|
|
Article: Bridging positivist and interpretivist approaches to qualitative methods.(The Evidentiary Basis of Policy Analysis: Empiricist vs. Postpositivist Positions)
- Article from:
- Policy Studies Journal
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Policy Studies Organization. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
From case studies to econometric analysis, policy research has a long tradition of employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, but the usual juxtaposition of qualitative research against quantitative research makes it easy to miss the fact that qualitative research itself encompasses a multitude of different approaches. Qualitative work can be positivist: It can attempt to document practices that lead consistently to one set of outcomes rather than another, to identify characteristics that commonly are related to some policy problem, or to find strategic patterns that hold across different venues and with different actors. Qualitative work also can be ...