ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a summary of qualitative researchers’ objections to the mainstream research model (empiricist, positivist, hypothetico-deductive and quantitative) and summarises a variety of methods now commonly used in mainstream psychological research. Methods here, however, are usually not just an alternative set of procedures but incorporate a fundamental philosophical critique of the mainstream approach and a specific epistemological position. l Traditional quantitative methods, under the positivist paradigm, have often produced
relatively artificial and sterile results, inapplicable to the realities of everyday human life. Objections to this paradigm are discussed.
