Philosophy-Based Research: The Entry of Quantitative and Qualitative Models into Educational Research

This chapter explains the inception, development, and challenges of initiating educational research with models imported from other academic disciplines to scientific research in education. In the 1920s, there was a clear need to define educational research and to establish whether it should be a quantitative or qualitative science. Understanding social dynamics, human behavior, and learning from ethnography in social anthropology, phenomenology in philosophy, and case studies in education positioned qualitative methods as an alternative model of educational research. The qualitative model was based on the following postulates. From approximately 1950 to 1980, educational research relied exclusively on the quantitative research model to produce knowledge and develop the profession. For some researchers, the study of causal relationships constitutes the primary strength of quantitative education research. Quantitative and qualitative research models differ in their philosophical views and their positions on the nature of education and the phenomena generated in schools and educational systems.