Title: The Rationale for Qualitative Research: A Review of Principles and Theoretical Foundations
Abstract: Inquiry in the social sciences is based on theoretical assumptions that are not always clearly articulated in research reports. This article surveys some of the theoretical positions that underlie various qualitative research methods and discusses some of the methodological issues raised by those positions. The four themes that serve as anchor points for the discussion are contextualization, an approach to social-scientific observation that takes into account the environment in which the observational event takes place; understanding, an approach to the problem of knowledge and explanation that addresses the range of what can be learned from observation; pluralism, the proposition that not only social settings but the methods for explaining them resist reduction to a single model; and expression, the problem of conveying the results of research.
Publication Year: 1993
Publication Date: 1993-10-01
Language: en
Type: review
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 70
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