Weaving Multimethod Nets

1
Weaving Multimethod Nets

• David Geelan
• Department of Secondary Education
• University of Alberta

2
Pre-, post- or ascientific?

• Kuhn and paradigms
• Normal science
• Pre-scientific field?
• Feyerabend and epistemological anarchy

3
The centrality of valuing

• Postmodernism nihilist and strategic
• In the absence of absolute standards for
  evaluating knowledge claims, we are thrown back
  on our values, and those of the community we
  choose

4
Disciplined eclecticism

• Not nihilistic relativism any set of standards
  and practices is as good as any other
• Rather, disciplined eclecticism which sets of
  standards and practices are appropriate for my
  purposes, and those of my community

5
Ethical considerations

• Who elses interests are served, or damaged, by
  the community I choose and the standards and
  methods I choose?
• How does my research serve others, and does it
  challenge disadvantage or perpetuate advantage?

6
Choosing a community

• As researchers, our written (and other)
  representations of our research are addressed to
  an audience colleagues, supervisors, examiners,
  journal editors and readers, the profession
• If the audience (community) is not the
  appropriate one for the work, confusion is the
  best case scenario!

7
Choosing a set of standards

• Several relevant sets of standards
• Quantitative/positivist
• Qualitative
• Guba Lincoln
• Parallel
• Authenticity
• Denzin Lincoln
• Representation
• Legitimation

8

• Eisner
• Connoisseurship
• Criticism (in the arts sense)
• Van Maanen
• Impressionist tales

9
Choosing a set of methods

• Different kinds of data
• surveys
• case studies
• narrative vignettes
• reflective journals
• media (video, audio, drawings)
• interviews
• stimulated recall

10
Multiple methods triangulation?

• Multiple research methodologies and data sources
  may be incommensurable
• How are they combined?
• Metaphors
• triangulation
• crystal
• 3D object (cubism)

11
Iteration and recursion

• Dissertations often suggest a linear process
  question, lit review, methods, data, results,
  conclusion
• Grounded theory and action research are more
  cyclical and iterative
• Qualitative research generally also often has
  this character
• Do we/how do we represent this?

12
Reflexivity

• We are not external observers, objectively
  observing others subjective worlds
• As researchers, we are very much in the worlds
  we are researching, and our participants are
  construing us as people and researchers all
  the time were construing them

13
Weaving multimethod nets

• Freedom is sometimes daunting in a quantitative
  project, there werent too many options in
  relation to methods and standards
• Qualitative research offers an ocean of expanding
  possibilities
• Our choices are informed by the communities we
  want to join, and by our values