Kenneth R. Howe

Standards for Qualitative (and Quantitative) Research: A Prolegomenon

The proliferation of qualitative methods in educational research has led to considerable controversy about standards for the design and conduct of research. This controversy has been playing itself out over the last several decades largely in terms of the quantitative-qualitative debate. In this paper we argue that framing the issue of standards in terms of quantitative-qualitative debate is misguided. We argue instead that the problem of standards—for qualitative and quantitative research—is best framed in terms of the “logics in use” associated with various research methodologies. In particular, rather than being judged in terms of qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, logics in use, which are often drawn from other academic disciplines and adapted for the purposes of educational research, are judged in terms of their success in investigating educational problems deemed important. Finally, we proffer five general standards that can apply to educational research of all kinds.

A Critique of Experimentalism

The concept of scientifically based research occupies a central place in the thinking of the newly formed Institute of Education Sciences and seems well on its way to becoming the dominant paradigm in educational research more generally. What interpretation becomes recognized as the correct one thus has important implications. This article identifies two versions of experimentalism that have emerged: neoclassical and mixed methods. Both versions of experimentalism are judged to be methodologically retrograde. Neoclassical experimentalism is little more than a throwback to the Campbell-Stanley era and its dogmatic adherence to an exclusive reliance on quantitative methods. Mixed-methods experimentalism, although incorporating an auxiliary role for qualitative methods, fails to understand the deeper epistemological roots of qualitative methods. The article briefly sketches the alternative of mixed-methods interpretivism, which elevates the voice of research participants to a primary position and thereby reverses the epistemological ordering of quantitative-experimental and qualitative interpretivist methods.

Two Dogmas of Educational Research

Educational researchers rightly puzzle about the relative merits of qualitative versus quantitative research methods and about the role that value judgments should play in the conduct of research. Unfortunately, discussions of these issues are often unproductive because they assume (albeit unwittingly) a positivistic epistemological framework. The aim of this paper is to show how rigid epistemological distinctions between quantitative and qualitative methods and between factual and value judgments rest on positivistic dogmas, and how post-positivistic thought eliminates the intractable problem engendered by positivistic epistemology of a forced choice between value-laden/qualitative and value-free/quantitative research methods. The paper also briefly suggests general criteria for evaluating educational research once the positivist-inspired quantitative-qualitative and fact-value dogmas are set aside.

Positivist Dogmas, Rhetoric, and the Education Science Question

Explicit versions of positivism were cast off some time ago in philosophy, but a tacit form continues to thrive in education research, exemplified by the “new scientific orthodoxy” codified in the National Research Council’s Scientific Research in Education (2002) and reinforced in the American Educational Research Association’s Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications (2006). The author rehearses previous critiques of positivist “dogmas” in education research and applies them to the new orthodoxy. Then, borrowing from the emergent field of the “rhetoric of science,” he explores how pursuit of the education science question has nourished a positivist conception of education research. He concludes by suggesting that the education science question should be reframed and briefly suggests how.

Ethics, Institutional Review Boards, and the Changing Face of Educational Research

Educational research has enjoyed special exemptions from formal ethical oversight of research on human subjects since the original mandate from the federal government that such oversight must occur. Although interpreting these exemptions has always been a potential source of controversy and conflict for university Institutional Review Boards, the burgeoning use of qualitative methods has further complicated matters. This article discusses the original rationale for special exemptions for educational research and then examines which varieties of qualitative educational research are consistent with it and which varieties are not. The article also examines the formal ethical oversight of student research practica, an issue also complicated by the advent of qualitative methods. Specific policies are offered both for determining which varieties of qualitative research should qualify for the special educational exemptions and for formally overseeing student research practica.

School Choice and the Pressure to Perform Déjà Vu for Children with Disabilities

Major principles underlying school choice—such as market competition and parental autonomy—are in serious tension with the principles underlying inclusion from both philosophical and legal perspectives. In this article, the authors explicate this tension and then examine the empirical evidence indicating that exclusion of students with special needs, particularly by schools that market themselves on the basis of test scores, has been a result of the implementation of school choice. The authors suggest that school choice has turned back the clock by once again encouraging public schools to exclude students with special needs on the ground that educating such students is beyond the scope of their mission.

Mixed Methods, Triangulation, and Causal Explanation

This article distinguishes a disjunctive conception of mixed methods/triangulation, which brings different methods to bear on different questions, from a conjunctive conception, which brings different methods to bear on the same question. It then examines a more inclusive, holistic conception of mixed methods/triangulation that accommodates ostensibly divergent findings by bringing them under a more comprehensive framework. Intertwined with this analysis, the article distinguishes mechanical from agential causation. Mechanical causation accounts for ordered processes of human behavior on the model of the natural sciences; agential causation accounts for ordered processes of human behavior in terms of norm-governed institutions and practices. The article concludes that there are no barriers to triangulating qualitative and quantitative methods (disjunctively or conjunctively) with respect to either mechanical or agential causation, taken separately. However, it also concludes that more comprehensive, “holistic” causal explanation that combines mechanical and agential causation, for example, explaining defiant behavior by appeal to lead poisoning, is discontinuous.

Liberal Democracy, Equal Educational Opportunity, and the Challenge of Multiculturalism

Liberal political theory in general, as well as liberal educational theory in particular, has been largely silent on the challenge posed by multiculturalism. This lacuna results from the tendency to conflate ‘‘cultural” and ‘‘political” communities and to conceive of equality exclusively in terms of the latter. The result is that equality of educational opportunity is potentially rendered a sham for cultural minorities insofar as they are required to confront educational ideals and practices that are ‘‘culturally encumbered” in a way that reflects only the values and interests of the dominant social group. This article argues that “progressive” liberal educational theory can satisfactorily respond to the challenge posed by multicultural education when concepts such as “freedom” and “opportunity” are properly analyzed and when the demand to promote self-respect among citizens is taken seriously.

Deliberative Democratic Evaluation in Practice

Many evaluators already implement the principles we explicate here without any urging from us. They have developed their own approaches, their own intuitions, and their own robust senses of justice. Nonetheless, such principles are too important to leave to chance or intuition all the time. It may help to have a justification and checklist to remind evaluators caught in the complexities of difficult evaluations what evaluation in democratic societies should aim for: deliberative democracy.

Isolating Science from the Humanities: The Third Dogma of Educational Research.

The demand for scientifically-based educational research has fostered a new methodological orthodoxy exemplified by documents such as the National Research Councils Scientific Research in Education and Advancing Scientific Research in Education and American Educational Research Associations Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Journals. This article criticizes the new orthodoxy as being a throwback to positivist reductionism and the “two dogmas” of educational research: the quantitative/ qualitative incompatibility thesis and fact/value dichotomy. It then criticizes the new orthodoxy for fostering a “third dogma” of educational research cut from the same cloth as the first two: the empirical science/humanities dualism. The article advances the view that no fundamental epistemological dividing line can be drawn between the empirical sciences and the humanities and that, accordingly, empirical research in education should not be cordoned off from the humanities, particularly their focus on values. It concludes with several observations about the problems and prospects for interdisciplinary research in education across the empirical science/humanities divide.