The ethical conduct of research is addressed from two perspectives, as a regulatory enterprise that creates an illusion of ethical practice and as a philosophical concern for equity and the imposition of power within the conceptualization and practice of research itself. The authors discuss various contemporary positions that influence…

This paper is the report of a conversation among the authors that centered on their shared interest in alternative methods of inquiry and evaluation in agriculture. The conversation was initiated at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and has evolved through a series of long distance conversations. Though not a verbatim transcript of the conversations,…

The emergence of a new, naturalistic, paradigm of inquiry has led to a demand for rigorous criteria that meet traditional standards of inquiry. Two sets are suggested, one of which, the "trustworthiness" criteria, parallels conventional criteria, while the second, "authenticity" criteria, is implied directly by new paradigm…

Interviewing has been a recognized mainstay of ethnographic fieldwork for more than 100 years. Coupled with participant observation, it was taken to be the complete corpus of anthropological and sociological inquiry activity. Although the repertoire of fieldwork inquirers has grown, interviewing remains a primary data collection technique,…

The central failure of conventional, or positivistic inquiry has been the inability to handle deception in research and the violation of societal ethics, moral and legal caused by such deception. Moral dimensions include tests for whether the research would be approved by reasonable persons, whether it might pass the test of publicity, and whether…

A study is described which analyzed 12 families chosen from a five-state area. The families consisted of seven with mental retardation handicapped members, and five with orthopedically handicapped members. Each family was analyzed in terms of family members' contributions to the dependence or independence desired by the handicapped member.…

Calls for social science researchers to make the leap from understanding to action. Explains action and why it must replace classical disinterestedness and objectivity. Discusses the new criteria for educational research and the new methods for interpretive researchers. Addresses the implications for higher education. (CMK)

The content of graduate courses on qualitative research methods in higher education research is discussed. Major topics suggested include entree and building rapport, field notes and data management, adequacy criteria, ethics in qualitative inquiry, site selection, and writing the case study. (Author/MSE)

The revolution in hard sciences is explored, from the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview to the Heisenbergian universe, and consideration is given to whether the conventional, Cartesian model is a serviceable one for research in the social/applied sciences. Five axioms comprising the existing paradigm of logical positivism are outlined (reality,…