ABSTRACT
Roy Bhaskar in his meta-theory of critical realism argues that researching the world can be understood as a series of action-sets. In this chapter, the authors attempt to throw light on the way that critical realist ideas inform methodological choices. They start by discussing the researcher’s role and present the application of critical realism in a multiple case study investigation, using qualitative methods of data collection. The authors also present how critical realist ideas informed the analysis of the data and discuss how critical realism can inform issues of validity and generalisability of research. They provide a model of a critical realist informed methodology, which can be applied by researchers in the field of education for doing more rigorous, structured and serious research. The researcher’s biases could also be considered as springboards for achieving personal or social empowerment as the ideas, vision and set of values of the researcher are a part of the educational research.
