Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences.
01 Jan 2005-
TL;DR: The contention among various research paradigms for legitimacy and intellectual and p;uadigmatic hegemony was discussed in the first edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research by Guba and Lincoln as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: n our chapter for the first edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research, we focused on the contention among various research paradigms for legitimacy and intellectual and p;uadigmatic hegemony (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). The postmodern paradigms that we discussed (postmodernist critical theory and constructivism) 1 were in contention with the received positivist and postpositivist paradigms for legitimacy, and with one another for intellectual legitimacy. In the half dozen years that have elapsed since that chapter was published, substantial change has occurred in the landscape of social scientific inquiry. On the matter of legitimacy, we observe that readers familiar with the literature on methods and paradigms reflect a high interest in ontologies and epistemologies that differ sharply from those undergirding conventional social science. Second, even those est::~blished professionals trained in quantitative social science (including the two of us) want to learn more about qualitative approaches, because new young professionals being mentored in graduate schools are asking serious questions about and looking for guidance in qualitatively oriented studies and dissertations. Third, the number of qualitative texts, research papers, workshops, and training materials has exploded. Indeed, it would be difficult to miss the distinct turn of the social sciences tow::~rd more interpretive, postmodern, and criticalist practices and theorizing (Bloland, 1989, 1995). This nonpositivist orientation has created a context (surround) in which virtually no study can go unchallenged by proponents of contending paradigms. Further, it
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors position mixed methods research (mixed research is a synonym) as the natural complement to traditional qualitative and quantitative research, and present pragmatism as offering an attractive philosophical partner for mixed method research.
Abstract: The purposes of this article are to position mixed methods research (mixed research is a synonym) as the natural complement to traditional qualitative and quantitative research, to present pragmatism as offering an attractive philosophical partner for mixed methods research, and to provide a framework for designing and conducting mixed methods research. In doing this, we briefly review the paradigm “wars” and incompatibility thesis, we show some commonalities between quantitative and qualitative research, we explain the tenets of pragmatism, we explain the fundamental principle of mixed research and how to apply it, we provide specific sets of designs for the two major types of mixed methods research (mixed-model designs and mixed-method designs), and, finally, we explain mixed methods research as following (recursively) an eight-step process. A key feature of mixed methods research is its methodological pluralism or eclecticism, which frequently results in superior research (compared to monomethod resear...
11,330 citations
TL;DR: The CFIR provides a pragmatic structure for approaching complex, interacting, multi-level, and transient states of constructs in the real world by embracing, consolidating, and unifying key constructs from published implementation theories.
Abstract: Many interventions found to be effective in health services research studies fail to translate into meaningful patient care outcomes across multiple contexts. Health services researchers recognize the need to evaluate not only summative outcomes but also formative outcomes to assess the extent to which implementation is effective in a specific setting, prolongs sustainability, and promotes dissemination into other settings. Many implementation theories have been published to help promote effective implementation. However, they overlap considerably in the constructs included in individual theories, and a comparison of theories reveals that each is missing important constructs included in other theories. In addition, terminology and definitions are not consistent across theories. We describe the Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (CFIR) that offers an overarching typology to promote implementation theory development and verification about what works where and why across multiple contexts. We used a snowball sampling approach to identify published theories that were evaluated to identify constructs based on strength of conceptual or empirical support for influence on implementation, consistency in definitions, alignment with our own findings, and potential for measurement. We combined constructs across published theories that had different labels but were redundant or overlapping in definition, and we parsed apart constructs that conflated underlying concepts. The CFIR is composed of five major domains: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation. Eight constructs were identified related to the intervention (e.g., evidence strength and quality), four constructs were identified related to outer setting (e.g., patient needs and resources), 12 constructs were identified related to inner setting (e.g., culture, leadership engagement), five constructs were identified related to individual characteristics, and eight constructs were identified related to process (e.g., plan, evaluate, and reflect). We present explicit definitions for each construct. The CFIR provides a pragmatic structure for approaching complex, interacting, multi-level, and transient states of constructs in the real world by embracing, consolidating, and unifying key constructs from published implementation theories. It can be used to guide formative evaluations and build the implementation knowledge base across multiple studies and settings.
8,080 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how the field of mixed methods currently is being defined and discussed the criteria of demarcation in mixed methods research, and concluded that mixed methods are one of the three major research paradigms.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine how the field of mixed methods currently is being defined. The authors asked many of the current leaders in mixed methods research how they define mixed methods research. The authors provide the leaders' definitions and discuss the content found as they searched for the criteria of demarcation. The authors provide a current answer to the question, What is mixed methods research? They also briefly summarize the recent history of mixed methods and list several issues that need additional work as the field continues to advance. They argue that mixed methods research is one of the three major “research paradigms” (quantitative research, qualitative research, and mixed methods research). The authors hope this article will contribute to the ongoing dialogue about how mixed methods research is defined and conceptualized by its practitioners.
6,049 citations
Cites background from "Paradigmatic Controversies, Contrad..."
...Similarly, Guba and Lincoln (2005) reiterated that “within each paradigm, mixed methodologies (strategies) may make perfectly good sense” (p. 200)....
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...Guba and Lincoln (2005) posed and answered the following question: Is it possible to blend elements of one paradigm into another, so that one is engaging in research that represents the best of both worldviews?...
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a model for quality in qualitative research that is uniquely expansive, yet flexible, in that it makes distinc- tions among qualitative research's means (methods and practices) and its ends.
Abstract: This article presents a model for quality in qualitative research that is uniquely expansive, yet flexible, in that it makes distinc- tions among qualitative research's means (methods and practices) and its ends. The article first provides a contextualization and rationale for the conceptualization. Then the author presents and explores eight key markers of quality in qualitative research including (a) worthy topic, (b) rich rigor, (c) sincerity, (d) credibility, (e) resonance, (f) significant contribution, (g) ethics, and (h) meaningful coherence. This eight-point conceptualization offers a useful pedagogical model and provides a common language of qualitative best practices that can be recognized as integral by a variety of audiences. While making a case for these markers of quality, the article leaves space for dialogue, imagination, growth, and improvisation.
4,656 citations
Cites background or methods from "Paradigmatic Controversies, Contrad..."
...This social inquiry as practical philosophy serves to enhance and cultivate critical intelligence that leads to the capacity to engage in moral critique (Guba & Lincoln, 2005) and training human judgment” (Schwandt, 1996)....
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...A number of qualitative scholars have responded by suggesting that criteria for goodness must be tied to specific theories, paradigms, or qualitative communities (Cunliffe, in press; Denzin, 2008; Ellingson, 2008; Golafshani, 2003; Guba & Lincoln, 2005)....
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...However, applying traditional criteria like generalizability, objectivity, and reliability to qualitative research is illegitimate; akin to “Catholic questions directed to a Methodist audience” (Guba & Lincoln, 2005, p. 202)....
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...…2010; Tracy & Scott, 2006) coupled with an inductive analysis of qualitative bestpractices literature—authored largely by poststructural, performative, and creative analytic practice scholars (e.g., Bochner, 2000; Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Lather, 1993; Richardson, 2000a)....
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...Guba and Lincoln (1989, 2005) recommend topics that may provide “educative authenticity”—a raised level of awareness similar to Schwandt’s (1996) “critical intelligence” that has strong moral overtones and the potential for moral critique....
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01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The history of qualitative research in the human disciplines can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the very existence of qualitative work was at issue as mentioned in this paper, when the evidence-based research movement, with its fixed standards and guidelines for conducting and evaluating qualitative inquiry, sought total domination.
Abstract: The global community of qualitative researchers is midway between two extremes, searching for a new middle, moving in several different directions at the same time. Mixed methodologies and calls for scientifically based research, on the one side, renewed calls for social justice inquiry from the critical social science tradition on the other. In the methodological struggles of the 1970s and 1980s, the very existence of qualitative research was at issue. In the new paradigm war, “every overtly social justice-oriented approach to research . . . is threatened with de-legitimization by the government-sanctioned, exclusivist assertion of positivism . . . as the ‘gold standard’ of educational research” (Wright, 2006, pp. 799–800). The evidence-based research movement, with its fixed standards and guidelines for conducting and evaluating qualitative inquiry, sought total domination: one shoe fits all (Cannella & Lincoln, Chapter 5, this volume; Lincoln, 2010). The heart of the matter turns on issues surrounding the politics and ethics of evidence and the value of qualitative work in addressing matters of equity and social justice (Torrance, Chapter 34, this volume). In this introductory chapter, we define the field of qualitative research, then navigate, chart, and review the history of qualitative research in the human disciplines. This will allow us to locate this handbook and its contents within their historical moments. (These historical moments are somewhat artificial; they are socially constructed, quasi-historical, and overlapping conventions. Nevertheless, they permit a “performance” of developing ideas. They also facilitate an increasing sensitivity to and sophistication about the pitfalls and promises of ethnography and qualitative research.) A conceptual framework for reading the qualitative research act as a multicultural, gendered process is presented. We then provide a brief introduction to the chapters, concluding with a brief discussion of qualitative research. We will also discuss the threats to qualitative human-subject research from the methodological conservatism movement, which was noted in our Preface. As indicated there, we use the metaphor of the bridge to structure what follows. This volume provides a bridge between historical moments, politics, the decolonization project, research methods, paradigms, and communities of interpretive scholars.
3,131 citations
Cites background from "Paradigmatic Controversies, Contrad..."
...Others (Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Lather, 1993) deconstruct validity as an operative term....
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...Conflict broke out between the many different empowerment pedagogies: feminist, anti-racist, radical, Freirean, liberation theology, postmodernists, poststructuralists, cultural studies, and so on (see Guba & Lincoln, 2005; also, Erickson, Chapter 3, this volume)....
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References
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01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: This is also one of the factors by obtaining the soft documents of this competing paradigms in qualitative research by online as discussed by the authors. But, it will totally squander the time.
Abstract: This is likewise one of the factors by obtaining the soft documents of this competing paradigms in qualitative research by online. You might not require more become old to spend to go to the books establishment as skillfully as search for them. In some cases, you likewise do not discover the broadcast competing paradigms in qualitative research that you are looking for. It will totally squander the time.
15,524 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: The authors argued that the questions about truth posed by Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and modern epistemologists and philosophers of language simply cannot be answered and were, in any case, irrelevant to serious social and cultural inquiry.
Abstract: "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. Richard Rorty, a Princeton professor who had contributed to the analytic tradition in philosophy, was now attempting to shrug off all the central problems with which it had long been preoccupied. After publication, the Press was barely able to keep up with demand, and the book has since gone on to become one of its all-time best-sellers in philosophy. Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation. They compared the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. In their view, knowledge is concerned with the accuracy of these reflections, and the strategy employed to obtain this knowledge - that of inspecting, repairing, and polishing the mirror - belongs to philosophy. Rorty's book was a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned. He argued that the questions about truth posed by Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and modern epistemologists and philosophers of language simply couldn't be answered and were, in any case, irrelevant to serious social and cultural inquiry. This stance provoked a barrage of criticism, but whatever the strengths of Rorty's specific claims, the book had a therapeutic effect on philosophy. It reenergized pragmatism as an intellectual force, steered philosophy back to its roots in the humanities, and helped to make alternatives to analytic philosophy a serious choice for young graduate students. Twenty-five years later, the book remains a must-read for anyone seriously concerned about the nature of philosophical inquiry and what philosophers can and cannot do to help us understand and improve the world.
5,471 citations
"Paradigmatic Controversies, Contrad..." refers background in this paper
...This "communicative and pragmatic concept" of validity (Rorty, 1979)...
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TL;DR: Biehl as discussed by the authors uses Murray Bookchin's Dialectical Naturalism as an alternative model for defining nature and argues that this theoretical concept allows for the possibility of what all eco-theorists appear to wanta different and less damaging relationship between humanity and the natural world.
Abstract: Feminist Review. www.jstor.org ® the critical point in Biehl's analysis and hope for more exploration of the cultural role of myth. They will be disappointed. Biehl is clearly not interested in taking the poststructuralist route via Barthes, preferring instead to organize her criticism of ecofeminist theory from the lane marked 'social ecology'. Biehl uses Murray Bookchin's 'dialectical naturalism' as an alternative model for defining nature and argues that this theoretical concept allows for the possibility of what all eco-theorists appear to wanta different and less damaging relationship between humanity and the natural world. Unfortunately, from the moment at which she names her preferred way of theorizing the world Biehl's work loses its critical edge. In reproducing Bookchin's arguments explanation comes perilously close to exultation. Dialectical naturalism, she explains, is an holistic approach which looks at the world as a whole from a developmental perspective. It is a theory of progress which posits a necessary passage from a state of 'potentiality' to that of full development which, in the case of individuals allows for the ultimate destination of self-actualization. One example given is the development of the individual from a state of childhood to a 'fuller more differentiated being'. What this example does not
3,068 citations
TL;DR: The boundaries of interpretive research are as yet undefined, and criteria for judging the quality of such research are even more fluid and emergent as mentioned in this paper, and developing criteria are nominated and evaluated.
Abstract: Not only are the boundaries of interpretive research as yet undefined, but criteria for judging the quality of such research are even more fluid and emergent. Developing criteria are nominated and ...
1,669 citations