Qualitative Research In Social Studies Education - Translation

2007

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION Judith Preissle-Goetz UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA Margaret Diane LeCompte UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

In 1970, one of us, then a classroom teacher not yet dreaming she would become an educational researcher, struggled with the problem of how to design a study investigating children's reactions to the value clarification lessons she was using. For guidance, her advisor handed her a copy of Campbell and Stanleys Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research (1963). She used a pretest-posttest control group design to produce a mediocre investigation with ambiguous results. This enabled her to finish a master's degree, but left both her and her thesis committee members with nagging questions about what had happened and why. Fortunately, the days of such rigidity of design in educational research have ended.

1970 Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs

Introductory research textbooks once discussed only experimental, quasi-experimental, and survey designs. Now such books include simulation research, standardized observation, historical research, case study investigation, conceptual re search, ethnography, and other permutations of qualitative design (eg, Borg & Gall, 1989). In the past 20 years, approaches to research design have diversified. Scholars who once felt compelled to use conventional

quantitative designs now use as criteria for choice of design their own research purposes and questions. More scholars have pursued years-long investigations in various substantive areas: in so doing, they have raised new questions and concerns.

Borg

ethnography 1989 Gall

Our goal is to examine how one variety of research design-popularly referred to as qualitative investigation—is being and can be applied to social studies education. What is qualitative research? How is qualitative research different from and similar to quantitative research? What is involved in apply ing qualitative research to social studies teaching and learning? We intend our discussion to illustrate how qualitative design modes offer a fruitful perspective on the significant issues and problems raised in social studies education.

WHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH? Qualitative research is a loosely defined category of research designs or models (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984), all of which elicit verbal, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory data. These data take the form of descriptive narratives like field notes, recordings or other transcriptions from audio- and videotapes, and other written records, as well as pictures or films. Qualitative researchers also may collect artifacts—products or things people use—such as objects people make and records of what they do, say, produce, or write.

Goetz 1984 LeCompte

Qualitative research is based on and grounded in descrip tions of observations. These descriptions address the question, "What is happening here?" Most qualitative research designs are intended to address this question. It can be asked about anything—ordinary occurrences, extraordinary events, or circumstances puzzling to an investigator.

Some methodologists object to the name qualitative research. They believe it to be imprecise, misleading, and imply ing a lack of concern with quantity. Among the synonyms used are interpretive research (Erickson, 1986), naturalistic research (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), phenomenological research (Wilson, 1977), and descriptive research (Wolcott, 1980).

1986

Erickson 1977 Wilson

1985 Guba

Lincoln 1980 Wolcot

Each of these labels emphasizes a characteristic of much qualitative research. Erickson's preference for the term interpretive focuses investigation on meaning, highlighting the premise that human activity can only be understood when the meaning of the action to the actor is taken into account. Lincoln and Guba use the term naturalistic because it indicates a concern for studying human life as it proceeds unaffected by the scientists interested in studying it. Like Erickson, Lincoln and Guba are interested in understanding human phenomena from the perspective of the human participants who produce them.

Guba

Lincoln

The same quality is conveyed by the label phenomenologicat research, a philosophical stance whose adherents assert that knowledge, reality, and value can only be known through human experience (Giorgi, 1971). They focus on the concrete and specific characteristics of phenomena as experienced by the human observer. Adequately representing the phenomena requires that they be faithfully described just as they were experienced.

1971 Giorgi