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Cited by 738Educational Research and MethodsQualitative Research Methods and ApplicationsBusiness Strategies and Management Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 40 of the 40 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Meaning in Method: The Rhetoric of Quantitative and Qualitative Research

FIRESTONE, WILLIAM A.·1987·Educational Researcher
DOI 10.3102/0013189x016007016
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Abstract

The current debate about quantitative and qualitative methods focuses on whether there is a necessary connection between method-type and research paradigm that makes the different approaches incompatible. This paper argues that part of the connection is rhetorical. Quantitative methods express the assumptions of a positvisit paradigm which holds that behavior can be explained through objective facts. Design and instrumentation persuade by showing how bias and error are eliminated. Qualitative methods express the assumptions of a phenomenological paradigm that there are multiple realities that are socially defined. Rich description persuades by showing that the researcher was immersed in the setting and giving the reader enough detail to “make sense” of the situation. While rhetorically different, the results of the two methodologies can be complementary. Examples are drawn from two studies using different methodologies to study the same problem.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3102/0013189x016007016

Cites

40 of 40 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 13

  1. BoocockSSAn introduction to the sociology of learning1972BostonHoughton-Mifflin
  2. DurkheimEThe rules of sociological method1938New YorkFree Press
  3. 10.3102/0013189X010004005 · DOI · Paper page
  4. FirestoneWARossmanGBExploring organizational approaches to dissemination and trainingKnowledge Creation, Diffusion, Utilization19867330330
  5. FirestoneWAWilsonBManagement and organizational outcomes. The effects of approach and environment in schools1986Philadelphia Research For Better Schools
  6. GoodenoughWCulture, language, and society1971Reading, MAAddison Wesley
  7. 10.3102/0013189X012002014 · DOI · Paper page
  8. 10.3102/00346543057001001 · DOI · Paper page
  9. KuhnTSThe structure of scientific revolutions19702nd ed.ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Press
  10. PareliusAPPareliusRJThe sociology of education1978Englewood Cliffs, NJPrentice-Hall
  11. PolanyiMProschHMeaning1975ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Press
  12. PowdermakerHStranger and friend: The way of the anthropologist1966New YorkW.W. Norton
  13. TaylorSJBogdanRQualitative research methods. The search for meanings19842nd ed.New YorkJohn Wiley

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
FIRESTONE, W. A.
Affiliations
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
Corresponding author
FIRESTONE, WILLIAM A.
ORCID
FIRESTONE, WILLIAM A.
Venue
Educational Researcher
Publisher
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
Published
1987-10
Volume
16
Issue
7
Pages
16-21
ISSN
  • 0013-189X (ISSN-L)
  • 1935-102X
DOI
10.3102/0013189x016007016
OpenAlex
W2004538745
Cited by
738
References
40
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 44 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 28
FWCI
71.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
Educational Researcher (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Educational Research and Methods
  • Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative Research Methods and Applications
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Business Strategies and Management Research
Keywords
quantitative research, qualitative research, research paradigms, positivism, phenomenology, research design, instrumentation, researcher immersion

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

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Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.