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What Good Is Polarizing Research Into Qualitative and Quantitative?

University of British Columbia, Faculty of Education, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6S 1Z4, Canada; kadriye.ercikan{at}ubc.ca. She specializes in research methods, cross-cultural and language issues in assessments, and psychometrics

Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science

University of Victoria, MacLaurin Building A548, Victoria, BC V8W 3N4, Canada; mroth{at}uvic.ca. He specializes in applied cognitive science, learning across the lifespan, cognition in mathematics and science, and cultural–historical theories

In education research, a polar distinction is frequently made to describe and produce different kinds of research: quantitative versus qualitative. In this article, the authors argue against that polarization and the associated polarization of the "subjective" and the "objective," and they question the attribution of generalizability to only one of the poles. The purpose of the article is twofold: (a) to demonstrate that this polarization is not meaningful or productive for education research, and (b) to propose an integrated approach to education research inquiry. The authors sketch how such integration might occur by adopting a continuum instead of a dichotomy of generalizability. They then consider how that continuum might be related to the types of research questions asked, and they argue that the questions asked should determine the modes of inquiry that are used to answer them.

Educational Researcher, Vol. 35, No. 5, 14-23 (2006)
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X035005014


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