Research Methods in Education 6th Edition

1. PARADIGMS OF
SOCIAL RESEARCH
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE
MANION & KEITH MORRISON

2. STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
• The search for truth
• Two conceptions of social reality
• Positivism
• The assumptions, nature and tools of science
• The scientific method
• Criticisms of positivism and the scientific method
• Naturalistic approaches
• Normative and interpretive paradigms
• Phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism
• Criticisms of naturalistic and interpretive approaches
• Mixed methods research
• Post-positivism, post modernism and post-structuralism
• Complexity theory

3. PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
COMPLEXITY
THEORY
INTERPRETIVE
MIXED METHODS POST-POSITIVIST
POST-
STRUCTURALIST
POST-MODERNIST
POSITIVIST

4. POSITIVISM (MACRO)
NOMOTHETIC,
LAWS
OBJECTIVITY
CAUSALITY
NATURAL
SCIENCE BASIS
GENERALIZATION
PREDICTION
CONTROL,
MANIPULATION
QUANTIFICATION,
LARGE SCALE

5. POSITIVIST DESIGN
REVIEW PREVIOUS
LITERATURE
FORMULATE
HYPOTHESIS
DESIGN
RESEARCH
COLLECT DATA
IDENTIFY
TOPIC
ANALYZE DATA REPORT
FINDINGS
LOOK FOR
ALTERNATIVE
EXPLANATIONS
START PROCESS
AGAIN
NO
YES

6. POSITIVIST METHODS
EXPERIMENTS
SURVEYS
TESTS

7. INTERPRETIVE PARADIGM (MICRO)
NATURALISTIC
SPECIFIC/NON-
GENERALIZABLE
SUBJECTIVITY,
INTENTIONALITY
UNDERSTANDING/
INTERPRETATION
IDIOGRAPHIC
INTERPRETATION
CONTEXT-BOUND
AGENCY
FLUIDITY,
CHANGE
MULTIPLE
PERSPECTIVES

8. INTERPRETIVE/ETHNOGRAPHIC
LITERATURE REVIEW
IDENTIFY TOPIC
RESEARCH DESIGN
DATA COLLECTION
DATA ANALYSIS
ELABORATION OF
CONCEPTS/THEORIES
REPORT OF FINDINGS

9. NATURALISTIC METHODS
ETHNOGRAPHY
NARRATIVES,
DOCUMENTS
THICK
DESCRIPTION
OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS

10. NUMBERS,
MEASUREMENT
SURVEY,
EXPERIMENT
POSITIVIST
APPROACHES
ETHNOGRAPHY
NATURALISTIC
APPROACHES
INTERVIEW
OBSERVATION
CASE STUDY
ACTION RESEARCH

11. NUMBERS,
MEASUREMENT
SURVEY
ACTION
RESEARCH
MIXED
METHODS
ETHNOGRAPHY
EXPERIMENT
INTERVIEW
HISTORICAL &
DOCUMENTARY
OBSERVATION
CASE STUDY
META-
ANALYSIS
VIRTUAL WORLDS

12. MULTIPLE REALITIES INTERPRETIVE
RELATIVIST
POST-POSITIVISM, POST-
STRUCTURALISM & POSTMODERNISM
NO GRAND
NARRATIVES
CONTEXT &
TEMPORALITY
DIFFERENCE &
DIVERSITY
DISCOURSES
PHENOMENOLOGY
CONTRADICTORY
DISCOURSES
AGENCY &
INDIVIDUALISM
MULTIPLE MEANINGS

13. COMPLEXITY
THEORY
Complex
adaptive
systems
Non-linear
systems
Open
systems
Relationships Emergence
Connected-
ness
Order
without
control
Distributed
control
Feedback/
communi-
cation
Self-
organization
Holism