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Research is basically the collection of data to be used to tell a meaningful story that answers a question. However, the way the data is collected and the methods used to analyze them can vary substantially (Check & Schutt, 2012). Quantitative and qualitative distinctions in educational research have been used synonymously with a variety of aims, procedures, and outcomes of research methods and dispositions (Freebody, 2003). For example, Freebody (2003) surveyed several methodology texts in education studies and enumerated several terminologies used alongside “qualitative,” presented in contrast to those used with “quantitative,” such as interpretive and experimental; constructivist/interpretive, anti- or non- or post- positivist and positivist; naturalistic, humanistic and empiricist; and subjective and objective.

Often, the methodologies utilized in educational research are grounded in the behavioral and social sciences, particularly in the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Best & Kahn (2006) argue that while the emphasis on logical-positivism, with experimental and quantitative methods being used, directs most researchers in education to adopt the same methodologies, certain issues for investigation may be more appropriately addressed through a phenomenological or qualitative research approach.

Qualitative research responds to concerns through any of the following three approaches: (a) phenomenology, which seeks to grasp the subjective meaning of issues from the participants’ perspectives; (b) ethnomethodology, in which the social practices and the life world of the participants are described; and (c) symbolic interactionism, which focuses on the latent meanings of a situation (Cohen et al., 2000; Flick, 2011). Cohen et al. (2000) further argue that the common feature of these is “the way they fit naturally to the kind of concentrated action found in classrooms and schools” (p. 26) and their ability to preserve the integrity of the situation because of the smaller degree of influence the researcher has on the structure, analysis, and interpretation of the situation.

Adopting a qualitative stance in designing a research project allows the researcher to situate themselves in the field and attempt to make sense of phenomena through meanings people make of them” (Mertens, 2010). Because of its focus on the personal experiences and subsequent perceptions and views of the participants (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009), this study’s objective, to describe beliefs of self-efficacy held by migrant Filipino children, their parents and their teachers, thus warranted an approach that was qualitative in nature. Considering the lack of empirical data on the efficacy beliefs on this specific set of migrant students, this study began by focusing on the self-construct as it was perceived and experienced by the subjects themselves, which could lead to more in-depth explorations in the future. 3.2 Research Paradigm

As is obvious in its very name, self-efficacy is a psychological construct that is personally experienced, reported, and acted on. In this research, the belief that people have of their capabilities and their interpretations of their self-efficacy that would lead to specific action was studied from the perspective of Filipino migrant children in a New Zealand primary school. The parents and teachers of the participating children were added sources of information through their personal views of the construct and its role in children’s education. For this study, the considerations in selecting a research paradigm that would best guide this endeavor were that:

(a) first-hand interpretations of academic self-efficacy provide

“pure” information of the construct;

(b) the context of migration as a phenomenon is directly

experienced by the target participants; and

(c) the Filipino culture’s value on education may have an effect

on the children’s assessment of their academic self-efficacy. In their summary of the three major approaches to the study of behavior, Cohen et al. (2000) differentiated the interpretivist paradigm from the two other approaches (normative and critical). Some of the identifying characteristics of the paradigm include the following: being common to small-scale researches; being non-statistical; interpreting the specific; being subjective; being of practical interest; and involving micro-concepts (e.g., an individual perspective, personal constructs, negotiated meanings, and definitions of situations). This research, then, was conducted within the framework of the interpretivist/constructivist paradigm. As the study seeks to discover how migrant Filipino children, their parents, and their teachers interpret academic self-efficacy, it recognizes that the information being gathered was knowledge inferred from the perspective of the individual/s living the experience. With this study’s aim to present an educationally situated phenomenon as it was being lived and interpreted by the participants themselves, an interpretivist philosophy was a better method of addressing the research questions. An interpretive paradigm is characterized by a concern for the individual and emerged as a response against the positivist view that rules govern human behavior and as such, could be investigated by methods of natural science (Cohen et al., 2000). Also termed as the constructivist, naturalistic or hermeneutic paradigm, this belief system assumes a relativist ontology asserting the existence of multiple, socially constructed realities ungoverned by natural laws (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). This view aims to gain a deeper, within-person understanding of the subjective world of human experience. Researchers operating within the interpretivist paradigm view reality as socially and experientially constructed through the participants’ interpretations of a situation, as captured through their language and point of view (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006a;

Mertens, 2010; Wiersma & Jurs, 2009). Mertens (2010) further proposes that the existence of multiple realities, dependent on time and context, make qualitative methods the preferred process for researchers adopting a constructivist stance. In their analysis of competing paradigms in qualitative research, Guba and Lincoln (1994) elaborate that the aim of inquiry is to understand and reconstruct the assumptions that individuals initially possess that will eventually lead to a consensus while still maintaining openness to new interpretations. This flexibility allows for constant revision of knowledge, which accumulates and develops into more informed and sophisticated truths. Guba and Lincoln (1985) caution that “qualitative methods are stressed within the naturalistic paradigm not because the paradigm is anti-quantitative but because qualitative methods come more easily to the human-as-instrument” (as cited by Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011, p. 117).