ABSTRACT
It seems that after the rhetoric of the paradigm wars (Gage, 1989; Guba, 1990; Lincoln, 1989) research in education is now heading toward a new research program with some degree of consensus. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) have advocated a trilogy of research paradigms, namely qualitative research, quantitative research and mixed methods (integrative) research and outlined the fundamental principle of mixed research in the following terms: “According to this principle, researchers should collect multiple data using different strategies, approaches, and methods in such a way that the resulting mixture or combination is likely to result in complementary strengths and nonoverlapping weaknesses” (p. 18). Despite some consensus there has also been controversy with respect to the “evidence based research” or the “gold standard” (randomized controlled experiments) as recommended by the National Research Council (NRC, 2002). Phillips (2005a) has steered away from the extreme views and critiqued educational research for not providing real examples. He compares the present stage of philosophy of educational research to the philosophy of science of six decades ago, when in-depth historical studies of Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Cartwright, Gallison, Sober and other contemporary philosophers of science started to appear. Phillips and Burbules (2000) consider educational research as a fallible enterprise that attempts to construct viable warrants or chains of arguments that draw upon diverse bodies of evidence that support the assertions being made. According to Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004), emergence of the new paradigm (mixed methods research) is possible as both qualitative and quantitative (i.e., postpositivists, Phillips & Burbules, 2000) researchers have reached basic agreement on the following philosophical points: (a) what appears reasonable can vary across persons; (b) theory-ladenness of observations; (c) same experimental data can be explained by different theories; (d) the Duhem-Quine thesis; (e) empirical evidence does not provide conclusive proof; and (f ) attitudes, beliefs and values of the researchers influence their findings, so that fully
objective and value-free research is a myth (for a similar argument, see Smeyers, 2006, p. 479). This is an ambitious agenda and if researchers on both sides of the divide subscribe to it, then it may provide grounds for not only the emergence but rather proliferation of new paradigms (preferably research programs). In order to justify the emergence of the new paradigm (mixed methods), Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) have presented a detailed analysis of the weaknesses and strengths of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods and finally embraced pragmatism (Peirce, James & Dewey) as a philosophical alternative. The objective of this study is to show that, based on contemporary philosophy of science, there are other alternatives. I will first present a critique of the philosophical underpinnings of the research paradigm of Guba and Lincoln (considered to be the leading qualitative researchers in the world), which is essentially based on Kuhn’s (1970) philosophy of science. Next, I will present an outline of the contemporary philosophy of science based on Lakatos (1970, 1971), Giere (1999), Cartwright (1983, 1989, 1999) and Holton (1978a, 1978b, 1998), which shows that progress in science is characterized by conflicting and rival research programs (not paradigms, cf. Kuhn, 1970), integrating both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Positivist historians and philosophers of science emphasized the experimental data (quantitative) and generally ignored the interpretations (qualitative), namely, how do researchers come to understand the significance of their data? In quantitative educational research this came to be characterized by the Null Hypothesis Significance Testing Procedure (NHSTP). According to Ratnesar and Mackenzie (2006), NHSTP is still considered to be the sine qua non of scientific research in many methods courses. Contemporary philosophers of science, in contrast, provide greater insight by showing that observations are theory-laden and it is precisely the integration of the data and the presuppositions (hypotheses, guiding assumptions, hard-core of the research program) that facilitate interpretations and conceptual understanding in science. Finally, this will help to conceptualize qualitative, quantitative and mixed research programs (not paradigms) as rivals and not necessarily a displacement of one by the other, but rather integration. This insight is important, as research programs are not right or wrong, but rather are important in the degree to which they provide heuristic (explanatory) power.
