Toward a General and Unified View of Educational Research and Evaluation: Bridging Philosophy and Methodology

This paper addresses an important problun that may really be a pseudoproblem perpetuated by a currcnt artificial or even political need to isolate researchers, evaluators, and theorists and put them in conceptual-methodological boxes. In th paper, me argue that scholars of all kinds should focus on the nouns (i.e., research, ~aluauon, theory) versus the adjecaves (l.e., quantitative, qualitative, or ~ni~ed methods) used to qualify these nouns and core constructs. In a word, researchers, evaluators, measurement professionals, and theorists of all persuasions should stri\-e to be neither qualitative nor quantitative, as that is like striving to be a single leg in a triangle. 1;oUowing Hacking (1965), our view is that all forms of research methodology and evaluation methodolog represent a "patchwork quilt" that is essmtially "one fabdc" with two connected but often unacknowledged sides to the quilt and that all methodology, analysis, and evaluations are essentially "qual-quantifxation" and "quant-qualification" and usually both at the same time. This general and unified or "one fabric" view of these debates and issues is discussed from a historical-philosophical perspective, and the need for a more general and inclusir-e wduaxion and research epistemology is elucidated. fIaving outhed an episttrmc framework and argument for a more coinprehrnsive and complete view and model of n-aluation and research that transcends a speak research paradigm, the paper concludes by outlining eight general key points that most (if not a10 researchtrs and evaluators should consider.