At 12:44 PM 3/26/01 -0500, Neil W. Henry wrote:
>Introductory statistics classes, with their artificially created null
>hypotheses
>and impractical data gathering designs, often ignore these complexities.
you won't get much argument from me about the above ... a null hypothesis
is rather useless in my book but, like many things, null hypothesis testing
is so entrenched into the system ... somehow, we need to break free ... or
at least lessen its dominance
the upcoming paper by roger kirk ... "promoting good statistical practices:
some suggestions" in educational and psychological measurement, V 61, #2,
2001 ... is a good place to look for some points on this matter (and, it is
nothing new by any means)
but, regardless of what is meant by and can be thought of as "qualitative"
research ... what i see day after day being done in the qualitative
research context is to define it in terms of certain kinds of data
collection methods like ... content analysis, or in depth personal
interviews, or ... case studies ... to many, when you use the term
"qualitative" research, that seems to be what they mean
content analysis, in depth personal interviews, case studies ... are not
qualitative research ... these are simply methods that are used in the
conduct OF research
i have also seen in many instances for those claiming to do qualitative
research, that the notion of generalization is unimportant ... that is, you
study the situation for itself ... but, i find this really troubling if
that is the message we are trying to pass along to students we are training
... if there is no eye on generalizable elements of what we are doing ...
what is the point of doing research in the first place? science suggests
that application and extrapolation (in the broadest sense) is THE noble
goal of giving it the old scientific college try
when i went to grad school, we never even heard of the term "qualitative"
... what we did hear of was "research" and, we started off with some
question of interest ... and then worked on a plan of attack that would
yield information that would help us be able to offer some answers to the
questions posed ...
this plan of attack was NEVER to think in terms of quantitative or
qualitative ... but, methods that would be congruent with our goals ...
yes, i do have a rather strong bias (readily admitted) and that is ... the
distinctions made between quantitative and qualitative have NOT been
helpful ... in fact, in some ways ... they have retarded progress in
thinking about, planning, and conducting useful research ...
what we tend to have now are 'camps' ... like cronbach's famous apa
presidential address about 'the two camps of psychology' (circa 1950) ...
where the experimental researchers and field researchers didn't speak to
one another ... how sad
this is happening and getting more so today ... between faculty and their
students in the areas of "quantitative" and "qualitative" ...
one time, i had a student come in and say that he/she wanted to do a
"qualitative" study ... that was his/her goal ... that had nothing to do
with an issue that he or she wanted to pursue ... i tried to extinguish
that verbal behavior right away ... and help the student focus on some
problem of interest
i would have done the same thing (and have) if the student would have said:
i want to do a quantitative study
this is just not the right way for students to be thinking about scholarly
efforts that they might want to engage in ...
ISSUE OR PROBLEM FIRST ... methods that seem to fit second
>--
> *************************************************
> `o^o' * Neil W. Henry ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) *
> -<:>- * Virginia Commonwealth University *
> _/ \_ * Richmond VA 23284-2014 *
> * http://www.people.vcu.edu/~nhenry *
> *************************************************
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>dennis roberts wrote:
>>At 12:56 PM 3/25/01 -0500, Karl L. Wuensch wrote:
>> >Here is how I resolve that problem: Define the population from the
>> sample,
>> >rather than vice versa -- that is, my results can be generalized to any
>> >population for which my sample could be reasonably considered to be a
>> random
>> >sample. Maybe we could call this "transcendental sampling" ;-) -- it is
>> >somewhat like transcendental realism, defining reality from our
>> percetion of
>> >it, eh?
>>
>>this sounds like the method of grounded theory in the qualitative
>>bailiwick ...
>>look at data you have and see what you can make of it
>>
>>that is ... there is no particular PLAN to the investigation ... data
>>gathering ... or, what you want to do with what you find after the fact
>>
>>i try to tell students this is not a very good strategy ...
>Dennis:
>This is a serious misrepresentation of qualitative research in general,
>and, in particular, of Glaser and Strauss's insistence that social
>theorizing be fundamentally be "grounded" in experience. The idea that
>qualitative research begins with "no particular PLAN" is simply ludicrous.
>
>Here's a couple of quotes from "Toward Reform of Program Evaluation" by
>Lee Cronbach and others (1980):
>"The evaluator will be wise not to declare allegiance to either a
>quantitative-manipulative-summative methodology or a
>qualitative-naturalistic-descriptive methodology. . . . Those who advocate
>an evaluation plan [sic] devoid of one kind of information or the other
>carry the burden of justifying such exclusion." (p. 223)
>
>"Writings on experimental design emphasize extrapolation much less than is
>appropriate for evaluation. Data on a particular set of program operations
>are collected at specific sites, but the evaluation is intended to answer
>a much broader question." . . . The design best for sharpening a limited
>statistical conclusion may not be the best basis for the broader
>inferences. " (p. 231)
>
>Introductory statistics classes, with their artificially created null
>hypotheses and impractical data gathering designs, often ignore these
>complexities.
>
>
>--
> *************************************************
> `o^o' * Neil W. Henry ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) *
> -<:>- * Virginia Commonwealth University *
> _/ \_ * Richmond VA 23284-2014 *
> * <http://www.people.vcu.edu/~nhenry>http://www.people.vcu.edu/~nhenry
> *
> *************************************************
>
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_________________________________________________________
dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university
208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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