See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/257927844

Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research

Book · January 2006

CITATIONS READS
409 4,858

6 authors, including:

Judith Lee Green Gregory Camilli

University of California, Santa Barbara Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
194 PUBLICATIONS   5,683 CITATIONS    107 PUBLICATIONS   4,184 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Patricia B. Elmore Audra Skukauskaite

Southern Illinois University Carbondale University of Central Florida
40 PUBLICATIONS   1,215 CITATIONS    57 PUBLICATIONS   1,010 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Virtual Education, iPad in the Classroom, Flipped Classroom, EAD & more View project

Understanding Influences on Mathematics Achievement View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Judith Lee Green on 04 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 1

Final Draft of Introduction to

Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research
Green, J. L., Camilli, G., & Elmore, P. (Eds)
Routledge, 2006

Acknowledgements

The editors would like to acknowledge the intellectual debt owed to Richard
Jaeger, editor, and both the authors and members of the Professional Development &
Training committee of AERA who conceptualized and published the first and second
editions of Complementary Methods for Research in Education (CMRE). They provided
the grounding and framework for making visible multiple research traditions within
AERA. We would also like to acknowledge the more than 200 AERA members, officers,
and central office staff who supported the work on and contributed to the third edition.
The process of producing this book began with AERA President Lorrie Shepard’s
suggestion, during the first AERA Coordinated Committee Meetings in 2000, that the
Professional Development and Training Committee (PT&D) revise the second edition of
Complementary Methods for Research in Education (CMRE), which was last published
in 1997. Over the next two years, members of the PT&D committees in 2000-2002
(Gregory Camilli, Patricia Elmore, Michael Garet, Judith Green, Judit Moschkovich,
Barbara Scott Nelson and Iris Weiss) deliberated about ways in which in which to
conceptualize the new volume, given the development of new theoretical and
methodological perspectives since the publication of the second edition. During his
presidency, Andy Porter supported the work of the PD&T in carrying out its charge by
taking the concept of the new volume to the AERA Council in 2001. Once the Council
expressed approval, PD&T members conferred with a range of committees at the October
2001 AERA coordinated meetings in Chicago to obtain guidance on the new edition. The
Publications Committee approved the editorial team of Camilli, Elmore and Green. Andy
Porter formalized the Advisory Panel for the new edition, which consisted of members
from AERA committees: Publications (Christopher Clark and Marilyn Cochran-Smith),
Research Advisory (Mary Elizabeth Brenner), Professional Development & Training (Iris
Weiss and Michael Garet), and Scholars of Color (Maria Carlo) and Special Interest
Groups (Richard Lomax). At the 2002 AERA annual meeting, Felice Levine, the
Executive Director of AERA, and Linda Dziobek, Director of Publications, met with the
PD&T Committee on the CMRE project, and a development and production timeline was
established, along with procedures for working with AERA staff.
In the process of revising CMRE, a number of other individuals also made
important contributions to conceptualizing and facilitating our progress including
William Russell, Suzanne Lane, Catherine Snow, Robert Linn, and Hilda Borko. In
addition, we have benefited from the deliberations of the Publications Committee,
Research Advisory Committee, and AERA Council. AERA Presidents, Marilyn Cochran-
Smith and Hilda Borko have provided support for the volume by facilitating Presidential
paper and poster sessions at the Annual Meeting of AERA in 2004 and 2005. We express
special thanks to Richard Duran, Chair of Publications for his guidance in the final
review process. We are also grateful to those AERA members who nominated colleagues
 2

for positions of chapter authors and developmental reviewers. Last, but not least, we
would like to acknowledge the authors and the developmental reviewers who engaged in
respectful and intellectually important dialogues about the content of the chapters,
leading to this volume. Authors and developmental reviewers are given at the beginning
of each chapter, yet many others contributed to the work required for such a large and
complex project. We are grateful to all.

President’s Preface
Complementary Methods for Research in Education originated nearly a quarter
century ago as part of AERA’s commitment to the professional development of its
community. In 1978, the Committee on Research Training commissioned well-known
experts such as Robert Stake, Gene Glass, and Michael Scriven to prepare audio tapes of
alternative research methods unlikely to be found in graduate texts. In 1999 as president,
I asked Gregory Camilli and Judith Green, then members of AERA’s Professional
Development and Training Committee, if they had considered reviewing AERA’s
somewhat outdated though still popular best-seller. Ultimately, they presented to Council
a compelling case for a major revision of the volume. The project to launch a revision
involved several presidents: myself and Catherine Snow, Alan Schoenfeld as chair of the
newly formed Research Advisory Committee, and Hilda Borko and Marilyn Cochran-
Smith in their roles sequentially as chairs of the Publications Committee. The vetting
process ensured that the volume would reflect the range and depth of research traditions
represented within the association. Having survived the labyrinth of AERA committees,
Green and Camilli agreed to serve as editors, along with Patricia Elmore, who chaired the
Professional Development Committee through the negotiations process.
Complementary Methods has a special place in the intellectual history of AERA.
The time period, between production of the audio tapes and publication of the first
volume in 1987, represented the height of the so-called quantitative-qualitative divide.
Although philosophers of science had long since laid to rest positivism’s claims of
objectivity, definitive knowledge, and value-free science, quantitative methods and
quantitative perspectives of the world still dominated the field. Significantly, Richard
Jaeger, a well-known statistician and psychometrician, edited the first Complementary
Methods. His intention was to redress the imbalance found in typical textbooks, which
emphasized experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational methods “to the
exclusion or neglect of methods that emphasize verbal portrayals of findings or
observational techniques, and methods based on naturalistic inquiry” (p. i). In addition to
traditional research methods, he invited chapters on historical and philosophical inquiry
and case study methods. Harry Wolcott, an anthropologist, wrote the chapter on
ethnographic research in education.
Since the opening up of possibilities reflected in the first volume, the growth and
development of new perspectives and methods of inquiry has been remarkable.
Researchers in education work at the crossroads of multiple disciplines. Because of this
interdisciplinarity, we are more aware than most social scientists of the ways in which
narrow, disciplinary perspectives shape scholars’ understanding of substantive problems.
To the extent that we can become adept at thinking about how we would conceptualize a
problem if we approached it as a psychologist, a sociologist, or an anthropologist, we will
be more insightful than the psychologist, sociologist, or anthropologist each studying
 3

exclusively within their own tradition. We appreciate the need to study significant issues
at micro and macro levels of analysis and to synthesize research findings across methods
and contexts.
This new, greatly expanded volume of Complementary Methods was undertaken
to capture the wide range of research methods used to study education and to make the
logic of inquiry for each method clear and accessible. It is intended as a teaching tool to
help graduate students understand the kinds of questions that can be addressed by each
method and to help seasoned researchers learn new perspectives and skills. The
publication of Complementary Methods, we hope, puts researchers’ attention on
substantive problems with the understanding that research methods are an important
means to that end. AERA is indebted to the editors and authors of Complementary
Methods for Research in Education for their contributions to the preparation of the next
generation of researchers in education.
Lorrie A. Shepard
University of Colorado at Boulder

Introduction to the Third Edition

AERA through its advocacy and support of the past volumes has demonstrated its
commitment to (1) training for students, (2) expanding professional knowledge of
practitioners, and (3) promoting understandings about the epistemologies, techniques, and
results of diverse research methods and programs of research. Accordingly, CMRE was
designed to expose graduate students and researchers to a broad range of research
methods and the kinds of questions these methods address. This new edition continues
this tradition, while acknowledging the vibrant growth and evolution of new
epistemologies, perspectives, and methods for research in the field of education today.

What’s Complementary About Complementary Methods? -- From Past to Present

Richard Jaeger, editor for both the first and second editions of Complementary
Methods for Research in Education, placed the origins of the volume with AERA’s
production of an audiotape series (1978), entitled Alternative Methodologies in Research
in Education (Jaeger, 1988, p. i). He characterized the rationale for the tapes, and the
resulting volume, in the following way:
...the tape series was intended to address the overemphasis on quantitative
research methods to the exclusion or neglect of methods that emphasize verbal
portrayals of findings or observational techniques and methods based on
naturalistic inquiry, that was common in textbooks on educational research
methods at the time. The Committee concluded that a series of audio tapes, each
devoted to a single method of disciplined inquiry in education and accompanied
by supplementary materials in print form, might significantly enlarge the set of
resources available to instructors and students in introductory educational
research courses.
Jaeger describes the first edition of Complementary Methods for Research in Education
(CMRE) as a response to “requests from members of the Association for a textbook that
was based on the tape scripts” (p. i). The authors of the tapes were invited to revise and
update their scripts, transforming each into a chapter, and “to introduce readings from the
 4

educational research literature that exemplified sound application of the research methods
in the chapter” (p. i). This edition, published in 1988 was widely used to introduce
graduate students to educational research methods.
The second edition, published in 1997, included the articles in the first edition and
a set of new articles that were responsive to the field and its development in the previous
decade. The introduction to this edition described the evolution as follows:
In the near-decade since the first edition of this book was published, the
landscape of educational research methods has changed materially. Although
quantitative approaches to disciplined inquiry in education are still employed
quite frequently, the publication of research that is totally devoid of quantitative
summarization and analysis is now quite common. The American Educational
Research Association’s journals now abound with reports on case studies, inquiry
that incorporates ethnographic procedures, historical accounts, hermeneutic
analyses, “thick” description, and narrative accounts—often with excerpts from
transcripts of interviews or of discourse among research subjects. Nonetheless, the
distinctions among research methods that were identified for the original tape
series are, for the most part, still relevant and useful today, and most are present in
this second edition (pp. i-ii).

In the second edition, two new chapters were added along with one new section.
New chapters were added to the Philosophic Inquiry Methods in Education (Maxine
Greene, 1997). Maxine Green’s chapter traced the evolution of thought that “has given
warrant to a far more inclusive body of researchers” (p. ii). A chapter by Lee Shulman
(1997), on the nature of disciplined inquiry in education, was added to the first section.
This chapter advanced “the readily confirmed hypothesis that choice of a method of
inquiry involves more than determination of the way in which a given research question
will be answered. To a greater degree, it also determines the nature of the research
question that will be asked” (p. iii).
The new section introduced an approach to aesthetics in education research
(Barone & Eisner, 1997), designed to “identify and describe the qualities of narrative
products of inquiry that made them “arts-based” and to “grapple with the critical but
necessarily sticky problem of legitimacy and propose criteria by which products of
aesthetic inquiry on education should be evaluated and judged” (pp. ii-iii). The
introduction to the second edition goes on to argue that “[i]n a period when inquiry in
education lends itself to a richly diverse collection of methods and techniques, it is
virtually impossible for a single individual to develop expertise in each” (p. iii). The
volume, therefore, served as a basis for introducing a range of perspectives to a broader
audience in order to expand the repertoires of, and resources available to, AERA
members.
What is complementary about complementary methods: Issues and Challenges
In this, the third edition, we take up the goal of introducing a range of
perspectives to AERA members. However, rather than add chapters to the cumulative
text of the first and second editions, the Professional Development Committee elected to
re-envision the content and approach to identifying and representing the richly diverse
range of research methods and perspectives currently available to and used by AERA
 5

members. The committee also confirmed the view that “it is virtually impossible for a
single individual to develop expertise in each” (p. iii).
In the decade since the publication of the second edition, the landscape of
educational research methods continues to undergo extraordinary change. A panoply of
new quantitative approaches for addressing complex educational phenomena has been
developed (e.g., in the areas of multilevel and structural equation modeling). These
approaches parallel progress in new theoretical and philosophical traditions that represent
different ways of knowing (e.g., western, indigenous, and gendered ways of knowing).
Today, it is virtually impossible for any one approach to be used to address the complex
issues being explored through research in education. Further, no longer is it a question of
alternative research traditions (the concern of Jaeger in 1988) but of which approaches
are appropriate to the questions under study and which can be productively combined
within a program of research.
The principles guiding the process of bringing different theoretical perspectives
and research approaches together, however, are not well developed. This argument is
represented in a recent National Forum on Applying Multiple Social Science Research
Methods to Educational Problems, co-sponsored by the Center for Education of the
National Academies, the American Educational Research Association, the American
Psychological Association, and the National Science Foundation. In the announcement
of this forum, it was argued that “The application, fit, and articulation of different
scientific research methods to tackle major issues relevant to educational policy and
practice is a largely undeveloped area that is ripe for sustained inquiry and knowledge
accumulation” (AERA, November, 2004).
In framing this forum around these issues, leaders of these major research
organizations, each with interests and areas of research in education, suggested that the
issue of bringing different traditions together is not solely the task of the individual
researcher or research team. It is a problem for the fields that engage in research in and
on education. Today, there are no commonly agreed to guidelines for use of multiple
methodologies in particular projects, although some disciplines (e.g., health science) have
begun to publish handbooks and other guidelines for mixed methods. What is evident,
however, is that the challenge facing those seeking to use different theoretical, not merely
alternative methods, is to identify which can be productively brought together--for what
purpose(s), in what ways, and on what scale--to explore which phenomena.
In this edition of CMRE, these issues are raised in a number of chapters, including
one specifically addressing the design of mixed methods by M.L. Smith. However, when
the chapters focusing on programs of research are examined, the issue of different
approaches becomes more visible, when the phenomenon under study becomes the focus,
not the method itself. Even in these chapters, however, the methods are most often used
to address different questions and less frequently used in complementary ways. This
observation suggests that the answer to what constitutes complementarity among methods
or what relationships need to exist for methods to be defined as complementary, rather
than merely mixed, is an area that needs careful discussion and debate.
This issue is not a problem for education alone. Across disciplines, issues of
complementarity have been explored for varying lengths of time. A search for definitions
of the terms complementary, complementary methods, and complementarity across
disciplines shows that these issues have been, and are currently being debated in a broad
 6

range of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, including physics, linguistics,
allied medicine, law, environmental studies, psychology, neuroscience, sociology,
genetics, organizational studies in business, economics, mathematics, history, and
education, among others. What became evident in our exploration of these concepts
across disciplines is that central to most definitions is the concept of relationships
between two or more phenomena. These debates focus on both the complementarity of
phenomena understudy and methods used to study them, supporting the argument that
theory-method relationships are critical to understanding and defining what is
complementary about complementary methods.
In the first two editions, as suggested previously, complementary methods
referred primarily to alternative methods. As education researchers, we need to explore
which of the complex phenomena that we are examining or assessing is complementary,
and if they are related, what the nature of that relationship is. From this perspective, we
need to consider how the phenomena under study are conceptualized, if we are to select
appropriate sets of methods to mix and/or use in complementary ways. The chapters in
this volume provide historical and conceptual information about what each method is
designed to explore, the nature of the phenomena involved, and the questions each can
address. As such, they lay the foundation for exploring which approaches might be
productively brought together to study a common phenomenon, and which might be
juxtaposed to make visible similarities, differences and complementarities between
phenomena. Further, they provide a basis for understanding the level of scale for which
the method was designed, and how one level of scale sheds light on particular aspects of
the phenomena, while masking others.
The inclusion of chapters on Philosophic Issues in Educational Research (Bredo),
Epistemology and Educational Research (Kelly), and The Ethics of Educational Research
(Strike) lays a foundation for the discussion and debates about what it means to claim that
two methods are complementary, and how we can understand and study complementary
phenomena within complex educational phenomena. These chapters identify ways in
which such dialogues can be undertaken and the theoretical issues that need to be
addressed in order to shape new and dynamic understandings of the purposes, goals,
approaches, claims, and outcomes of research into the complex educational processes
facing students and their teachers, school systems, families and communities in the 21st
Century.

Designing the editorial process

In this section, we describe the ways in which we engaged a broad group of
AERA members who represented different divisions, committees, constituencies, and
perspectives in the process of identifying authors and developmental reviewers for the
third edition. The process for creating this volume began with extended deliberations by
multiple groups within AERA regarding the potential range of approaches that might be
included in the third edition. Given the tremendous diversity of approaches, however, we
realized that not all could be the subjects of chapters Rather, the perspectives and
methods to be included were selected using the following set of principles: a method is
recognized or employed broadly in the divisions of AERA; there exists a rich body of
epistemological work associated with the method or tradition; and the topics were
appropriate for first and second year graduate students who want to devise, select and
 7

adapt research methods for their dissertation work. In conjunction with our Advisory
Panel, the full range of chapters was examined for coherence.
The next step in the process was to identify potential authors. For each chapter,
we planned to invite a primary author as well as two other scholars in the area to serve as
developmental reviewers, using a process similar to the one used for the Review of
Research in Education. Peer review is a critically important aspect for strengthening
scholarly works, and is a standard procedure for all AERA products. For this purpose, at
least two reviewers were assigned to each chapter. To identify potential authors and to
insure broad representation of AERA membership, we invited nominations from Division
Vice Presidents (12), SIG chairs (about 150), members of AERA standing committees
(about 200), and the CMRE Advisory Panel. This call for nominations was distributed in
the middle of May 2002. We received nominations by email, and additional names from
nominees (for reviewers or primary authors if the nominee declined). An initial roster of
authors and developmental reviewers was then finalized.
With this roster, we began contacting nominees. In many cases, the primary
authors accepted the invitation. However, it was necessary to select alternates--as can be
expected in a volume of 46 chapters. The principle we used in selecting alternates was to
maintain the original intent of the chapter in terms of both concepts and content. By
early 2003, we requested that primary authors (or primary teams) send chapter outlines to
the reviewers for comment, and that by the end of the summer, first drafts were for the
most part completed for review. We asked for final drafts by early spring 2004, and for
the most part, these documents were received by mid-summer.
To provide further comments to authors, we proposed a session to Marilyn
Cochran-Smith in which authors would meet with AERA members at the meeting in San
Diego (2004). She invited the innovative session and more than 900 AERA members
attended one or more of the three-part Presidential Session. Authors then had an
opportunity to make changes based on the questions and discussions at these sessions.
Final versions of the chapters were submitted by September 2004. The volume was then
submitted for “volume” review to the publications committee, who sent it to three
scholars in the field for review. Comments from those reviewers were used to complete
the volume.

Using the Volume

This third edition following Richard Jaeger’s second edition of Complementary
Methods for Research in Education has not only more authors and chapters but also more
diversity in perspective, approach and thought regarding education research
methodology. The third edition is divided into four major sections: Foundations, Design
and Analysis, Describing Regularities [we renamed this section Measurement, Pattern
Identification, and Classification], and Illustrative Research Programs. The Foundations
section has three chapters on epistemology, philosophy, and ethics and provides the
framework for the entire volume. Design and Analysis is the largest section with 28
chapters covering a broad range of topics from arts-based educational research to
individual and multiple case studies, discourse, statistical graphics, data modeling, and
narrative and philosophical inquiry. This section also includes chapters focusing on data
collection approaches, including interviewing, survey methods, and survey sampling,
 8

with observation and field methods included in qualitative and ethnographic research
chapters. Measurement, Pattern Identification, and Classification includes six chapters on
classical measurement theory, item response theory, and generalizability theory from a
quantitative perspective and analysis of data from videotape, cross-case analysis, and
finding patterns from field notes from a qualitative perspective. The section on Research
Programs: Illustrative examples includes classroom interaction; language research; issues
of race, culture, and difference; policy analysis from an institutional and practice
perspective; program evaluation; student learning; and, teacher education.
A question most professors, who have used the first two editions, will invariably
ask is “How is this edition different and will I be able to use it in the same way for my
research methods course?” As we have already indicated, the third edition contains many
more chapters representing diverse perspectives and research methodologies. In “A Note
to Authors” Richard Jaeger said, “All of these materials were designed for use in
graduate-level courses on the methodology of educational research. Because the materials
are modular, they can be used in many ways, and their usefulness transcends courses
devoted solely to the study of research methodology. Beyond the introductory section on
the nature of disciplined inquiry in education, the remaining sections of this book are
virtually independent. Therefore, selected portions of the book could be used in courses
devoted to specific methods of research or to specific research perspectives, such as
qualitative inquiry methods.” We believe that the above instructions provided by Richard
Jaeger remain appropriate for this edition as well. Keep in mind that the chapters are not
equally accessible to beginning graduate students and some chapters will require fairly
extensive previous knowledge on the part of students and “heavy lifting” on the part of
professors to facilitate understanding and application.
Further Richard Jaeger stated “This book and the associated audio tape series
could be used either to structure an entire course, or to enrich units devoted to particular
methods contained in a course with some other principal focus—such as a graduate
course in educational psychology or a graduate course on the sociology of education.”
Certainly this book can be used for a research methods course but may be more
appropriate for a one-year seminar at the beginning of the doctoral program in education
to introduce students to the methodologies they will encounter throughout their program
of study and to encourage students to begin their own research program and scholarly
productivity.
Another important use of this volume is as a reference for established researchers
with an interest in changing directions, learning a new technique, or becoming more
expert in a methodology already known and used. This book was conceptualized and its
production realized through the efforts of the AERA Professional Development and
Training Committee. The intent of that committee is to use the volume as a roadmap for
selecting and encouraging professional development sessions on topics covered in this
new edition.
 9

Note to students from students: on reading and using the volume

Audra Skukauskaite & Elizabeth Grace

As editorial assistants, who had the privilege of working with the editors on this volume,
we were asked to write a note to our fellow graduate students -- a primary audience for
this third edition of Complementary Methods for Research in Education (CMRE).
Throughout our teaching and graduate careers, we have come to understand that like
teaching, research is a situated and contextualized learning process, requiring careful
consideration of the traditions underlying research methodologies. This volume was
designed to provide an introduction to the history, theory and practice guiding each of the
traditions represented in the third edition of CMRE. We see this volume as both
supporting and extending our work as graduate students, and as opening possibilities for
new research directions throughout our careers. The third edition of CMRE is a resource
that can help us conceptualize, design and expand our research programs, and can help us
create and foster dialogues within and across educational research traditions.
The need for dialogue was captured by Lorrie Sheppard, in her introduction to the
Presidential Invited Session for CMRE (AERA 2004). The vision of the editors, AERA
presidents and various committees involved in the publication of this volume was to
provide access to issues of epistemology associated with the broad range of research
traditions currently used by members of AERA. The richness of traditions represented
brings unique challenges, since, as the current and previous editors state, no one person
can know and do research from all traditions. We found that the dialogues among the
editorial team from different disciplinary backgrounds were instrumental in bridging the
challenge and making visible to us potential links between and among different research
methodologies and their underlying theories. The need for such dialogues in the field is
captured by Kelly (this volume), who describes guidelines for respectful and productive
dialogue and debate within and across research communities in education.
As you read, you will find that like the first two editions, this volume is by no
means a “cook book,” containing easy-to-follow recipes of how to do research using a
particular method. Though initially designed for beginning graduate students, the volume
in fact presents a broad range of “difficulty levels.” While all of the chapters are a form
of introduction to the field, some will require more background knowledge than others.
The volume is a resource and a reference that can help us explore what is available and
what is possible in educational research. It will require us to go to additional resources
and to engage in conversations with our professors, mentors, and colleagues within and
across institutions, as discussed above.
In the remaining section we share some of the approaches we found helpful in
working with this volume as well as the questions we asked in trying to understand the
arguments and methodological frameworks presented by the authors. We hope that these
will also be useful to you.
o We found it useful to first browse through the whole volume to see what is
available, i.e., to identify the landscape of research represented. The preface and
the introduction were particularly helpful in orienting us to the scope of research
traditions in the volume.
 10

o The first three foundational chapters provided a lens through which to read any
particular chapter and across chapters. These chapters guided us in exploring the
questions authors asked, phenomena they studied, and epistemological and
ontological traditions underlying theoretical and methodological bases of their
research.
o As we read, we found it helpful to keep in mind the overall structure of each of
the design and analysis chapters to understand the goals and procedures of each of
the methods. All authors were asked to provide a brief historical overview of the
research tradition, list the questions that can be addressed through this
perspective/method, and present an example of how this approach is used.
o We found the last section, Illustrative Programs of Research in Education,
helpful in making visible the historical developments of particular areas of study
in education. These chapters, rather than focusing on one method or study, look
across different ways of studying educational phenomena and provide
conceptualizations of the current state-of-the-art in each of these areas.
o As we read a variety of chapters in the volume, including chapters that initially
seemed not to relate to our research, each of us found the references particularly
useful in helping us (re)formulate our own research questions and make our
research designs stronger.
o Perhaps one of the most important things that we learned as we worked on this
volume is that we had to consider the theory-method-practice relationships
underlying each research design and explore how the questions being asked by
this particular tradition fit within the larger field of educational research.

To examine the theory-method-practice relationships, we use the following questions,

derived from the ethnographic framework of our research community (Green, Dixon &
Zaharlick, 2003) to make visible the underlying thinking and logic of each tradition from
the perspective of the authors.
o What is the author (authors) arguing?
o What are key assumptions guiding the construction of the argument?
o What are the key terms? How are they defined?
o What kinds of questions is the method designed to address? What kind of
questions does it not address?
o What data need to be collected to address these questions?
o What kinds of analyses need to be undertaken?
o What are theoretical assumptions guiding question-asking?
o How do these theoretical assumptions guide research design, including data
collection, analysis, interpretation and representation?
o What kinds of claims can be made by using this method? (Consider the scope and
level of scale for the claims.)
o What are the historical roots of the method?
o How have developments in the field shaped and reshaped the methodology?
o How does this method contribute to researching educational phenomena?
o What are other methods that ask similar questions? How do these methods differ
and how are they similar?
 11

As graduate students, currently completing our dissertations, we hope that this note can
serve as a “cultural guide” for those entering the field. We also believe we need to
continue asking these questions as we interact with our colleagues across academic
disciplines, theoretical traditions, and institutions. In order for us to use complementary
methods, as called for by editors across the three editions of the Complementary Methods
for Research in Education, we will need to continue exploring the multifaceted, dynamic
field of educational research to which this volume is a guide. We look forward to these
conversations.
 12

Reference
Green, J. L., Dixon, C. N. & Zaharlick, A. (2003) Ethnography as a logic of inquiry. In
Flood, J., Lapp, D., Squire, J. R., & Jensen, J. M. (Eds.) Handbook of research on
the teaching of the English language arts. 2nd ed. Lawrence Erlbaum associates,
publishers. Pp. 201-224.

View publication stats