PERSPECTIVES ON ACADEMIC LIFE: AN APOLOGIA FOR MESO-QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The point of this article is to suggest that there are worthwhile but hitherto largely unexploited opportunities for research on higher education in the style which the author defines as meso-qualitative investigation. Some examples of the genre are given as is also a consideration of characteristic methods and techniques as well as of associated difficulties, validity, data analysis, and presentation. A discussion of the rationale behind the development of middle-range grounded theories follows, including a justification for such work in terms of the intrinsic satisfaction which it imparts to the researcher himself, its contribution to the state of knowledge about higher education, and its practical utility. Some suggestions for future research in terms of topics and possible lines of approach are given. Although studies of this sort cannot be replicated in the strictly scientific sense, this apparent limitation is, in humanistic terms, in fact, a strength which indeed becomes even stronger if such studies are given an international scope.