Qualitative Research Issues and Methods: an Introduction for Educational Technologists

Abstract

Educational technology research methods are changing as new questions and concerns arise. Assumptions, questions, methods, and paradigms that formerly dominated research in the field are changing. Research questions and methods that might once have been deemed unacceptable are gaining acceptability; studies using a variety of qualitative methods and based on alternate paradigms may now be published. Are these “new methods” really so new? Are they based on the same perceptions of quality as the well-established quantitative methods? Are we losing the big picture in research? Are researchers really calling for the end of quantitative research, the positivistic research paradigm, all that has gone before?