Section archive - Research Methods

This article argues that physical scientists are attempting to advance knowledge in the so-called hard sciences, whereas education researchers are laboring to increase knowledge and understanding in an “extremely hard” but softer domain. The author suggests that given the highly contextualized nature of educational processes, embedded in shifting complex social settings, and the relevance of all variables, very little education research is able to pursue predictive power.

In this article, the authors focused on findings from qualitative research on the effects of action research by reporting two linked quantitative studies. The authors' first goal was to triangulate the findings from their quantitative inquiry with the results from qualitative studies in order to increase the generalizability of claims previously reported. Their second goal was to identify potential moderators of action research impact on teachers. The contribution of these two studies to the corpus of action research literature is twofold. First, the authors confirmed two important benefits of action research participation reported by qualitative researchers, improved teacher attitudes to educational research and increased self-efficacy. Second, they found moderators of the impact of action research that help identify conditions in which action research is particularly likely to benefit teachers.

In this article, the author questions the micro–macro separation in discourse analysis, the separation of personal and institutional discourses. The author explores the connections between macro-level power inequities and micro-level interactional positionings, thereby establishing critical narrative analysis (CNA). She examines the focus of critical discourse analysis (CDA) on institutional discourses and problematize the definition of power discourses by looking closely at the intertextual recycling of institutional discourses in everyday narratives and at the adoption of everyday narratives in institutional discourses. Ultimately, the article proposes that CNA unites CDA and narrative analysis in a mutually beneficial partnership that addresses both theoretical and methodological dilemmas in discourse analysis.

Every effort of synthesizing research is inevitably premised on certain epistemological assumptions. The literature on research synthesis methods is dominated by publications premised on positivist assumptions. Contesting the hegemony of positivist research syntheses, this article makes a case for research syntheses that are informed by diverse epistemological orientations. The article illuminates how research syntheses with distinct epistemological orientations can serve complementary, equally worthwhile, purposes.