David A. Erlandson - Doing Naturalistic Inquiry: A Guide to Methods

A Guide to Methods

David A. Erlandson
Edward L. Harris
Barbara L. Skipper
Steve D. Allen

Copyright 1993 by Sage Publications, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Doing naturalistic inquiry : a guide to methods / David A. Erlandson
... [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8039-4937-5. ISBN 0-8039-4938-3 (pbk.)
1. Social sciencesMethodology. 2. Paradigms (Social sciences)
I. Erlandson, David A.
H61.D62 1993
300.72dc20 93-3651

93 94 95 96 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Sage Production Editor: Megan M. McCue

ALTERNATIVE PARADIGMSthat is, sets of beliefs that lead to ways of approaching inquiry that are essentially different from the historically correct received paradigmhave been recognized for well over a decade. But the literature that deals with these alternatives has been long on theory and short on practical procedural suggestions (I suppose I must declare myself guilty of that neglect as much as anyone). I welcome this book by David Erlandson and his colleagues precisely because it is an effort to deal with the how to do it aspect of at least one such alternativenaturalistic inquiry (which I would now prefer to call constructivist inquiry)and to do so not by prescriptive formulas but by lessons and examples drawn (mostly) from their own work.

Despite its deceptively simple appearance, this book is not an easy read. There are several problems in dealing with paradigm distinctions to which the reader must remain constantly alert to prevent misinterpretations and misconstructions of the books content. Please bear with me as I enumerate such conceptual stumbling blocks. For each I will direct attention to particular places in the book that are especially relevant, but the reader must realize that these problems pervade the material (in this book as they would in any book dealing with paradigm distinctions) and will catch the reader unawares unless special attention is given to them.

1. Naturalistic inquiry is not equivalent to qualitative inquiry. The reader should not confuse naturalistic inquiry with qualitative inquirythat is, inquiry utilizing only qualitative methods. Although a strong case can be made for the proposition that qualitative methods have certain strengths that are worth utilizing in any study regardless of the inquiry paradigm that guides it, that case is not equivalent to the paradigm-level case that can be made in favor of naturalistic inquiry (or any other alternative form of inquiry). Studies that are based exclusively on qualitative methods but designed in terms of positivist assumptions remain positivist studies. Naturalistic studies, while they may include quantitative methods, are essentially different; that difference has nothing whatever to do with the issues (if there be such) of qualitative versus quantitative methods. This theme is developed in both .

2. The naturalistic paradigm is incommensurable with the conventional paradigm. The reader should bear in mind that one cannot fairly understand any paradigm, naturalistic or otherwise, on the basis of considerations evolved in relation to some other paradigm; to do so would be equivalent to judging, say, Roman Catholic theology on the basis of Lutheran dogma (or vice versa). The naturalistic paradigm is incommensurable with positivism in the same way that the notions of flat earth and round earth are conceptually incommensurable. By incommensurable is meant that no common points of reference exist to which differences and conflicts among paradigms may be submitted for resolution. It is the basic problem of reductionism that it assumes just such common points. The reader must constantly resist the temptation to call naturalistic inquiry to account in positivist terms (or vice versa, for that matter). This point should be clear after reading .

3. The underdeveloped state of alternative paradigms. The reader must always bear in mind that alternative paradigms remain as yet largely underdeveloped; there are many conceptual and practical gaps. That should not be surprising; conventional science (positivism) has had some 400 years to lift itself by argumentation and experience to its present sophisticated level, while its alternatives have hadby any stretch of the imaginationless than a century. Indeed, the need for a new paradigm in social research is only now becoming apparent (see ).

Dr. Yvonna Lincoln, my frequent collaborator, and I have hoped that practical books such as this one would emerge to help remedy that situation. Even though they might be halting and incomplete in some sense, reflecting that alternative paradigms are still in the process of becoming, they could nevertheless provide the grounding in experience that would simultaneously test the theory while demonstrating practical ways to manage the new inquiry. We have always contended that constructions can and should change as new information accrues and sophistication increases; we reserve the right, we have argued, to get smarter. If much remains murky, well, that is less a reason to condemn this or any other similar books shortcomings than to sound a tocsin for other work that will illuminate what remains to be explored. (Many areas still to be explored are discussed in a large number of the books and articles listed in the reference section.)

4. The lingering effect of ingrained conventional presuppositions. Many of this books readers will come to it dragging a heavy baggage of conventional presuppositions; after all, were we not all raised by our intellectual forebears to believe that positivism was the true way to knowledge? For example, most positivists assume that there is some way that things actually are and actually work (a concrete reality and its mechanisms) and that science can find out what those are: That objectivity in inquiry is mandated and, to the extent that inquiry is objective, it will de facto be value-free; that the aim of science is to arrive at generalizations, preferably causal, whose truth is determined by how well they enable prediction and control; and the like. In contrast, most proponents of naturalistic inquiry assume, again for example, that the ways things are constructed to be and to work depends on the particular human constructor entertaining the ideas (in other words, that there are multiple realities rather than a single reality, each relative to the constructors experience); that subjective inquiry is the only kind possible to do and that as a result all studies will be value-influenced to an indeterminate degree; that the aim of inquiry is the development of shared constructions (including constructions for action) among members of a particular group, society, or culture, and that if others wish to learn from the given inquiry, they do so chiefly through the vicarious experience that a good case study report provides; and so on.