Restricted accessOtherFirst published online 2011-4
Using numerical data in explicitly interpretive,contextual inquiry: A “practical discourse” framework and examples from Engeström’s research on activity systems
This article discusses the potential contribution of certain types of numerical data to explicitly interpretive, contextual inquiry (i.e., inquiry commonly associated with the use of “practical discourse” and “qualitative” methods) and extends an earlier argument on this topic. Three example studies that clarify this earlier argument, drawn from the research program of Yrjö Engeström, are presented. These examples provide concrete demonstrations of two principal ways in which Engeström used numerical data, in conjunction with data accrued through more traditional qualitative forms of inquiry (e.g., phenomenography, discourse analysis), to offer explicitly interpretive, contextual accounts of practical human action within dynamic “activity systems.”
Bensimon, E.M., Polkinghorne, D.E., Bauman, G.L., & Vallejo, E. ( 2004). Doing research that makes a difference. The Journal of Higher Education, 75, 104-126.
2.
Danziger, K. ( 1990). Deconstructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
3.
Danziger, K. ( 1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
4.
Davidson, D. ( 1984). On the very idea of a conceptual scheme. In D. Davidson (Ed.), Inquiries into truth and interpretation (pp. 183-198). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
5.
Dreyfus, H.L. ( 1991). Heidegger’s hermeneutic realism. In D.R. Hiley, J.F. Bohman, & R. Shusterman (Eds.), The interpretive turn: Philosophy, science, culture (pp. 25-41). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
6.
Engeström, Y. ( 1991). Non scolae sed vitae discimus: Toward overcoming the encapsulation of school learning. Learning and Instruction , 1, 243-259.
7.
Engeström, Y. ( 1996). The tensions of judging: Handling cases of driving under the influence of alcohol in Finland and California. In Y. Engeström & D. Middleton (Eds.), Cognition and communication at work (pp. 199-232). New York, NY : Cambridge University Press.
8.
Engeström, Y. ( 2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14, 133-156.
9.
Engeström, Y., & Engeström, R. (1984). Siivoustyön hallinta ja siivoojien ladullinen koulutustarve [The mastery of cleaning work and the cleaners qualitative need for training]. Helsinki, Finland: ServiSystems.
10.
Engeström, Y., & Engeström, R. (1986). Developmental work research: The approach and an application in cleaning work. Nordisk Pedagogik, 6, 2-15.
11.
Engeström, Y., Engeström, R., & Suntio, A. ( 2002). Can a school community learn to master its own future? An activity-theoretical study of expansive learning among middle-school teachers . In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp. 211-224). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
12.
Engeström, Y., Hakkarainen, P., & Hedegaard, M. ( 1984). On the methodological basis of research in teaching and learning. In M. Hedegaard, P. Hakkarainen, & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Learning and teaching on a scientific basis (pp. 119-183). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitat Psykologisk Institut.
13.
Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., & Punamäki, R.L. (Eds.). (1999). Perspectives on activity theory. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Fleming, V., Gaidys, U., & Robb, Y. ( 2003). Hermeneutic research in nursing: Developing a Gadamerian-based research method. Nursing Inquiry, 10, 113-120.
16.
Gadamer, H.G. ( 1989). Truth and method (J. Weinsheimer & D.G. Marshall, Trans., 2nd ed.). New York, NY : Continuum.
17.
Harré, R. ( 1984). Personal being: A theory for individual psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
18.
Heidegger, M. ( 1962). Being and time. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
19.
Heller, F. ( 2004). Action research and research action: A family of methods . In C. Cassell & G. Symon (Eds.), Essential guide to qualitative methods in organizational research (pp. 349-360). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
Hesse, M. ( 1980). Revolutions and reconstructions in the philosophy of science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
21.
Hornstein, G.A. ( 1988). Quantifying psychological phenomena: Debates, dilemmas, and implications. In J.G. Morawski (Ed.), The rise of experimentation in American psychology (pp. 1-34). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
22.
Laming, D. ( 1997). A critique of a measurement-theoretic critique: Commentary on Michell, quantitative science, and the definition of measurement in psychology . The British Journal of Psychology, 88, 398-391.
23.
Lincoln, Y.S., & Guba, E.G. ( 1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
24.
Martin, J. ( 2003). Positivism, quantification, and the phenomena of psychology . Theory & Psychology, 13, 33-38.
25.
Michell, J. ( 1999). Measurement in psychology: A critical history of a methodological concept. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
26.
Michell, J. ( 2003). The quantitative imperative: Positivism, naïve realism, and the place of qualitative methods in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 13, 5-31.
27.
Pike, K.L. ( 1967). Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior (2ndrev. ed.). The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton.
28.
Slife, B.D., & Williams, R.N. (1995). What’s behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
Smith, J.A., Harré, R., & Van Langenhove, L. (Eds.). (1995). Rethinking methods in psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
30.
Stam, H.J. ( 2006). Pythagoreanism, meaning, and the appeal to number. New Ideas in Psychology, 24(3), 240-251.
31.
Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (Eds.). (2003). Major issues and controversies in the use of mixed methods in the social and behavioral sciences. In A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research (pp. 3-50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
32.
Taylor, C. ( 1985). Philosophy and the human sciences: Philosophical papers (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
33.
Van Manen, M. ( 1990). Researching lived experience. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
34.
Vygotsky, L.S. ( 1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
35.
Wertsch, J.V. (Ed.). (1981). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology. Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe.
36.
Westerman, M.A. ( 2006). Quantitative research as an interpretive enterprise: The mostly unacknowledged role of interpretation in research efforts and suggestions for explicitly interpretive quantitative investigations. New Ideas in Psychology, 24(3), 189-211.
37.
Williams, R.N. ( 1990). The metaphysic of things and discourse about them. In J.E. Faulconer & R.N. Williams (Eds.), Reconsidering psychology: Perspectives from continental philosophy (pp. 136-150). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
38.
Yanchar, S.C. ( 2006). On the possibility of contextual-quantitative inquiry . New Ideas in Psychology, 24(3), 212-228.
39.
Yanchar, S.C., & Williams, D.D. (2006). Reconsidering the compatibility thesis and eclecticism: Five proposed guidelines for method use. Educational Researcher, 35(9), 3-12.
