Attributing Causality in Qualitative Research
Viable Option or Inappropriate Aspiration? An Introduction to a Collection of Papers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2385692 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Donmoyer (0000-0001-6956-4881, Leadership Studies, San Diego, CA, USA) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 651-654 |
| Publication date | 2012-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1077-8004 • E-ISSN: 1552-7565 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1077800412455012 |
| OpenAlex | W2159422882 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 9 |
This brief article sets the stage for the three articles about causality and qualitative research by Maxwell, Donmoyer, and Anderson & Scott (as well as Erickson's critique of these articles) that follow by placing the debate about causality in qualitative research in an historical context. This article notes that the use of qualitative methods historically often was justified by claims that qualitative methods represented a new and radically different paradigm, a paradigm that, among other things, rejected the notion that social phenomena could be described or explained in cause and effect terms. This article suggests that the paradigm talk of the past should not be dismissed cavalierly since all empirical research is framed and, therefore, influenced by the a priori assumptions of the researcher (and the particular research community that has socialized the researcher). However, the article also suggests that earlier thinking about paradigms and qualitative methods-and, more specifically, thinking that unequivocally dismisses the possibility of causal explanations in qualitative research-needs to be reconsidered. This reconsideration, of course, is what the papers that follow do, albeit in quite different ways
Causality (physics · Context (archaeology · Empirical research · Epistemology · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Data Analysis and Archiving · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2019 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |