A 5 page paper assessing the process by which attitudes toward research methodologies change over time. It has been a shift for accommodation that has elevated qualitative research to the level of “real” research in only the past generation. Examination of qualitative research efforts in education done in the 1970s and 1980s to that produced today reveals the emergence of a discipline that today is accepted as being quite legitimate and valid in every respect. Of course quantitative methods have their place in investigations into learning processes, but qualitative methods are often better suited because of the very variability in the individuals comprising the object of study. The paper discusses Kuhn’s views on the origins of scientific revolutions, as well as Popper, Gadamer, Heidegger, Howard Gardner and Daniel Goldman. Bibliography lists 12 sources.
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education is unique among disciplines employing empirical methods in that it so frequently addresses issues that are mutable according to populations, administrative structure, external societal conditions or other qualities.
Well-designed research can stand as relevant for decades, but lesser efforts may or may not be useful in practice at any time. There
is a wealth of research in education, much of it virtually worthless. For decades, it seemed that researchers turned to qualitative methods only when they could not fit hypotheses
into quantitative approaches. Qualitative studies frequently were not designed well with reference to validity and reliability, and method purists often regarded qualitative educational research as less than "real" science.
Todays educational research is designed much better than in the past, but today it also is more open to alternative forms of interpretation. Poppers Perspective
Karl Popper ventured into social observation, discussing "closed" and "open" societies. His observation of the nature of the closed society, made nearly 60 years ago, in
many ways can apply to educational systems today. Popper wrote that while closed societies differed between each other, all were characterized by "their magical or irrational attitude towards the
customs of social life, and the corresponding rigidity of those customs" (Popper quoted in McInnes, 2002; p. 72). This perspective could have been applied to educational systems of even
the recent past, when legislators and the public alike began calling for greater demonstrable achievement in the public schools. Udehn (2002) notes that
it "is common to categorize social scientific theories as either individualistic or holistic, and to assume that they are opposites" (p. 479). While common, this approach also is too
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