The purpose of the study aims to explore the teachers’ perceptions and experiences in continuing professional development (CPD) in the three primary schools in Hong Kong. The central research question of this study is: What are teachers’ perceptions of CPD activities and their professional
development needs and what factors affect their CPD participation? It is essential to explore the most
suitable research methods for this study. The philosophical stance, as well as the ontological and epistemological perspectives (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), are important to the selection of research methodology. In fact, it is necessarily required to question the guiding principles or research paradigms of a study. As emphasized by Guba and Lincoln (1994:105), ‘questions of method are secondary to
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questions of paradigms.’ These very important issues have to be sorted out and digested before the start of the research. In the literature, it is noted that understanding research paradigms guides us to be reflective in what, how and why we do the research. Thus the following will be a presentation of the research paradigms as followed by a discussion of research approaches and methods for guiding this study.
Two dominant research paradigms, positivist and interpretive paradigms, exist in the field of social sciences (Cohen and Manion, 1994). The philosophical underpinnings, as well as the features, assumptions and criticisms of these two paradigms will be first discussed in this section in order to provide a better understanding about the choice of the research approach and methods in this study as followed by a discussion of the research design.
Ontology and epistemology
Positivist and interpretivist hold different conceptions about social reality. There are two conceptions of social reality: ontology and epistemology. There is a need for clarification of the terms of ‘ontology’ and ‘epistemology’. Ontology concerns about ‘the very nature or essence of the social phenomena being investigated’ (raising a question about the natural world) (Cohen et al., 2000:5). Epistemology concerns about ‘the very bases of knowledge – its nature and forms, how it can be acquired, and how communicated to other human beings’ (an answer about ideas about the natural world) (Cohen et al., 2000:6) and ‘providing philosophical grounding for deciding what kinds of knowledge are possible and how we can ensure that they are both adequate and legitimate’ (Maynard, 1994:10).
Positivist paradigm
Paradigms are models, perspectives or conceptual frameworks for guiding the organization of thoughts, beliefs, views and practices into a logical whole and eventually inform research design (Basit, 2010:14). There are two dominant research paradigms in educational research: the positivist paradigm and the interpretive paradigm.
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The positivist paradigm, also known as normative paradigm, takes a more traditional view of educational research. It is similar to natural sciences, holding the view that truth can only seen to be discovered by observing, experimenting on, or interrogating a large number of subjects, resulting in findings that can be statistically analysed, and are therefore believed to be generalizable’ (Basit, 2010:14). Lincoln and Guba (1985) argue that positivism can be defined as a philosophy characterized by a positive evaluation of science and the scientific method. That means, the method of study is expected to be more scientific and objective to formulate a hypothesis to test its validity in the real world (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Anderson, 2000). The approach is inherently quantitative with the emphasis on the measurement of behaviour, prediction of future measurements and patterns and explanation of a reality predicated. (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Maykut and Morehouse, 1994; Anderson, 2000). However, with the assumption that methods of natural science could be applied to social sciences (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), the positivist paradigm has been criticized for being unable to observe something in human behaviours, for example, intentions and feelings (Anderson, 2000). On this point, Hesse (1980, cited in Lincoln and Guba, 1985) further criticizes positivism according to the three most important assumptions-naïve realism, belief in a universal scientific language, and a correspondence theory of truth. According to these assumptions, there is an external world, which can be described, in scientific language. There is one-to-one relation to facts so that the scientist can capture external facts of the world. However, in social sciences ‘one-to-one’ relationship between variables is not always evident.
In spite of the scientific enterprise’s proven success, especially in the field of natural science, its ontological and epistemological bases have been the focus of sustained and sometimes vehement criticism from some quarters. Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the revolt against positivism occurred on a broad front. Cohen and Manion (1994) argued against the world picture projected by science’s mechanistic and reductionist view of nature which excludes notions of choice, freedom and individuality. Lincoln and Guba (1985), however, state that post-positivism – that is the interpretive paradigm – could be seen as a reaction to the failings of positivism.
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Interpretive paradigm
The interpretive paradigm, which takes qualitative approach, is also known as post-positivist or naturalistic paradigm. This paradigm accepts value and perspective in searching for knowledge. It holds the constructivist view that reality is socially constructed and thus contains multiple connections (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
Until 1960s educational researchers did not even recognize the interpretive paradigm (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994). Some perceive qualitative researchers as journalists or soft scientists and their work is regarded as unscientific, exploratory, or personal and full of bias (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998a). As criticisms grew qualitative researchers stressed the socially constructed nature of reality; the intimate relationship between the researcher and what is studied (Cohen and Manion, 1994). Qualitative researchers expressed the need for searching answers to questions relating to how social experience is created and given meaning in contrast with the quantitative researchers who emphasized the measurement and analysis of causal relationships between variables, not processes (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998b). Harre (1981, cited in Lincoln and Guba, 1985:30) compares positivism with qualitative paradigm, stating that:
‘Where positivism is concerned with surface events or appearances, the [qualitative] paradigm takes a deeper look. Where positivism is atomistic, the new paradigm establishes meaning inferentially. Where positivism sees its central purpose to be prediction, the [qualitative] paradigm is concerned with understanding. Finally, where positivism is deterministic and bent on certainty, the [qualitative] paradigm is probabilistic and speculative.’
Therefore, quantitative and qualitative approaches are often presented as two fundamentally different and competitive paradigms through which particular phenomenon are studied (Lincoln and Guba, 2000) and in which there exists a different interpretation of knowledge. However, setting the two paradigms in an adversarial role is perhaps unhelpful while the paradigm view of the relationship between quantitative and qualitative approaches is empirically inaccurate (Clark and Creswell, 2008; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009). It implies that we are faced with two homogeneous traditions that are internally consistent and based upon opposed philosophical views. In fact, there is a considerable range and variety of techniques for data collection and analysis in psychology and the social sciences and there is
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no fixed relationship between particular philosophical views and the use of particular methods (Clark and Creswell, 2008; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009). Gage (1989) made a wide-ranging critique of the ‘paradigm wars’ between those who extolled the so-called reliability and objectivity of quantitative research and those who saw more validity in the ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) and ‘subjectivity’ of qualitative research (Peshkin, 2000), on the grounds that understanding why people behave as they do in various situations is as important as describing what they do. He maintained that research programmes that grow out one perspective only tend to ‘illuminate some part of the field … while ignoring the rest… and that [t]he danger for any field of social science or educational research lies in its potential corruption (or worse, trivialization) by a single paradigmatic view’ (Shulman, 1986:4). Yet it is remarked that careful choice of the research paradigm should be made on the basis of the research aim (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992, 1998). It is more suitable to choose an approach that is less constrained by limiting theoretical perspectives and more focused on the conceptual, methodological and practical challenges of addressing particularly important research questions (see Bryman, 1988:183). Research approach and methods should be selected on the basis of fitness for purpose. Hence a combination of positivist (quantitative) and interpretivist (qualitative) paradigms can be a good choice in the study. Thus, instead of taking a single paradigm or approach, the combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches is chosen in this study to provide holistic understandings of the research area. Quantitative and qualitative approaches are further discussed in the following sections in order to understand the rationale behind the choice of the combined use of quantitative and qualitative approaches in this study.