Caveats concerning possible pitfalls

In my position paper, I made several specific suggestions about how researchers should change the ways they use quantitative methods. For example, I argued for using relational codes instead of always coding discrete behaviors. It should now be clear that my comments along those lines were misleading if they suggested that I believe certain quantitative methods (e.g., discrete behavior codes) are always problematic—or, if they suggested that I wanted to rule out quite generally what others might call ‘‘strong’’ quantitative methods. According to my approach, ‘‘good’’ quantitative research includes many examples of what others consider ‘‘strong’’ methods in addition to many examples of ‘‘soft’’ methods.

Notwithstanding possible confusion, at this juncture, I also want to state that this does not amount to wholesale approval of all quantitative research. I agree with Stam that there are real dangers in what he calls ‘‘Pythagoreanism.’’ Quantitative methods frequently are employed in a problematic manner. In my opinion, this occurs when they are used in such a way that they cannot serve their interpretive function. For example, measures of decibel levels are likely to fail at assessing angry behavior if the vocalizations in question do not occur in a structured situation in which loudness serves as a concrete example of such behavior (this is circular, and that is the point). In general, quantitative methods are unhelpful in a particular case insofar as they are actually used in a way that conforms to traditional positivist conceptualizations about ‘‘real’’ measures and the like. Hence, I hope that my position paper and this rejoinder serve to mark out a view about how to employ quantitative methods and how not to employ them, rather than a position about which quantitative methods we should use.

Some brief comments are in order about techniques for statistical analysis. In large measure, I agree with the cautionary remarks Stiles offered in his commentary about ‘‘high end statistics.’’ How researchers use these techniques very often reflects what I view as a misguided understanding of quantitative research. As Stiles noted, these sophisticated techniques are often applied to decontextualized variables. One of the examples I mentioned in my position paper is relevant here. I argued that investigators studying parent–child interaction from a social learning theory vantage point attempt to explain interactions by breaking them down into isolable, elemental behaviors (e.g., prosocial child behavior, parental praise) instead of taking as their starting point what parent and child are doing together. These researchers then try to put together an account of the exchanges by statistically examining sequential dependencies between these putative building block behaviors. In my opinion, there is a great deal that cannot be recovered about the interactions when we proceed in this way, no matter how sophisticated we may get at looking at dependencies across multiple lags. At the same time, I also agree with Stiles when he urges us not to throw out inferential statistics because of its historical association with misguided notions about methodology. Notwithstanding Stam’s interesting points about longstanding problems that remain unresolved in the logic of hypothesis testing, I think these techniques can be useful. But I do wonder whether something could be gained by reexamining the assumptions of the statistical procedures we employ and considering whether some other analytic techniques are called for in light of the approach to quantitative research I have offered.

I would like to underscore one point from my position paper that is highly relevant when it comes to pitfalls associated with quantitative research. I believe that theory plays an extremely important role in whether quantitative researchers proceed in ways that are truly useful. In particular, I believe that researchers are likely to conduct ‘‘good’’ quantitative studies if they are guided by theories that are based on the idea that people are always already involved in practical activities in the world. In my position paper, I briefly discussed my participatory approach, which is an attempt to mark out a general framework for theories of this sort (also see Westerman & Steen, in press). I also gave the example of scaffolding research and pointed out that investigators in that area—in contrast to social learning theory researchers—often use relational codes rather than discrete behavior coding. In this rejoinder, I noted that when Wood did code discrete behaviors in his investigations of scaffolding (e.g., Wood & Middleton, 1975), he did so in a way (his specificity scale) that still made it possible to examine what parent and child were doing (i.e., the parent was attempting to teach the child how to build the puzzle) instead of breaking down what they were doing into isolable behaviors (e.g., prosocial behaviors, praise). He even examined sequential dependencies in a simple statistical way to study maternal homing in and out (also see Westerman, 1990), which suggests that statistical analyses, too, are likely to be useful so long as a study is based on helpful theory.

Concluding remarks

I have attempted to offer a reconceptualization of quantitative procedures that is much more focused on how we should employ these procedures than on endorsing some of these methods over others. This reconceptualization also puts the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research in a new light. There are differences between the two kinds of research—for example, quantitative research directs more attention to concretely specifying phenomena—but the contrast is less fundamental than most researchers think. From my vantage point, both types of research are aimed at learning about concretely meaningful practices and both are pursued by investigators who are themselves participants in the world of practices.

In their commentary, Dawson et al. suggested that my view is a transitional one because, while it attempts to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods, it comes down on the side of interpretation, privileges qualitative research over quantitative, and excludes positivist approaches. They claimed that their problem-focused methodological pluralism represents a fully integrative model because it includes both positivist and what they call post-positivist approaches. In my opinion, it is the other way around. I believe that in order to integrate the two types of research we need to incorporate all useful examples of both types of work in a new overarching framework that differs from the notions that typically have served to guide each kind of inquiry in the past. As I see it, Dawson et al.’s position is a transitional attempt at integration because it does not go beyond calling for blending the two approaches and their guiding viewpoints. Remarks Yanchar offered in his position paper about mixed-model approaches very effectively present the problems with this strategy for integration (also see Yanchar & Williams, in press). By contrast, I believe that my approach offers the requisite appropriately inclusive overarching framework, which itself is derived from a hermeneutic perspective based on practices. In particular, in this rejoinder, I have tried to show that my approach does not exclude what others would call ‘‘strong’’ quantitative procedures. In addition, my approach does not subordinate this type of quantitative research to ‘‘soft’’ quantitative research, nor does it lead to subordinating quantitative research to qualitative. I believe that all of these research endeavors represent ways of understanding concretely meaningful phenomena while they differ in the degree to which they focus on concretely specifying those phenomena versus characterizing them in meaning-laden terms. All, however, are interpretive.

I will conclude with some comments on a related issue: what can we say about when to use quantitative and/or qualitative approaches? All three commentaries include the idea that choice of methods should depend on the research problem at hand. I agree with this viewpoint. In fact, I believe it is another example of the limits of inquiry, a notion that is central to my perspective. General considerations can only provide what might be called an ‘‘outer envelope’’ for thinking about how to proceed in any given research situation. This outer envelope tells us that we need to find some interpretive method for investigating the phenomenon of interest, that the phenomenon is concretely meaningful in nature, and that the challenge is to find a method or set of methods that is appropriate for this particular problem given where the possible methods fall along a continuum that ranges from the concrete to the meaning laden—although all points along this continuum have concrete and meaningful aspects. Beyond this, however, we must decide just how to explore the particular research problem at hand as investigators who ultimately pursue our investigations—as Dawson et al. said—in medias res.

References

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