Reflections on “a View from across the Grand Canyon” (by Richardson and Anders) and the Compatibility of Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Abstract

Richardson and Anders are only partly correct in their assertion that differences in perspective and philosophy between education researchers such as themselves and many of the special education researchers who wrote for this issue correspond to differences between special education teachers and general education teachers. Although such differences may be typical, they reflect just one level of a deeper division concerning both educational reform and educational research that has existed for most of the century within the entire field of education. Special education research has typically followed an empiricist tradition, tending to focus on measurement (e.g., Thorndike, Bloom, Deno) and theories of learning and teaching rooted in the study of observable behaviors (e.g., Gagne, Becker, Gage, Brophy, Rosenshine). This tradition has always maintained that delineating specific aspects of human behavior that engender quantifiable indicators of learning is the major goal of educational research. Within this tradition it is further maintained that rigorous research of this type can lead to generalizable, replicable teaching procedures that will produce widespread and predictable increases in student achievement. In special education, researchers with this orientation have begun to build an empirical knowledge base of effective instructional practices founded on experimental studies that demonstrate the quantitative impact of welldefined and observable teaching procedures and strategies. Most of the researchers in this special issue and many members of the special education research community espouse this tradition. This tradition and its goals are reflected, for example, in Greenwood's article where he delineates specific empirical findings associated with accelerated learning and argues for increased use of these procedures and strategies. The other tradition is more difficult to label, but is characterized by calls for radical reform of teaching (Ashton, 1996) and by a subjectivist, qualitative approach to research methods and knowledge generation. Various theorists such as Freud in the 1930s (and again, via the neo-Freudians in the 1960s), Piaget and, most recently, Vygotsky have helped inform this school of thought. To many, Dewey most forcefully articulated this viewpoint. By and large, researchers and scholars from this tradition write in a more passionate and