique from Habermas and the Frankfurt School, and feminist perspectives;

• new material on research, politics and policy- making.

Part Two:

• an entirely new part that is designed to assist novice researchers to design and conduct educational research, from its earliest stages to its completion. It is envisaged that this part will be particularly useful for higher education students who are undertaking educational research as part of their course require- ments.

Part Three:

• considerable new material on naturalistic, qualitative and ethnographic approaches, including critical ethnographies;

• additional material on action research, align- ing it to the critical approaches set out in Part One;

• new material and chapters on sampling, reliability and validity, including qualitative approaches to educational research;

• additional explanations of frequently used concepts in quantitative educational research, for example statistical significance, correlations, regression, curvilinearity, and an indi- cation of particular statistics to use for data analysis;

• new and additional material on event-history analysis, meta-analysis and multilevel modelling;

Introduction

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• an introduction to Nominal Group Technique and Delphi techniques;

• additional material on case study planning and implementation;

• additional material on data analysis for qualitative data, e.g. content analysis and coding, analysis of field notes, cognitive mapping, patterning, critical events and incidents, ana- lytic induction and constant comparison.

Part Four:

• new material and chapters on questionnaire design and construction, interviews, focus groups, telephone interviewing, observation, the laddering and pyramid designs of personal constructs, speech acts, and stories, including analysis of data derived from these instruments for data collection;

• a new chapter on testing, test construction, item response theory, item analysis, item dif- ficulty and discriminability and computer adaptive testing;

• additional material on contingency tables and statistical significance.

Part Five:

• a new chapter on recent developments in educational research, including material on Internet usage, simulations, fuzzy logic, Geo- graphical Information Systems, needs analysis/assessment and evidence-based education.

By careful cross-referencing and the provision of explanations and examples we have attempted to give both considerable coherence to the book and to provide researchers with clear and deliberately practical guidance on all stages of the research process, from planning to operationalization, ethics, methodology, sampling, reliability and validity, instrumentation and data collection, data analysis and reporting. We have attempted to show throughout how practices derive from, and are located within,

the contexts of educational research that are set out in Part One. The guidance that we provide is couched in a view of educational research as an ethical activity, and care has been taken to ensure that ethical issues, in addition to the spe- cific chapter on ethics, are discussed throughout the book. The significance of the ethical dimension of educational research is underlined by the relocation of the chapter on ethics to very early on in this edition.

We have deliberately reduced the more extended discussion of published examples in response to feedback on previous editions from reviewers, but we have included detailed backup reference to these and additional references to updated examples for the reader to follow up and consult at will.

We are joined by Keith Morrison for the au- thorship of this new edition. We welcome the additions and amendments that he has made, in the firm knowledge that these will guarantee the book’s continuing success. Overall, this edition provides a balanced, structured and comprehen- sive introduction to educational research that sets out both its principles and practice for researchers in a user-friendly way, and which is guided by the principle of Occam’s razor: all things being equal, the simplest explanation is frequently the best, or, as Einstein put it, one should make matters as simple as possible but no simpler! Balancing simplicity and the ines- capable complexity of educational research is a high-wire act; we hope to have provided a useful introduction to this in the fifth edition of Research Methods in Education.

Louis Cohen, Ph.D., D.Litt., is Emeritus Profes- sor of Education at Loughborough University.

Lawrence Manion, Ph.D., is former Principal Lecturer in Music in Didsbury School of Edu- cation, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Keith Morrison, Ph.D., is Professor of Educa- tion at the Inter-University Institute of Macau.

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This part locates the research enterprise in several contexts. It commences with positivist and scientific contexts of research and then proceeds to show the strengths and weaknesses of such traditions for educational research. As an alternative paradigm, the cluster of approaches that can loosely be termed interpretive, naturalistic, phenomenological, interactionist and ethnographic are brought together and their strengths and weaknesses for educational research are also examined. The rise of critical theory as a paradigm in which educational research is conducted has been meteoric and its implications for the research undertaking are addressed in several ways in this chapter, resonating with curriculum research and feminist research. Indeed critical theory links the conduct of educational research with politics and policy-making, and this is

Part one

The context of educational research

reflected in the discussions here of research and evaluation, arguing how much educational research has become evaluative in nature. That educational research serves a political agenda is seen in the later sections of this part, though the links between educational research and policy-making are typically far from straightfor- ward. The intention in this section is to intro- duce the reader to different research traditions, and, rather than advocating slavish adherence to a single research paradigm, we suggest that

‘fitness for purpose’ must be the guiding principle: different research paradigms are suitable for different research purposes and questions.

Different research traditions spawn different styles of research; researchers must make informed choices of research traditions, mindful of the political agendas that their research might serve.

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Introduction

This chapter explores the context of educational research. It sets out three significant lenses through which to examine the practice of research: (a) scientific and positivistic methodologies; (b) naturalistic and interpretive methodologies; (c) methodologies from critical theory.

Our analysis takes as a starting point an important notion from Hitchcock and Hughes (1995:21) who suggest that ontological assumptions give rise to epistemological assumptions;

these, in turn, give rise to methodological con- siderations; and these, in turn, give rise to issues of instrumentation and data collection. This view moves us beyond regarding research methods as simply a technical exercise; it recognizes that research is concerned with understanding the world and that this is informed by how we view our world(s), what we take understanding to be, and what we see as the purposes of understanding. The chapter outlines the ontological, epistemological and methodological premises of the three lenses and examines their strengths and weaknesses. In so doing it recognizes that education, educational research, politics and decision-making are inextricably intertwined, a view which the lens of critical theory, for example, brings sharply into focus in its discussions of curriculum decision-making. Hence this intro- ductory chapter draws attention to the politics of educational research and the implications that this has for undertaking research (e.g. the move towards applied and evaluative research and away from ‘pure’ research).

The search for truth

People have long been concerned to come to grips with their environment and to understand

the nature of the phenomena it presents to their senses. The means by which they set out to achieve these ends may be classified into three broad categories: experience, reasoning and re- search (Mouly, 1978). Far from being independ- ent and mutually exclusive, however, these categories must be seen as complementary and over- lapping, features most readily in evidence where solutions to complex modern problems are sought.

In our endeavours to come to terms with the problems of day-to-day living, we are heavily dependent upon experience and authority and their value in this context should not be under- estimated. Nor should their respective roles be overlooked in the specialist sphere of research where they provide richly fertile sources of hypotheses and questions about the world, though, of course, it must be remembered that as tools for uncovering ultimate truth they have decided limitations. The limitations of personal experi- ence in the form of common-sense knowing, for instance, can quickly be exposed when compared with features of the scientific approach to problem-solving. Consider, for example, the striking differences in the way in which theories are used.

Laypeople base them on haphazard events and use them in a loose and uncritical manner. When they are required to test them, they do so in a selective fashion, often choosing only that evidence that is consistent with their hunches and ignoring that which is counter to them. Scien- tists, by contrast, construct their theories care- fully and systematically. Whatever hypotheses they formulate have to be tested empirically so that their explanations have a firm basis in fact.

And there is the concept of control distinguish- ing the layperson’s and the scientist’s attitude to experience. Laypeople generally make no

The nature of inquiry

¹

1

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attempt to control any extraneous sources of in- fluence when trying to explain an occurrence.

Scientists, on the other hand, only too conscious of the multiplicity of causes for a given occurrence, resort to definite techniques and procedures to isolate and test the effect of one or more of the alleged causes. Finally, there is the difference of attitude to the relationships among phenomena. Laypeople’s concerns with such relationships are loose, unsystematic and uncon- trolled. 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.

The second category by means of which people attempt to comprehend the world around them, namely, reasoning, consists of three types:

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 pro- viding 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 incep- tion 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 Ba- con began to lay increasing stress on the obser- vational 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 a hypothesis and eventually to a generalization.

Mouly (1978) explains it like this: ‘His basic premise was that if one collected enough data without any preconceived notion about their significance and orientation—thus maintaining complete objectivity—inherent relationships pertaining to the general case would emerge to be seen 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 fol- lowed by the inductive-deductive approach which combines Aristotelian deduction with Baconian induction. In Mouly’s words, this con- sisted of:

a back-and-forth movement in which the investi- gator first operates inductively from observations to hypotheses, and then deductively from these hypotheses to their implications, in order to check their validity from the standpoint of compatibil- ity with accepted knowledge. After revision, where necessary, these hypotheses are submitted to further test through the collection of data specifically

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Chapter 1

5 designed to test their validity at the empirical level.

This dual approach is the essence of the modern scientific method and marks the last stage of man’s progress toward empirical science, a path that took him through folklore and mysticism, dogma and tradition, casual observation, and finally to systematic observation.

(Mouly, 1978) Although both deduction and induction have their weaknesses, their contributions to the development of science are enormous and fall into three categories: (1) the suggestion of hypotheses; (2) the logical development of these hypotheses; and (3) the clarification and interpretation of scientific findings and their synthesis into a conceptual framework.

The third means by which we set out to dis- cover truth is research. This has been defined by Kerlinger (1970) as the systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hy- pothetical propositions about the presumed re- lations among natural phenomena. Research has three characteristics in 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. Sec- ond, research is empirical. The scientist turns to experience for validation. As Kerlinger puts it, ‘subjective belief…must be checked against objective reality. Scientists must always subject their notions to the court of empirical inquiry and test’. And, third, research is self-correct- ing. 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. As Mouly says,

‘This self corrective function is the most important single aspect of science, guaranteeing that incorrect results will in time be found to be incorrect and duly revised or discarded.’

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).²

Educational research has at the same time absorbed two competing views of the social sciences—the established, traditional view and a more recent interpretive view. The former 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 latter view, however, while sharing the rigour of the natural sciences and the same concern of traditional social science to describe and explain human behaviour, emphasizes how people differ from inanimate natural phenomena and, indeed, from each other. These contending views—and also their correspond- ing 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.

Two conceptions of social reality The two 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 two 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 is

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL REALITY

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known in philosophy as 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 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. The authors ask whether ‘it is possible to identify and communicate the nature of knowledge as being hard, real and capable of being transmitted in tangible form, or whether knowledge is of a softer, more subjective, spiritual or even transcendental kind, based on experience and insight of a unique and essentially personal nature. The epistemological assumptions in these instances deter- mine extreme positions on the issues of whether knowledge is something which can be acquired on the one hand, or is something which has to be personally experienced on the other’ (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). How one aligns oneself in this particular debate pro- foundly 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.

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 to their environment; the other, as initiators of their own actions. Burrell and Morgan write lucidly on the distinction:

Thus, we can identify perspectives in social science which entail a view of human beings responding in a mechanistic or even deterministic fashion to the situations encountered in their external world. This view tends to be one in which human beings and their experiences are regarded as products of the environment; one in which humans are conditioned by their external circumstances. This extreme perspective can be contrasted with one which attributes to human beings a much more creative role: with a perspective where ‘free will’ occupies the cen- tre of the stage; where man [sic] is regarded as the creator of his environment, the controller as opposed to the controlled, the master rather than the marionette. In these two extreme views of the relationship between human beings and their environment, we are identifying a great philosophical debate between the advo- cates of determinism on the one hand and voluntarism on the other. Whilst there are so- cial theories which adhere to each of these ex- tremes, the assumptions of many social scientists are pitched somewhere in the range between.

(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

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7

techniques—accounts, participant observation and personal constructs, for example.

Where one subscribes to the view which 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 ana- lysing the relationships and regularities between selected factors in that world. It will be pre-domi- nantly quantitative. ‘The concern’, say Burrell and Morgan, ‘is with the identification and defi- nition of these elements and with the discovery of ways in which these relationships can be expressed. The methodological issues of importance are thus the concepts themselves, their measurement and the identification of underlying themes. This perspective expresses itself most forcefully in a search for universal laws which explain and govern the reality 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 observe,

The emphasis in extreme cases tends to be placed upon the explanation and understanding of what is unique and particular to the individual rather than of what is general and universal. This approach questions whether there exists an external reality worthy of study. In methodological terms it is an approach which emphasizes the relativis- tic nature of the social world.

(Burrell and Morgan, 1979) Such a view is echoed by Kirk and Miller (1986:14). In its emphasis on the particular and individual this approach to understanding indi- vidual 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 in graphic form along a subjective—objective dimension. It identifies the four sets of assumptions by using terms we have adopted in

Box 1.1

The subjective—objective dimension

Source Burrell and Morgan, 1979

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL REALITY

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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 formula- tion of questions to be answered, the charac- terization of pupils and teachers, methodological concerns, the kinds of data sought and their mode of treatment—all will be influenced or determined by the viewpoint held. Some idea of the considerable practical implications of the contrasting views can be gained by examining Box 1.2 which compares them with respect to a number of critical issues within a broadly societal and organizational framework. Implications of the two perspectives for research into classrooms and schools will unfold in the course of the text.

Because of its significance to the epistemological basis of social science and its consequences for educational research, we devote much of the rest of this chapter to the positivist and anti- positivist debate.

Positivism

Although positivism has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day, it is his- torically associated with the nineteenth-cen- tury French philosopher, Auguste Comte, who was the first thinker to use the word for a philosophical position (Beck, 1979). Here explanation proceeds by way of scientific de- scription (Acton, 1975). In his study of the history of the philosophy and methodology of science, Oldroyd (1986) says:

It was Comte who consciously ‘invented’ the new science of society and gave it the name to which we are accustomed. He thought that it would be possible to establish it on a ‘positive’ basis, just like the other sciences, which served as necessary preliminaries to it. For social phenomena were to be viewed in the light of physiological (or biological) laws and theories and investigated empirically, just like physical phenomena. Likewise, biological phenomena were to be viewed in the

light of chemical laws and theories; and so on down the line.

(Oldroyd, 1986) Comte’s position was to lead to a general doctrine of positivism which held that all genuine knowledge is based on sense experience and can only be advanced by means of observation and experiment. Following in the empiricist tradition, it limited inquiry and belief to what can be firmly established and in thus abandoning meta- physical and speculative attempts to gain knowledge by reason alone, the movement developed what has been described as a ‘tough-minded orientation to facts and natural phenomena’

(Beck, 1979).

Since Comte, the term positivism has been used in such different ways by philosophers and social scientists that it is difficult to assign it a precise and consistent meaning. Moreover, the term has also been applied to the doctrine of a school of philosophy known as ‘logical positivism’.³ The central belief of the logical positivists is that the meaning of a statement is, or is given by, the method of its verification. It follows from this that unverifiable statements are held to be meaningless, the utterances of traditional metaphysics and theology being included in this class.

However the term positivism is used by philosophers and social scientists, a residual meaning is always present and this derives from an acceptance of natural science as the paradigm of human knowledge (Duncan, 1968). This includes the following connected suppositions which have been identified by Giddens (1975).

First, the methodological procedures of natural science may be directly applied to the social sciences. Positivism here implies a particular stance concerning the social scientist as an observer of social reality. Second, the end-product of investigations by social scientists can be for- mulated in terms parallel to those of natural science. This means that their analyses must be expressed in laws or law-like generalizations of the same kind that have been established in relation to natural phenomena. Positivism here

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9

involves a definite view of social scientists as analysts or interpreters of their subject matter.

Positivism may be characterized by its claim that science provides us with the clearest possible ideal of knowledge.

Where positivism is less successful, however,

is in its application to the study of human behaviour where the immense complexity of human nature and the elusive and intangible qual- ity of social phenomena contrast strikingly with the order and regularity of the natural world.

This point is nowhere more apparent than in

Box 1.2

Alternative bases for interpreting social reality

Source Adapted from Barr Greenfield, 1975

POSITIVISM

Conceptions of social reality

Dimensions of comparison Objectivist Subjectivist

Philosophical basis Realism: the world exists and is Idealism: the world exists but different knowable as it really is. people construe it in very different ways.

Organizations are real entities with Organizations are invented social reality.

a life of their own.

The role of social science Discovering the universal laws of Discovering how different people society and human conduct within it. interpret the world in which they live.

Basic units of social reality The collectivity: society or Individuals acting singly or together.

organizations.

Methods of understanding Identifying conditions or relationships Interpretation of the subjective meanings which permit the collectivity to exist. which individuals place upon their action.

Conceiving what these conditions Discovering the subjective rules for such

and relationships are. action.

Theory A rational edifice built by scientists Sets of meanings which people use to to explain human behaviour. make sense of their world and behaviour

within it.

Research Experimental or quasi-experimental The search for meaningful relationships validation of theory. and the discovery of their consequences

for action.

Methodology Abstraction of reality, especially The representation of reality for purposes through mathematical models and of comparison.

quantitative analysis. Analysis of language and meaning.

Society Ordered. Governed by a uniform Conflicted. Governed by the values of set of values and made possible people with access to power.

only by those values.

Organizations Goal oriented. Independent of people. Dependent upon people and their goals.

Instruments of order in society Instruments of power which some people serving both society and the control and can use to attain ends which

individual. seem good to them.

Organizational pathologies Organizations get out of kilter with Given diverse human ends, there is always social values and individual needs. conflict among people acting to pursue

them.

Prescription for change Change the structure of the Find out what values are embodied in organization to meet social values organizational action and whose they are.

and individual needs. Change the people or change their values if you can.

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the contexts of classroom and school where the problems of teaching, learning and human in- teraction present the positivistic researcher with a mammoth challenge.

For further information on positivism within the history of the philosophy and methodology of science, see Oldroyd (1986). We now look more closely at some of its features.

The assumptions and nature of science Since a number of the research methods we describe in this book draw heavily on the scientific method either implicitly or explicitly and can only be fully understood within the total framework of its principles and assumptions, we will here examine some of the characteristics of science a little more closely.

We begin with an examination of the tenets of scientific faith: the kinds of assumptions held by scientists, often implicitly, as they go about their daily work. First, there is the assumption of determinism. This means simply that events have causes, that events are determined by other circumstances; and science proceeds on the belief that these causal links can eventually be un- covered and understood, that the events are ex- plicable in terms of their antecedents. Moreo- ver, not only are events in the natural world determined by other circumstances, but there is regularity about the way they are determined:

the universe does not behave capriciously. It is the ultimate aim of scientists to formulate laws to account for the happenings in the world around them, thus giving them a firm basis for prediction and control.

The second assumption is that of empiricism.

We have already touched upon this viewpoint, which holds that certain kinds of reliable knowledge can only originate in experience. In practice, therefore, this means scientifically that the tenability of a theory or hypothesis depends on the nature of the empirical evidence for its support. Empirical here means that which is verifiable by observation; and evidence, data yielding proof or strong confirmation, in prob- ability terms, of a theory or hypothesis in a

research setting. The viewpoint has been summed up by Barratt who writes, ‘The decision for empiricism as an act of scientific faith signifies that the best way to acquire reliable knowledge is the way of evidence obtained by direct experience’ (Barratt, 1971).

Mouly (1978) has identified five steps in the process of empirical science:

1 experience—the starting point of scientific endeavour at the most elementary level;

2 classification—the formal systematization of otherwise incomprehensible masses of data;

3 quantification—a more sophisticated stage where precision of measurement allows more adequate analysis of phenomena by mathematical means;

4 discovery of relationships—the identification and classification of functional relationships among phenomena;

5 approximation to the truth—science proceeds by gradual approximation to the truth.

The third assumption underlying the work of the scientist is the principle of parsimony. The basic idea is that phenomena should be explained in the most economical way possible. The first historical statement of the principle was by William of Occam when he said that explana- tory principles (entities) should not be needlessly multiplied. It may, of course, be interpreted in various ways: that it is preferable to account for a phenomenon by two concepts rather than three; that a simple theory is to be preferred to a complex one; or as Lloyd Morgan said as a guide to the study of animal behaviour: ‘In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.’

The final assumption, that of generality, played an important part in both the deductive and inductive methods of reasoning. Indeed, histori- cally speaking, it was the problematic relationship between the concrete particular and the abstract general that was to result in two

Research Methods in Education

Research Methods in

Education

Research Methods in Education

Fifth edition

Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison

London and New York

Contents

Boxes

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part one

The context of educational research

The nature of inquiry

1