Smoke and Mirrors: Modernist Illusions in the Quantitative versus Qualitative Research Debate

Abstract

The debate about the selection and proper use of theory, and their impact on validity, is actually an example of sleight of hand. It is a paradigm conflict posing as a debate about substantive issues. Within the diversionary debate, qualitative (inductive) research has been critiqued and declared a-theoretical. This paper engages with this claim and the assertions about the superiority of quantitative (deductive) research and concludes that both positions are redundant. At the outset, all research is deductive and once the data commences to be interpreted and conclusions manufactured, it proceeds as a process driven by a deductive- inductive dialectic. This dialectical manufacturing process is universal and inescapable. At best, a systematic approach to data collection and interpretation only allows for the subsequent partial deconstruction of the research construct. That construct may be valid within the confines of its own manufacturing process, but this does not open the way for claims of the imprimatur of any broader validity.