Pring (2000) writes of the suspicion with which educational research can be viewed. He highlights the problem that educational research needs to be
103 understood by the non-research community who are also integral to the processes of developing educational theory and practice (politicians, administrators and teachers (p.4) in order for it to have impact. Ways of facilitating that understanding include explaining actions and predicting future effects and possible changes. There is a tension between investigating the highly complex social situation represented by the term education, and making the outcomes of that same research both understandable and applicable. With reference to this, Pring (2000) considers the opposing theories of truth: how understanding the social world gives the possibility of changing the facts about that same social world:
Realism and accounts of reality and truth are inseparable, and failure to recognise that leads to strange and indefensible practices in the theory and practice of research. (p.74)
He sees the lines of quantitative and qualitative research as being mutually illuminating rather than mutually exclusive as paradigms.
Crotty (1998) also rejects the notion of the researcher beginning research by situating it within a particular paradigm as a starting point. He notes that the researcher should not begin investigating a problem from a particular theoretical or ontological standpoint. Rather, Crotty (1998) suggests that the researcher begins with a real-life issue that needs to be addressed (p.13) and from that issue and its attendant objectives emerge or develop appropriate theoretical frameworks, methodologies and methods in which to situate the research. As Pring (2000), Crotty sees a divide between quantitative and qualitative research occurring at the level of methods, not the epistemological or theoretical level. He denotes (p.5) the choices for the research model at each stage in the construction of the research model from the original problem through epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology and methods. I was mindful of this in designing the study reported here.
Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000) offer a clear cut distinction between the positivist approach, where the positivist research design constructs a research project within a scientific and objective or experimental model, and the
104 interpretive approach which describes and explains human behaviour (p.5). They cite Habermas (1972) and his tripartite model of research which effectively encompasses both positivist and interpretive strands in addressing three cognitive interests:
1. Prediction and control
2. Understanding and interpretation 3. Emancipation and freedom (p.29)
which Habermas summarises as technical, practical and emancipatory and which can be seen as firstly positivist, secondly as interpretivist and finally a combination of the two theoretical stances.
A positivist approach to research is suited to fields where an absolute truth is an ideal: this applies particularly to scientific or, for example, medical models. Exploring issues of quality will inevitably invite positivist responses. However these will be explored in this study within an interpretative framework. The purpose is not to be able to tabulate and enumerate criteria of quality but to gain an overview of key areas to consider. From this will emerge an interpretive based theory to inform and deepen understanding of the purposes of the reading of fiction for young people but also to inform how this understanding can contribute to developing the choices of fiction available to 11 – 16 year olds at curriculum, institution and familial level.
For Carr and Kemmis (1986), the problem with the positivist approach in educational research is the reliance on scientific approaches to investigate and analyse the vagaries of the social phenomenon which is education. The interpretive paradigm means observing and explaining human behaviour in the context of a cultural and historical context. Any analysis of such behaviour will be subjective and bounded by the social and cultural influences on both participant and researcher. Thus any research into human actions and behaviours needs to be interpreted and given meaning rather than reduced to the causal interpretations (p.89) of positivism. Carr and Kemmis (1986), note that clarifying the meanings individuals give to their actions (p.97) enables groups to communicate and thus provide the possibility of change. This seems in line with
105 Pring’s (2000) statement of the importance of understanding the social world in order to bring about change.
3.2.1 Choice of paradigm for this research
In any research it is important to be open to the paradigm most suited not just to the proposed research but also to the participants, the context in which it is set and ultimately to the audience to which it will be disseminated. However this also means ensuring that research is conducted in an ethical manner with due academic freedom and free of influence from any sponsors (Pring, 2000). It also means recognising that there can be a blurring between the paradigms yet remaining cognisant of and open to the complexity of models of research.
Bearing in mind Pring’s (2000) caveat, my research is set within the interpretive paradigm. I propose to examine how my research design aligns with the theoretical frameworks I have chosen, moving from epistemology to theoretical perspectives to methodology and finally expounding the precise details of the research design itself. Whilst Crotty (1998) notes that there can be tendency to consider ontological and epistemological issues together, I propose to consider ontology first where ontological beliefs concern the nature or essence of the social phenomena being investigated (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000, p.5) that is, what exists. It seems axiomatic that epistomology, knowing about what exists, follows on from ontology. Cogito ergo sum Descartes (1644) still epitomises the challenge of absolute knowledge and indeed of proving absolute truths; this is the essence of interpretive research.