Using a Quantitative Research Tool to Support a Postcolonial Inquiry: A Pragmatic Adaptation of Q Methodology

• In Event: Roundtable Session 61
  In Roundtable Session: New Perspectives on Mixed Methods

Abstract

Given the interdisciplinary nature of post-colonial scholarship, we have used qualitative and quantitative research methods in dialogic fashion in a study exploring perceptions of the power-knowledge and complicity-resistance dynamics at play when Western expatriate science teachers are recruited into a post-colonial setting. We employed an adaptation of Stephenson’s Q methodology, in combination with a semi-structured interview format, to reveal how expatriate teachers, their employers and their students described the significance of the Western origin and subject knowledge base of the expatriate teachers. Preliminary findings demonstrated that the utilisation of Q methodology facilitated a further level of interpretation not revealed in the qualitative approaches alone.

Author

• Lydia E Carol-Ann Burke, University of Toronto