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Combining Methods in Educational and Social Research (Conducting Educational Research) PDF

207 Pages·2004·1.36 MB·English
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Combining Methods in Educational and Social Research Conducting educational research Series editor: Harry Torrance, University of Sussex This series is aimed at research students in education and those under- taking related professional, vocational and social research. It takes currentmethodologicaldebatesseriouslyandofferswell-informedadvice tostudentsonhowtorespondtosuchdebates.Booksintheseriesreview and engage with current methodological issues, while relating such issues to the sorts of decisions which research students have to make when designing, conducting and writing up research. Thus the series both contributes to methodological debate and has practical orientation by providing students with advice on how to engage with such debate anduseparticularmethodsintheirwork.Seriesauthorsareexperienced researchers and supervisors. Each book provides students with insights into a different form of educational research while also providing them withthecriticaltoolsandknowledgenecessarytomakeinformedjudge- ments about the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. Current titles: Tony Brown and Liz Jones: Action, Research and Postmodernism Mairead Dunne, John Pryor and Paul Yates: Becoming a Researcher Stephen Gorard with Chris Taylor: Combining Methods in Educational and Social Research Joe Kincheloe and Kathleen Berry: Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research Maggie MacLure: Discourse in Educational and Social Research Richard Pring and Gary Thomas: Evidence-Based Practice in Education John Schostak: Interviewing and Representation in Qualitative Research JohnSchostak:Understanding,DesigningandConductingQualitativeResearch in Education Lyn Yates: What Does Good Educational Research Look Like? Combining Methods in Educational and Social Research Stephen Gorard with Chris Taylor Open University Press Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: [email protected] world wide web:www.openup.co.uk and TwoPennPlaza,NewYork, NY 10121-2289,USA First published 2004 Copyright #StephenGorard and ChrisTaylor Allrightsreserved.Exceptforthequotationofshortpassagesforthepurposesof criticismandreview,nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedina retrieval system, or transmitted,in anyfor,or byany means,electronic, mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise,withoutthepriorpermission ofthe publisher or alicence fromthe Copyright Licensing AgencyLimited. Detailsofsuchlicences(forreprographicreproduction)maybeobtainedfromthe CopyrightLicensingAgencyLtdof90TottenhamCourtRoad,London,W1T4LP. A catalogue record ofthis bookis availablefrom theBritish Library ISBN 0335213073 (pb)0335213081 (hb) Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIPdataapplied for Typeset by YHTLtd Printed intheUK byBell &Bain Ltd.,Glasgow Contents Preface vii 1 A third methodological movement: challenging the dominance of single methods 1 2 Simple numeric and textual data: querying the divide 13 3 Triangulation and combining methods across studies 42 4 The ‘new’ political arithmetic: a policy case study 58 5 Understanding life histories by varying the scale 78 6 The interplay of scale and type: complex interventions 92 7 The promise of design studies 100 8 What is the current prevalence of combined methods research? 113 9 Theory as a barrier to the combination of research methods 143 10 Prospects for the ‘new’ education and social science researcher 166 References 177 Index 193 Preface Why have we written a book about combining research approaches in education and social science at this time? Because there is growing interestinthepossibilities,asdissatisfactiongrowswiththelimitationsof traditional mono-method studies – all very well in their way but unable to address fully the most complex research questions – and with the methodological schism and internecine ‘warfare’ that divides our field. This interest is clear among the funders of research. It is exemplified by two projects funded in 2002/3 as part of the ESRC Research Methods Programme, both of which are devoted to exploring issues of combining methods – specifically those methods traditionally termed ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’. For more information on these, see www.prw.le. ac.uk/research/qualquan/andwww.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/projects/posters/ bryman.shtml. ThenewtrainingguidelinesforESRC-fundedresearchstudents(1+3) requireforthefirsttimethatallstudentsareabletoundertakerelatively high-level tasks within both traditions of research. The combination of suchmethodsisalsooneoffiveparticularprioritiesfortheESRC-funded Teachingand LearningResearch ProgrammeCapacity Building Network (see www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/capacity). However,thereareveryfewsourcesthattheinterestedresearchercan turn to for practical guidance on the conduct of research that employs multiple mixed methods. This book provides a conceptual and metho- dological guide to mixing or combining methods in education research (and in social science more widely), by situating, outlining and evalu- ating methods that are currently used both within and beyond these fields. The book is not easy reading, will not be comfortable for some existing researchers, and certainly cannot be expected to overcome the convictions ofthoseresearcherswhoareavowedlymono-methodic.But perhaps we should not expect anyone who believes that it is impossible viii Preface tocombinemethodstobereadingthisbookanyway.Wehope,ifnothing else, that it gives many others an opportunity to think about mixing the simpleuseofnumberswiththeirqualitativework,orstrengtheningtheir numeric data with textual or visual illustrations. We believe that all research has an overarching logic and that, within this, the fruitful combination of methods is possible. We develop the idea of the ‘new’ education researcher, for whom the combination of approaches is a representation of a diverse skills base, and part of the development of a fuller multi-perspective on any research topic, rather than a matter of ideological or theoretical allegiance. The authors would like to express their thanks to many colleagues, especially John Fitz, Jonathan Gorard, Eamonn Kelly, Laurence Moore, KenPrandy,GarethRees,KarenRoberts,KatieRushforth,BarrySloane, Emma Smith, Harry Torrance and Patrick White for their help in for- mulating some of the ideas in this book. 1 A third methodological movement: challenging the dominance of single methods The purpose of this book is relatively simple given the potentially com- plexnatureofthesubjectmatter.Itisaimedatanaudienceofupcoming educationandsocialscienceresearchers,andsuggestswaysinwhichitis practicalandrelativelyeasytocombineevidencecollectedusingavariety of different methods. The chief focus is on the combination of evidence derived from both what are traditionally termed ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ methods. This is in distinction to the wider issues, such as those about the triangulation of methods of data collection within a qualitative tradition, as discussed by Meijer et al. (2002), or what Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) refer to as ‘multi-methods approaches’ using two methods from the same earlier traditions (e.g. ethnography andcase study), orcross-disciplinary triangulation of thekind envisaged by Scholz and Tietje (2002). The book assumes that the reader is inter- ested in the possibility of combining methods, and therefore considers such simple combination to be feasible. It is not intended here to per- suade avowedly mono-method researchers, who use the same method againandagain,thattheyhavesomethingtogainfromusingmorethan one method, if they do not, for example, believe that both ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ methods are valuable in their own right. Nor is it intendedtodealattheoutsetwithsweepingclaimssuchasthoseofSale etal. (2002: 43) that: ‘Becausethe twoparadigmsdo not study thesame phenomena, quantitative and qualitative methods cannot be combined for cross-validation or triangulation purposes’. The premise of the book is that both approaches have strengths, and thatevengreaterstrengthcancomefromtheirappropriatecombination. Itisnotthepurposeofthisbooktobecomeinvolvedinaconsiderationof thedifferencesinterminologyusedbyvariouscommentators–wemean by ‘combining methods’ the same thing as ‘mixed methods research’ (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2003), and sometimes ‘multi-method’ or

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“This excellent book promises much and delivers a whole lot more. It provides a description of the practicalities of combining evidence from a variety of data collection modes in order to enrich our responses to educational research questions. This is achieved with thoroughness and clarity and eve
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