Qualitative Approaches to Evaluating Education

Abstract

Qualitative research approaches are part of the intellectual landscape in educational evaluation. The use of qualitative approaches in evaluation has been fruitful. Classic qualitative approaches, representing accepted innovations, include ethnography, naturalistic inquiry, generic pragmatic (sociological) qualitative inquiry, and connoisseurship/criticism. Metaphors and phenomenography represent novel approaches with roots in the classics. Efforts to establish standards commensurate with the mainstream of scientific inquiry serve to further institutionalize qualitative approaches, anchoring them in the fertile soil of educational evaluation.