https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2282-8071
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I discuss and critically assess how the relationship between philosophy of science and qualitative methods is presented and discussed in research on qualitative research methods education (QRME) and qualitative methods textbooks. I argue that both typically convey the idea that philosophy of science guides or influences the use and choice of qualitative methods but are often unclear about how this influence works. I propose two conceptualizations of the relationship between philosophy of science and qualitative methods: philosophical assumptions can either explicate or explain qualitative methods. I argue that both approaches have pedagogical rewards, but that whereas the explanation approach is explicitly or implicitly used in many examples of research on QRME and textbooks, the explication approach has not had wide application. I conclude by arguing that the lack of clarity and the absence of discussion about explication are potential problems for qualitative research methods education.
1. Introduction
This paper discusses and critically assesses how the relationship between philosophy of science and scientific practice is conceptualized in qualitative research methods education (QRME).
QRME has in the last years drawn the attention of researchers (Lewthwaite & Nind, Citation2016; Wagner et al., Citation2019). This field has focused on several aspects of the practice of methodological teaching and learning. In this context, even if researchers seem to acknowledge that philosophy plays a crucial role in QRME (e.g., Kawulich, Citation2009; Poulin, Citation2007), the pedagogical implications of the relationship between philosophy and methodological practice have not yet been discussed. In the context of QRME, researchers’ beliefs about the philosophy of science are often referred to as “paradigmatic beliefs” (Lincoln & Guba, Citation1985). Apparently, research on QRME and the textbooks that are used in research methods courses express the idea that researchers’ paradigmatic beliefs might explain, or even guide the practice of qualitative methods. Paradigmatic beliefs are the reasons why researchers choose or use certain qualitative methods (paradigms are answers to why-questions). Another way of conceptualizing this relation seems instead to be virtually absent in QRME but is often discussed in philosophy (Audi, Citation2015; Brandom, Citation1998). According to this alternative conceptualization, paradigms explicate, or define, or rationalize qualitative methods. To explicate is to make something explicit (Brandom, Citation1998), that is, to provide a conceptualization or definition that can put into words what is implicit, and, at the same time, providing a story of methods that makes their choice or use rationally justified (answering to what-is-questions).
My subjective experience of having used the tool of explication in the philosophical analysis of qualitative methods (Matta, Citation2015, Citation2019), and at the same time, of teaching qualitative methods, made me wonder why explication has been so neglected. I do not aim to defend explication against explanation but instead to argue that the distinction between explanation and explication is relevant to QRME and worth the attention of researchers and practitioners. I explore the possible pedagogical function of these two meta-philosophies and discuss the advantages that explanation and explication might entail for research methods learners. I am not trying to make people abandon explanation, but rather showing that all those interested in QRME could benefit from discussing the tension between explication and explanation.
I start by providing examples of how the relationship between philosophy of science and methodological practice has been discussed in research on QRME and in a selection of qualitative research methods handbooks. Then, I conceptualize this relationship in two alternative ways (explication and explanation), discussing the pedagogical role of philosophy of science that follows from each of the two conceptualizations. I conclude the paper with two critical remarks that emerge from the two conceptualizations. I argue that the selected textbooks typically fail to provide a clear account of the relation between philosophy of science and research methods and that the absence of discussions about the explicative role of philosophy of science might suggest that qualitative research methods have no rational foundations but those that are negotiated within research practices. This is a legitimate claim, but one that does not represent accurately the ongoing debate in the philosophy of qualitative methods.
2. Qualitative Research Methods Education and the Role of Paradigms
Throughout the text, I will use the term paradigm to intend any loosely consistent set of ontological, epistemological, or methodological assumptions, claims, or beliefs about social research (Kuhn, Citation1962; Lincoln & Guba, Citation1985). This terminology is coherent with the use of the term in QRM textbooks. I represent in a classic example of paradigmatic differences.
Table 1. A classic example of paradigmatic claims (Lincoln et al., Citation2018, p. 111)
The term method is used in this article to refer to concrete procedures of qualitative data collection (such as focus groups, interviews, or qualitative observations) or qualitative data analysis (such as the concrete techniques for the manipulation and interpretation of qualitative data related to broader methodological frameworks such as grounded theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis and more).
As an initial step in my argumentation, I consider how the relationship between philosophy of science and the choice and use of qualitative methods is conceptualized in QRME research and QRM textbooks. Considered as a specific research field, QRME focuses on teaching and learning qualitative research methods, intersecting different themes and perspectives (for two recent overviews, see Wagner et al. (Citation2011, Citation2019)). Among these themes, the role of philosophical theories in QRME has received some attention (Kawulich, Citation2009; Maree, Citation2009; Niglas, Citation2007; Poulin, Citation2007; Sever, Citation2001). For instance, Kawulich (Citation2009) argues that:
One’s philosophical and theoretical perspectives, both tacit and overt, drive one’s approach to research […]. It is important for students to learn that this applies to any published research literature; they must also be aware of the theoretical frame they bring to their own research. (Citation2009, p. 39).
Similar recommendations are found in Wagner et al.’s systematic review, which identified several studies that recommended that “students should be exposed to philosophy of science and epistemological debates related to qualitative research” (Citation2019, p. 12), and that “paradigms linked to qualitative research be introduced in the first year and sustained throughout a curriculum” (Citation2019, p. 12). Poulin (Citation2007) describes the objectives of an ideal “rigorous introductory course” in qualitative methods (Citation2007, p. 436). One of these objectives is “a basic understanding of the philosophical assumptions that form the foundation of interpretive inquiry offers the interpretive researcher a conceptual basis for selecting research methods, thus promoting methodologically sound research design.” (Citation2007, p. 437)
Maree (Citation2009) takes a different stance. He argues that the philosophical theory of critical realism provides a correct rationalization of scientific practice and that this motivates teachers of research methods in using it as a framework for the definition and explication of research methods. He does not argue that critical realism guides research, but that, as critical realism provides an appropriate picture of science, it should be used as a basis for teaching methods. Finally, Niglas (Citation2007) argues that philosophical issues should not be considered as directly related to methodological choices, as the same method can rest on apparently contrasting philosophical assumptions. Niglas argues that the connection between philosophy and methods should be conceptualized in more flexible terms in research methods courses.
Put together, these contributions show that the issue of the role of philosophy in QRME is typically discussed in normative terms and that there seems to be a lack of descriptive results. Philosophical issues seem any way to be relevant to QRME.
This picture is consistent with what can be observed looking at qualitative methods textbooks, which seem to ascribe philosophical paradigms a primary role in understanding and choosing methods.
Below I have considered a convenience sample of 23 qualitative methods textbooks. I used the Swedish national union library catalog LIBRIS (libris.kb.se), which contains approximately 7 million titles. The catalog searches involved the following terms: “Research Methods”, “Qualitative Research”, “Qualitative Methods” and “Qualitative Data”, and the years 2005 to 2018. The number of books resulting from the LIBRIS queries published between 2005 and 2018, totaled 713 books. The search was restricted to English-language books, for simplicity. From these first 713 books, I selected a sample of 23 textbooks, focusing on textbooks that are commonly employed. I used the following selection criteria: highly citedFootnote1 textbooks, textbooks of which several editions exist, and textbooks that are used in methodology courses in a selection of universities in the Nordic countries.Footnote2 I have searched in each of these textbooks for expressions about the relationship between philosophical theories and methods and reported the most relevant citation for each textbook in . The citations in the table are intended to illustrate the general explicit perspective of the textbook concerning the relationship between philosophy and methods. This means that, for each citation, no other claim was found in the same textbook that directly contradicted it. The sample is not statistically representative and is only intended to provide a picture of how the relationship between philosophy and qualitative methods is expressed in these particular textbooks, whenever the relationship is expressed explicitly. The fact that the sample consists of reasonably popular textbooks can give a possible indication of a trend in QRME, but it is important to remember that other textbooks might either provide a very different conception of the relationship between philosophy and qualitative methods or simply not discuss the issue at all. Also, some textbooks might implicitly contradict the citations, when considering the whole book.
Table 2. A sample of citations about the relationship between philosophy and methods from qualitative research methods textbooks.
In the following lines, I comment on the citations in . First of all, many of the citations, e.g., Bryman (Citation2016, p. 30), Creswell and Poth (Citation2017, p. 15), Lyons and Coyle (Citation2016, p. 4, 12–14), Lapan et al. (Citation2012, p. 69), Bazeley (Citation2013, p. 1), seem to express a descriptive claim that paradigmatic beliefs guide the use and choice of qualitative methods. According to these authors, the researchers “choose” methods that “accord” to, or “depend” on, or are influenced by philosophical beliefs. Ellingson (Citation2009, p. 8) makes a similar but rather prescriptive claim, apparently arguing that some paradigmatic commitments are not consistent with a certain methodological approach in qualitative research, what the author calls “crystallization”. All these citations express some idea of guidance or influence and have been grouped using the code G in . In a couple of cases, the relationship between paradigms and methods is expressed in terms of assumptions upon which method choices rest, such as in Lyons and Coyle (Citation2016) and Brinkmann (Citation2017, p. 60).
In the example by Lyons and Coyle, the authors talk about methods assumptions or presuppositions that guide researchers’ methodological choices. Brinkmann’s quote seems to suggest that certain research practices, that is, certain uses of qualitative methods have emerged from some shared philosophical assumptions (that might have been either implicit or explicit). Crucially, Brinkmann does not seem to claim that these philosophical assumptions guide qualitative practice, but rather that they are a lens through which we can understand how methods are used. Brinkmann’s textbook is similar to the normative approach Maree (Citation2009) argues for. Both Brinkmann and Maree seem to use philosophical theories to understand methods, even if these theories do not guide researchers’ choices. Therefore, I have put this textbook in an own group, using code E.
Miles et al. (Citation2014, p. 341), Patton (Citation2015, pp. 89–90), and Roller and Lavrakas (Citation2015, p. 20) put forward similar claims, arguing – consistently with Niglas (Citation2007) – that paradigmatic beliefs should have limited or no importance for the choice or use of qualitative methods. These textbooks are grouped using the code N. Finally, Packer (Citation2010, p. 40) and Alvesson and Sköldberg (Citation2018, p. 9), argue for a relationship between philosophical theory and qualitative methods that is neither guiding nor explicating. According to these authors, qualitative methods are philosophical in nature, and the analysis of social phenomena is essentially a philosophical interpretation (Packer uses the concept of “historical ontology” to describe the rationale of qualitative analysis). This position transcends the tension I consider and deserves a particular discussion that unfortunately cannot find a place in this paper. Therefore, I have coded these textbooks with an X.
Only one of the G-textbooks provides a detailed account of how paradigmatic beliefs are capable of informing or guiding method choices, that is, what kind of inference is made from paradigms to methods, that is, Denzin and Lincoln’s edited handbook (Citation2018, ch.5). As for the other G-textbooks, the relationship is unspecified or associative, in a way similar to that of , and often restricted to very short discussions which are easily summarized using the citations in .
In sum, three themes seem to emerge from the research on QRME and the sample of textbooks. Either a) paradigmatic beliefs guide qualitative methods, or b) beliefs work as assumptions that rationalize or provide understanding about methods, or c) issues concerning method choices should be kept independent from paradigmatic beliefs. The details of the relationship between paradigm and methods are mostly unspecified, both in textbooks and in the research articles. In the next section, I attempt such clarification.
3. Two Possible Relationships between Paradigms and Methods, and their Pedagogical Function
In this section, I present two conceptualizations of the possible relationship between paradigms and methods. Let us assume a paradigm and a method (defined as above); then, the relationship between these two can be understood in two ways described in the following subsections:
Paradigms explicate method choices
Paradigms explain method choices
These terms are conceptualized as contrasting in the philosophical literature (Audi, Citation2015; Brandom, Citation1998). In my discussion, I will adhere to Audi and Brandom’s concept of explication, but the tension I discuss is different. In the philosophical literature, explanation and explication are two forms of philosophical methodology. For instance, according to Audi, explanation is a way of reducing a concept to more basic ones, whereas explicating is a way of defining or making explicit something that is implicit. In this paper, I use the term explanation in the empirical sense. Meaning that if p explains q, then p causes or is a reason for q.Footnote3 Therefore, the tension that I propose is not between two methods of philosophical analysis that are used in qualitative methods textbooks. Instead, I propose that the tension that is concretized in the textbooks is between an empirical vs. a philosophical role of philosophical theories for methods. If philosophical theories explain methods, then the focus is on how researchers’ philosophical commitments motivate method choices. If philosophical theories explicate methods, then they do it as philosophical theories, that is, by clarifying, conceptualizing, and making explicit what methods are and should be.
I should clarify also that what follows is itself an explication, as I try to define the concepts of explication and explanation.
3.1. Explication
Philosophers of science try often to reconstruct the conceptual foundations of scientific methods. This operation is described using different terms such as rationalization, conceptualization, reconstruction, and interpretation. The term explication is used here to group all these terms under one common umbrella term. Thus, to explicate a method or a method procedure means to provide a narrative that rationally justifies the method by showing that it rests on sound conceptual foundations. This narrative consists of claims (ontological, epistemological, or methodological claims) and argumentations in favor of these claims. The conceptual nature of reconstructions entails that explication focuses on what competent researchers should do or by necessity must do when applying methods, rather than what researchers usually do. In the following lines, I describe a case of philosophical interpretation related to qualitative methods.
One of the recurring methodological claims discussed concerning qualitative methods is the idea that understanding is a distinct methodological operation – that is, a methodological norm for the manipulation of data – and qualitative methods are supposed to exemplify this methodological norm (Martin, Citation2000). A long discussion in the English-speaking philosophy of social science has concerned the correctness of this claim of distinctness (Rosenberg, Citation2012). According to the naturalists,Footnote4 there is no real distinction between understanding and, for instance, explanation of natural phenomena, whereas the anti-naturalists argue that there are exceptional or distinct methodological rules that social scientists must (at least in certain cases) use and that understanding is one of these rules (Feest, Citation2010; Roth, Citation2003).
The tension between naturalist and anti-naturalist interpretations of methods has concerned qualitative methods. For instance, Zahle (Citation2016) discusses whether the application of the method of understanding in ethnographic participant observation is indispensably distinct from the methodological rules of the natural sciences. Understanding is conceptualized here as the method of re-enactive empathy (Stueber, Citation2012). Whenever ethnographers try to understand people’s actions, they simulate in their minds what it would feel like to be in those people’s situations. Re-enactive empathy is the explication here, as it is a way of making explicit or providing a concept of what ethnographers do. It is not a description of ethnographers’ concrete actions, but a theoretical conceptualization of – a way to provide a language for – their method. This capacity of simulating other people’s feelings is then used to make sense of their possible beliefs and desires. Zahle argues that this methodological rule can be thought of as being central to participant observation, as the ethnographers observe people’s behavior and try to reconstruct these people’s motives and ideas, i.e., their reasons. Moreover, according to the anti-naturalist, re-enactive empathy is distinct from the methodology of the natural sciences, because explanations of natural events neither require nor allow that explainers simulate what it is to be an instance of that natural phenomenon. Zahle criticizes this anti-naturalist claim and argues that participant observation is best interpreted as supporting naturalism. She argues that, if the anti-naturalist is right, then the ethnographer using participant observation must necessarily employ re-enactive empathy to understand the observed people’s behavior. This does not seem to be correct. In fact, in cases in which the ethnographer is familiar with relevant conventions, she will be able to form an interpretation based on these conventions, without the need for reenactment. Basing an interpretation on a conventional generalization does not violate the methodology used in the natural sciences, in which theories are used to explain singular observations. In cases in which the ethnographer is not familiar with the relevant convention, re-enactive empathy will not be possible anyway, as it requires some conception of how people usually act in certain situations. The ethnographer will typically try to acquire further experience to develop familiarity with the relevant convention, making re-enactive empathy redundant. Finally, in cases in which the observed individuals act unconventionally, re-enactive empathy will not be of any help, as the simulation will be blocked by the unconventional behavior. Even in this case, the ethnographer will typically try to acquire further observations, such as observing how individuals that are competent in the local conventions react to the unconventional behavior to reconstruct what the behavior is aimed at. This will also make re-enactive empathy redundant.
Zahle concludes that re-enactive empathy is not necessary for participant observation, and that participant observation it is not distinct. Participant observation, according to Zahle, is best interpreted as a special case of explanation and rests on the same methodological rules of the methods of the natural sciences. Therefore, this example shows how an example of a qualitative method is explicated in terms of a methodological claim (participant observation is not re-enactive empathy).
Apart from the example above, the explication of qualitative methods in philosophy of science is restricted to a few examples (Kaidesoja, Citation2019; Matta, Citation2015, Citation2019; Ruzzene, Citation2012; Ylikoski, Citation2019).
Crucially, the same method procedure can be explicated in different and sometimes concurring ways. Moreover, explication is independent of what researchers believe, either implicitly or explicitly. This means that most or all researchers might choose a method on the grounds of some implicit or explicit commitment, but that a reconstruction of that method could reveal that the method must rest on other (and possibly contradicting) philosophical assumptions. This is the case of the example of participant observation I discussed in this section: whereas Zahle argues that it should be interpreted naturalistically, this method is typically associated with either interpretivist or constructivist claims in qualitative methods textbooks.
3.2. Explanation
Paradigmatic assumptions may explain method choices. Researchers believe implicitly or explicitly in a set of philosophical claims, and these beliefs might explain the choice of method. In short, researchers choose methods because of their philosophical commitments. All these are descriptive and contingent claims that get support from evidence about researchers’ preferences and choices rather than from conceptual arguments. Preferences and motives are historically and culturally located factors. For this reason, explaining method choices on the grounds of researchers’ philosophical beliefs requires collecting evidence about the social context in which the scientific practice takes place.
Although this approach can conceptually be construed both in terms of individual beliefs (which explain individual method choices) and shared beliefs (which explain method choices within research communities), only the latter construal has received large attention in the literature on qualitative methods. Shared commitments can constitute a context or a possibility space for method choices. The fact that enough researchers share certain ideas about ontology or epistemology, restricts or broadens the possible choices that are considered as available, for instance by providing a vocabulary of possible choices. Therefore, a community of researchers sharing positivistic commitments about causality, interventions, and effects provides the researchers with a language that contributes to forming certain preferences towards statistical methods.
Alternatively, shared commitments might influence method choices and uses, in force of a system of expectation beliefs accepted by the members of a method practice. Participants to a specific practice might in this case choose not to use a specific method because of their belief that choosing that method might lead to unwanted consequences. The vocabulary and the expectation hypotheses are two examples of how the mechanism of influence and guidance could be explained. As I mentioned, textbooks that suggest that paradigms influence method choice typically fail to clearly state which of these (or other) mechanisms characterize that influence.
If we consider qualitative methods, then the most discussed sources of this approach are two. One is the work of Tomas Kuhn (Citation1962), whose work, although mainly focused on natural science, has been used as a framework for qualitative research (Donmoyer, Citation2006; Packer, Citation2010). The other source is the framework developed in the ’80s by Lincoln and Guba (Citation1985) and developed by Lincoln, Denzin, and colleagues in the subsequent years (Denzin, Citation2009; Denzin & Lincoln, Citation2018; Guba & Lincoln, Citation1988, Citation1994; Lincoln et al., Citation2018). This latter framework is especially popular in qualitative research methods textbooks and frequently cited as the source for the discussion of philosophical assumptions underlying methods.
Both approaches are based on the concept of paradigm, and both approaches rest on the same basic idea, nicely summarized by Kuhn in the following way:
[I]t should be clear that the explanation [of scientific process] must, in the final analysis, be psychological or sociological. It must, that is, be a description of a value system, an ideology, together with an analysis of the institutions through which that system is transmitted and enforced. Knowing what scientists value, we may hope to understand what problems they will undertake and what choices they will make in particular circumstances of conflict (Kuhn, Citation1962, pp. 20–21).
According to Guba and Lincoln, paradigms consist of “basic beliefs” (Guba & Lincoln, Citation1994, p. 107). Researchers hold beliefs about what exists and how knowledge is possible, and these beliefs determine how researchers choose to conduct inquiry. These beliefs are, according to Guba and Lincoln “accepted simply on faith […]; there is no way to establish their ultimate truthfulness” (Guba & Lincoln, Citation1994, p. 107). This seems to suggest that researchers cannot update, adjust, or reject any of these principles on empirical or conceptual grounds. In their 1985 work, they further qualify the status of paradigmatic assumptions as “accepted by convention” (Lincoln & Guba, Citation1985, p. 33).
According to Guba and Lincoln’s theory, the connection between paradigms and methods should be interpreted as socially constructed within scientific practice. The participants in the practice negotiate about certain beliefs, and when consensus is established or when a dominant position emerges, then a connection between philosophical assumptions and methods is socially constructed as logical, natural, or necessary. Being part of the practice means accepting the right kind of beliefs and making inferences from beliefs to methods that are permissible within the practice. Being a positivist means, according to this claim, being a part of the social practice of positivism. Within this practice, the choice of statistical method is permissible, and, maybe, the choice of critical discourse analysis is not permissible. The social practice of Positivism entails that the participants in the practice have expectations about the other participants such as “others will probably choose this method” or “if I don't conform, I expect others to react with suspicion or even with ostracism”. These expectations explain why researchers with positivist beliefs might typically favor statistical methods, but at the same time, they do not exclude that some positivists might choose some other method. Hence, Guba and Lincoln seem to subscribe to an expectation-based mechanism of influence.
Although Guba and Lincoln’s claim about the relationship between paradigms and methods seems to be empirical, they do not provide evidence for these. To my knowledge, the only empirical investigation of qualitative researchers’ philosophical commitments and their role in method choice in the literature is Bryman’s (Citation2006) study of paradigmatic commitments among mixed-methods researchers. According to Bryman, the discussion of the philosophical foundations of social research methods has lost its popularity among social researchers. To substantiate this claim, Bryman collects evidence from a purposive sample of 20 social researchers. In addition, Bryman analyzes the content of 232 research articles published between 1994 and 2003 in which mixed methods were used. The results indicate that the articles do not discuss philosophical assumptions and that such assumptions are claimed to be of secondary importance in the interviews. Bryman interprets the result as supporting the claim that philosophical assumptions are not the main reason for choosing methods. Instead, Bryman argues that the main reason for choosing methods is their instrumental capability of solving a problem and answering a research question.
4. The Pedagogical Role of Explication and Explanation in Qrme
Although explication seems to have an intuitive value for understanding methods, this approach is virtually absent in qualitative methods textbooks. None of the examples I provided in section 2 reflect explicitly the idea that philosophical theories can be used to explicate, understand and conceptualize methods practices. Maree’s article (Citation2009) and Brinkmann’s textbook (Citation2017) can be interpreted as implicitly providing a similar claim, but the meta-philosophical concept is not expressed clearly.
This is especially odd considering that explication seems to have an intuitive pedagogical value related to critical thinking (Bailin, Citation2002; Siegel, Citation2013). If we accept that one of the main instrumental goals of research methods education is to foster critical thinking, then one way of cultivating such an attitude is to subject the methods’ basic assumptions to rational scrutiny. By unpacking the assumptions that underlie a certain method and identifying the arguments in support of these assumptions, explication enables such scrutiny. Therefore, explication can channel a critical attitude towards method use and choice. Considering the example of participant observation, Zahle’s argument shows that the method of participant observation can withstand critical scrutiny, which supports the idea that the method rests on solid conceptual grounds.
In contrast, all G-coded textbooks and several examples of research on QRME discussed in section 2 (Kawulich, Citation2009; Poulin, Citation2007; Wagner et al., Citation2019) can be interpreted as at least consistent with the explanation approach. If these textbooks indeed intend to make claims similar to Guba and Lincoln’s, then these claims have a justifiable pedagogical function. In fact, in the same way as explication, explanation entails also rewards relative to critical thinking. The virtues of the constructivist attitude towards qualitative methods can be spelled out with the help of Hacking’s discussion about the critical nature of constructivism (Citation1999). As Hacking puts it, “Social construction work is critical of the status quo” (Citation1999, p. 8). Constructionist analyses typically entail that “[the object of analysis] need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is”, or that “[the object of analysis] is not determined by the nature of things; it is not inevitable” (Citation1999, p. 8). By highlighting the socially constructed dimension of methodological norms, QRME might help research methods learners developing a healthy form of skepticism regarding all methodological conventions. As products of practices, method procedures are not universal truths of nature. Instead, they are contextual and contingent. The examination of how shared commitments constrain or influence method choices is a way of becoming aware of the contextual and contingent nature of the rules and norms regulating research methods. Such awareness might reveal the possible problematic or unfair sides of methodological rules. In other words, Guba and Lincoln’s approach commends us to consider the politics of method choices.
Therefore, explanation and explication entail two forms of critical attitudes towards research methods and method choices. Explication recommends subjecting the method’s assumptions to scrutiny. This scrutiny should rest on the rules of logic and rational argumentation. If a method cannot stand this scrutiny, we should be skeptical about it. Explanation, on the other hand, requires researchers to see methods as results of contextual and contingent practices, to avoid accepting the prescriptions of methodological practices dogmatically. This analysis requires revealing how choices are constrained and influenced by shared commitments.
These two forms of critical attitude can coexist or exclude one another depending on the strength of the explanation claim. In fact, the explanation approach can be further qualified as a critique of explication. The explication approach was up to the ’50s some kind of standard view about the relationship between philosophy and science. After that, this view started to receive criticism as providing an excessively normative narrative of scientific progress. In the context of this criticism, several approaches arose that attempted to explain science as a human practice. This is the case of the Strong Program in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Bloor, Citation1976). According to the Strong Program, there is no logical relation between paradigmatic assumptions and methods other than that which is socially constructed within research practices. Therefore, the Strong Program took a strong form of the explanation approach as a basis for rejecting the project of explication. Questions of ontology, epistemology, and methodology cannot help us in finding the ultimate rational foundation upon which science rests. Only the contextual meanings that researchers construct and attribute to scientific practices can provide a satisfying account.
The strength of the explanation approach determines a difference concerning how the pedagogical value of philosophy of science in QRME is conceptualized. If it is assumed that the examination of the shared commitments underlying methods exhausts method choices, then, the critical scrutiny of research methods by means of rational reconstruction and explication has no pedagogical value. As Guba (Citation1990) puts it, “If inquiry is not value-free, is not all inquiry ideological?” (Citation1990, p. 11). This quote suggests that Guba, Lincoln, and colleagues endorsed a strong interpretation of explanation. This could explain the unpopularity of the explication approach in qualitative methods textbooks.
5. A Concluding Critical Remark about Qrme
In the above sections, I have attempted to conceptualize how philosophical claims can be related to qualitative methods and their use. I have also argued that the two conceptualizations entail different pedagogical rewards, and therefore could be useful tools for QRME.
Before concluding, two possible problems affecting QRME become visible from the vantage point of this paper. The first problem concerns the lack of clarity about the relationship between philosophy and methods in most of the examples in the G and E-coded textbooks. Looking back at the examples in section 2 from the perspective of explication and explanation, the formulations contained in many G-textbooks appear unclear and possibly confusing. Consider Bazeley’s claim that ontological beliefs “influence our choices of topic, method, and conclusion” (Bazeley, Citation2013, p. 1). Without a detailed account of how this influence might work, and the condition on which this may fail, it is difficult for learners to make use of this knowledge. Moreover, the descriptive tone of many textbooks is a further source of possible confusion. For instance, the claim that “data collection varies depending on which scientific paradigm the researchers prefers” (Lapan et al., Citation2012, p. 69) might only provide a description or could suggest that students should also choose data collection methods on the ground of their paradigmatic beliefs.
The main problem here is that these qualitative methods textbooks fail to clarify their meta-philosophy. Packer (Citation2010), Alvesson and Sköldberg (Citation2018), Denzin and Lincoln (Citation2018) are fortunate exceptions, and this problem does not affect the textbooks in the N-group. However, most textbooks in the G-group did not contain any discussion of paradigms other than the claims presented in . Yet, it is plausible that the use of paradigms in textbooks would fulfill its pedagogical function for QRME more effectively if textbooks would discuss their meta-philosophical approach in detail and the pedagogical rewards that are expected from it. For instance, if a textbook suggests that paradigmatic commitments influence method choices and uses, it can be instructive for learners to discuss which mechanism explains this influence. If it is suggested that the mechanism is expectation-based, then it can be instructive for learners to discuss these expectations, the various payoffs that are attached to deviation or conformity, and how methodological norms may change. More importantly, learners must be aware that methodological norms are at least in part socially negotiated, and of the importance of a critical attitude towards such methodological norms. These issues are just as important as the specification of which assumptions characterize the different paradigms. It is easy to see that many of the G-coded citations in seem simply to acknowledge that paradigms guide method choices (which is only consistent with the explanation approach). Consider for instance Schutt (Citation2018, p. 37). However, to have a pedagogical role, the concept of guidance must be framed in critical terms and discuss the risk of simply accepting the negotiated standards within methodological practices. Simply acknowledging that paradigms guide methods seems to go against Guba and Lincoln’s original constructivist and critical approach.
The second and related problem is the apparent absence of the explication approach in textbooks in the sample. Brinkmann (Citation2017) provides an example in which explication is implicitly assumed, and Maree (Citation2009) argues in favor of Critical Realism as an explicative framework in QRME. However, even in these two cases, the pedagogical value of explication and its relation to critical thinking are not made explicit. The problem with this absence is not only the fact that textbooks seem to provide only a particular perspective on the relation between philosophy and research methods but also that if a textbook only presents the explanation approach, students might interpret this as according to the strong interpretation of this approach. If paradigms are only presented as explanatory factors for method choices, then students might believe that there is nothing more to know about the foundation of qualitative methods other than what is negotiated within research practice. Although this is a legitimate claim, it does not make justice to the ongoing debate in philosophy of science, in which explication is considered as just as crucial. QRME could benefit from providing a more balanced picture of the relation between philosophy of science and research methods, which could be achieved by presenting students with both the explication and explanation approach and by discussing the tension between them and the importance of both approaches to critical thinking. The scope and generality of these two problems are of course very much dependent on how representative the selected sample of textbooks is. I have tried to provide a picture of the state-of-the-art of current qualitative methods textbooks, but the sample is limited in size and non-random. Therefore, rather than a discussion of two confirmed generalized problems of QRME, this last section should be interpreted as a warning for two possible pitfalls and a call to researchers and practitioners of QRME for discussing the tension between explication and explanation and its reward for learners’ critical thinking. We should always ask ourselves, why do we teach philosophy to students learning qualitative research methods?
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The number of citations was retrieved using Google Scholar.
2 Stockholm University, Uppsala University, University of Oslo, The Artic University of Norway, Copenhagen University, University of Aalborg and University of Aarhus.
3 The formulation “causes or is a reason for” is included in case reasons explain and are not causes and to cover all kinds of explanations including natural, historical, hermeneutical, psychological and social. If reasons are causes, or, if reasons cannot explain, then to explain something is only to present its causes.
4 The term naturalism here can cause confusion. Naturalism, as it is used in the context of the philosophy of social sciences, it is not the same term as the approach to qualitative research originally developed by Lincoln and Guba (Citation1985). The former is a thesis of ontological or methodological continuity between the natural and social sciences that in the context of qualitative research would easily be associated with post-positivism. The latter is a constructivist approach to qualitative methods.
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