ABSTRACT
In 1969 William Gephart took stock of the available ‘research methodologies’ in education, and found there were six (historical, case study, descriptive, quasi-experimental, unobtrusive-measure experiment, and experimental), to which he added two hypothetical ones (Gephart, 1969, p. 9). In the introduction he mentions in a single sentence an additional one which he does not further allude to: ‘the aexperimental method’ (ibid., p. 2). The aexperimental method was, he informs us, suggested by Egon Guba. (Gephart’s ‘descriptive method’ is not qualitative, but classified as traditionally quantitative, namely ‘the determination of the manner in which a population is distributed on a variable or variables’ (ibid., p. 4).) This aexperimental method has come to be known as naturalistic inquiry.
