The place of qualitative research in psychology

Abstract

The application of qualitative methods in psychological research is often located within the context of nontraditional philosophical frameworks rather than traditional, realist approaches to science. In so far as traditional philosophical approaches have been understood within psychology as favouring quantitative methods, this strategy has proved useful. However, in so far as those promoting qualitative methods would like to see instruction in their use enter the mainstream methodological curriculum, this strategy may well be self-defeating. A different approach is to explore the question of whether qualitative methods have a place under the traditional philosophical view. In this paper it is argued that they do. Indeed, I argue that the fixation upon quantitative methods that characterizes modern psychology really has no justification given the realist understanding of science. This fixation, it is argued, is a result of historical influences quite different to philosophical realism. Attempts to understand meaning and psychological phenomena related to it from a realist perspective entails that qualitative methods have a secure place within modern psychology understood from a scientific point of view.