The present article is devoted to the issue of the existing educational research methods review, and an attempt to evaluate the efficiency of each method choice. To begin with, I would like to refer to the information from the sources, which comply the review. It is common knowledge, that the contemporary research world is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, complex, and dynamic. Thus many researchers need to complement one method with another, get a solid understanding of multiple methods used by other scholars to promote collaboration, cooperation, facilitate development and communication, and elaborate a superior and the most efficient research. The present article is concerned with the discussion of the following research methods: quantitative and qualitative, which are considered to be the traditional mono method researches, and also mixed methods research, which is positioned as a quite new phenomenon on the epistemological agenda, and which is also considered to be based on the synthesis of the above-mentioned traditional methods. Before making any statements, or proposing a thesis, and speaking for any point of view, I would like to give a brief characteristics to each of the listed methods, enumerate basic principles, and note their pros and cons.
Quantitative research uses data that is numerical and is based on the assumption that the numbers will describe a single reality. Statistics are often applied to find relationships between variables. Quantitative purists, the adherents of the quantitative research methods, base their research on social observations and suppose that such surveys should be treated as entities. According to their believe, the observer must be separated from the entities that are subject to research. The adherents of the method maintain that social science study should be objective: time and context free generalizations are desirable and possible, real causes of social scientific outcomes can be determined reliably and validly (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 14-26 ). According to this method of research the survey results should be delivered in an emotionally neutral manner, and the researcher should be uninvolved with the object of study. The outcomes of the survey should test and justify the stated hypothesis. The writing style is considered to be neutral, unemotional with the wide use of impersonal passive voice and technical terminology, focusing on the social laws under the study.
Strengths of the research method:
- Testing and verifying already constructed theories about how and why a particular phenomenon occurs;
- Testing hypotheses and theories that are formed and proposed before the data are collected. Can generalize the information that comes from the survey when the data are based on random individual samples.
- Can generalize a research outcomes when it has been replicated on many different populations. Allows to make quantitative predictions.
- Enables the researcher to reproduce and form a situation that eliminates the confusing influence of many variables.
- Data gathering with help of some quantitative methods is relatively quick.
- Provides precise numerical data.
- Data analysis consumes less time (with the use of statistical software).
- The research outcomes are less dependent from the researcher.
-It turns to have higher credibility with many people in power (administrators, politicians).
- It is possible to study large numbers of people.
Weaknesses of the method:
- The used researcher's categories may not coincide with local constituencies' understandings.
- The used researchers theories may not coincide with local constituencies' understandings.
- The researcher often focus on the existing theory testing rather than on generalizing a theory.
- The outcomes of a research can be abstract and general for direct application to some specific local cases.
Another traditional research method, which is generally opposed to the quantitative, is called qualitative
EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS ANALYSIS 2
educational research method. Interpretivists, or qualitative purists argue for the superiority of the constructivism, idealism, relativism, humanism, hermeneutics, and postmodernism. These purists suppose that multiple-constructed realities abound, that time and context free generalizations are neither desirable nor possible; that it is impossible to differentiate fully causes and effects, that logic flows from specific to general, and that knower and known can not be separated because the subjective knower is the only source of reality. Qualitative purists also are characterized by a dislike of a detached passive style of writing, preferring, instead,
detailed, rich empathic description. In other words, this method is inversely related to the previously mentioned
(Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 14-26 ).
Strengths of the method:
- The data is based on the participant's private categories of meaning.
- It is applicable for limited cases number deep and detailed study.
- It is applicable for describing a complex phenomenon. - Provides information for an individual situation.
-Provides an analysis based on comparison. - Is based on peoples' personal experiences of a phenomenon. - Offers a detailed phenomenon description in a local context. - Enables the researcher to study dynamic processes.
-The researcher can use a generalized theory to elaborate an explanatory theory about a phenomenon.
- Determines in what way the participants of the survey interpret live research.
- The approaches are applicable to local situations, and conditions
- The research focus can be changed and shifted during the conduct of study.
-An important case can be used to demonstrate the validity of the survey to the readers of the report.
- Determines ideographic causation.
Weaknesses of the method:
- The research outcomes may be unique only to few people involved into the research process.
- It is very difficult to make any quantitative predictions.
- It is even more difficult to verify theories and hypotheses.
- It may have lower credibility with some administrators and commissioners of programs.
- It generally takes more time to gather the needed data than in quantitative research method.
- Data analysis can often be time consuming.
-The results can easily be influenced by the researchers' personal theories and attitude to the phenomenon.
The mixed method research is defined as the third and new wave in the educational research world. It is a kind of compromise between the above listed traditional methods. The key feature of this research method is methodological pluralism, and that means it is aimed at the used of multiple approaches to answer research questions rather than restricting and limiting the study methods choice. It is inclusive, pluralistic and eclectic approach. Its logic of inquiry includes induction, deduction, and abduction.
Strengths of the method:
-Words, images and narrative reports can be used along with numbers to generate the whole picture of the survey.
-Numbers are used to add precisions to words, images, and narrative reports.
EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS ANALYSIS 3
- The method is characterized by qualitative and quantitative research strengths.
- The research can both generate and test a grounded theory.
- Gives answers to the whole range of research questions because the researcher is not confined to a single method or approach,
- The specific mixed research designs have specific strength and weaknesses that should be considered in the study and research process.
- A researcher can use the strengths of an additional method to overcome the weaknesses of another method by using both within the same survey process.
- Provides stronger evidence for making conclusions and evaluating the received data through collaboration of findings.
- Can add the understanding and facts that might be dropped or missed when a single method of research is applied.
- Can be used to generalize the outcomes.
Weaknesses of the method:
- Iy is difficult to use the current method for just a single researcher.
- Researcher has to learn much information before using the mixed method.
- It is more expensive than the others.
- It is more time consuming.
Now, having got a detailed understanding of the issue, one may think about making any decisions. It is high time to pass to the question:
which of the mentioned methods will provide the highest practical efficiency?
In my opinion, today's competitive world demands from the researches creativity and broad, profound knowledge of a particular phenomenon. The mixed methods research doesn't limit a researcher's imagination and provides a creative approach to achieve an indisputable result and elaborate a rational theory. The truth is that following the existing instructions it is impossible "to reinvent the wheel" or "discover a new continent". Why? Let's consider the arguments.
Every survey that is connected to a social phenomenon study should consider the psychological knowledge. It is known, that people are divided into several types according to the way of their world perception. We commonly distinguish visual, auditory and kinesthetic types of information perception (or their mixed variants). And now the question is: is it possible for a kinesthetic learner to percept the data, based on pure numbers? Words, images and narrative reports should be used to add meaning to pure numbers, otherwise it is impossible to create the whole picture for an easy perception and understanding.
According to the writings of the Medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) "there are four kinds of knowledge of which we are necessarily certain: (1) things knowable in an unqualified sense, (2) things knowable through experience, (3) our actions, (4) things known at the present time through the senses". It is obvious, that the rest of perceived information is knowable through the corroboration and convergence. The mixed methods research is based on the confrontation and comparison of the facts. Cognition comes through comparison. Thus, the method provides more credibility.
And finally, one of the most important strengths of the mixed method , that I would like to pay attention to, is that it is possible to decrease "blind spots of the research" by using multiple methods and that helps to compensate the weaknesses of the survey.
EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS ANALYSIS 4
Summarizing all the above listed facts, I would like to stress once again that the mixed methods approach is a "new word" in the contemporary research word. I consider this method being the most efficient,
because it offers an unlimited range of approaches and survey methods, and thus provides a researcher with multiple options and means to achieve a result, elaborate and verify the theoretical base of the study.
Reference list:
1) Johnson, R.B. & Onwuegbuzie, A. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time has come. Educational Researcher, 33(10), 14-26.
2) Hostetler, Karl (2005). What Is "Good" Education Research? Educatioanl Researcher, volume 34(6). Retrieved from:http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3699806?uid=3737976&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102944729853.
