132 Agnes Petocz
to the methodological dichotomisation between causal explanation and hermeneutic inquiry.
It follows that there is no need for mainstream psychology to convert to postmodernism, or
become Janus-faced with respect to science by virtue of using both quantitative and
qualitative methods. For there is no necessary connection between qualitative methods and
the postmodernist ideologies in which they are so often packaged. Hence, the link between
semiotics and postmodernist antiscience is not required by a focus on qualitative methods.
Michell (2001) commends the recent reinvogoration of qualitative methods, but he finds it:
not a healthy sign that its advocates tend to see the quantitative/qualitative distinction as
philosophical rather than empirical. Thus, the quantitative approach is demonised as
positivistic and the qualitative is praised as post-positivist, or even postmodernist ... Seen
from this standpoint, advocates of the qualitative approach are as much guilty of a
priorism as the psychometricians they oppose. (p. 216)It is indeed a problem that the advocates of qualitative methods think that the choice of
method depends on their prior philosophical or ideological position (e.g., ―I am an antirealist,
so I do qualitative research‖, rather than ―This is not a quantitative issue, so I shall use
qualitative methods to investigate it‖) (cf. Bryman, 1988). Even in those mainstream
psychology departments (usually in the newer institutions) that are willing to teach qualitative
methods, these methods are not appropriately contextualised within a single, overarching
―scientific research methods‖ course. Instead, they are usually taught by non-experimental
psychologists, marginalised by the mainstream, who are ideologically committed to relativist
or constructionist approaches. Sometimes they are taught by those who disagree with
postmodernist ideology, but who nevertheless feel that they have to present qualitative
methods faithfully in their antirealist contexts. Sometimes they are taught reluctantly by
―ring-ins‖ from the mainstream, who take the opportunity to ridicule the methods on the
gounds of their lack of objectivity and their failure to meet accepted scientific standards. And
sometimes they are eagerly promoted by teachers who are determined to avoid at all costs the
dreaded statistics and quantitative data analyses. But the point is that, overall, qualitative
methods, whether they are welcomed, merely tolerated, or actively disliked, are just as much
misunderstood and mistaught in psychology as are quantitative methods. In contrast, realism
shows that:
Quantitative structure is but one kind of naturally occurring structure amongst
indefinitely many... if qualitative methods are to find the place they deserve within the
mainstream curriculum, then it will be because mainstream psychologists realize that
these methods do not threaten psychology‘s scientific credentials ... when scientific
method is correctly understood, this alleged threat evaporates ... what must be stressed is
that the traditional, realist conception of scientific method entails methodological
flexibility. (Michell, 2004, p. 317, emphasis added)Thus, "the fixation upon quantitative methods that characterizes modern psychology
really has no justification given the realist understanding of science" (Michell, 2004, p. 307),
and it is antiscientific for psychology to continue to insist that quantitative methods are
somehow more scientific than are qualitative methods.
In bringing qualitative methods under the umbrella of scientific research in general,
realism helps to solve the major problem in the qualitative movement. This problem has