Two Dogmas of Educational Research

Abstract

Educational researchers rightly puzzle about the relative merits of qualitative versus quantitative research methods and about the role that value judgments should play in the conduct of research. Unfortunately, discussions of these issues are often unproductive because they assume (albeit unwittingly) a positivistic epistemological framework. The aim of this paper is to show how rigid epistemological distinctions between quantitative and qualitative methods and between factual and value judgments rest on positivistic dogmas, and how post-positivistic thought eliminates the intractable problem engendered by positivistic epistemology of a forced choice between value-laden/qualitative and value-free/quantitative research methods. The paper also briefly suggests general criteria for evaluating educational research once the positivist-inspired quantitative-qualitative and fact-value dogmas are set aside.