ABSTRACT
Interpretive research is an umbrella term used to describe studies that endeavor to understand a community in terms of the actions and interactions of the participants, from their own perspectives. Interpretive research seeks to answer broad questions and can address sociocultural factors not accessed easily using other methodologies. For example, the first interpretive study undertaken by our research group investigated the question of what is happening in high school science classrooms. Initially our explanations of what was happening were related to patterns that could be observed directly by members of our research team (Tobin & Gallagher, 1987). We identified numerous factors that shaped the science curricula being taught, such as students who monopolized interactions with the teacher, gender equity issues, and the nature of the assessment system (Tobin, Espinet, Byrd, & Adams, 1988). Gradually our foci shifted to patterns that related teachers’ beliefs to the enacted science curricula (Tobin & Espinet, 1989). The study of teachers’ beliefs then evolved to include the role of metaphor in constraining teachers’ and students’ actions (Briscoe, 1993; Tobin, Kahle, & Fraser, 1990; Tobin & LaMaster, 1995; Tobin & Tippins, 1996). As a landscape of understandings about teaching and learning emerged, we began to examine the manner in which specific subject matter was taught in a context of the social forces that distribute power and constrain the actions of participants in a community (Tobin, McRobbie, & D. Anderson, 1997). Throughout this succession of studies, I worked with my colleagues to explore the potential of interpretive research and to develop forms of practice in which the epistemology associated with the actions and interactions of the researcher was compatible with that applied to the interpretive frame used to construct and explain data.
