A Description of the Uses of Content Analyses and Interviews in Educational/Psychological Research

Abstract

Psychology in general, and educational psychology in particular, has traditionally adopted the methods of positivistic science; that is, it employs experimental research methodology and statistical tests of significance. However, more and more psychologists are beginning to use and to appreciate qualitative research methodologies. These methodologies include ethnographies of classrooms, in the case of educational psychology, content analyses of research participants' verbal or written responses to problem solving tasks, in the case of cognitive psychology, and so forth. This paper presents a description of the uses of content analyses and interviews with participants in educational psychology research. The purposes of the research described in this paper were to examine how undergraduate students would apply knowledge to case study problems and to find out how students felt about the use of case studies as an instructional tool. To achieve these aims, content analyses were conducted on students' written responses to cases and individual interviews were conducted with students. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0001265