Causality and the Role of Mixed Methods Research in Randomized Field Trials: A Critical View From Within

• In Event: Intersecting Different Philosophies and Designs With Mixed Methods Research

Abstract

The paper draws on authors experience of conducting a number of large-scale RFTs in Ireland and the UK and assesses both the strengths and weakness of the approach, taking consideration of the critiques developed against RFTs from other epistemological and methodological perspectives. Drawing on a post-positivist and critical realist perspective the aim of the paper is to reflect and examine this methodological approach for evaluating interventions in educational settings. The paper concludes that discourses of ‘gold standards’ drawn from the health sciences serve little more than re-igniting the paradigm wars and instead argues for the importance of adopting mixed method designs that consider both descriptive and explanatory causality from a realist perspective.

Author

• Andy Biggart, Queens' University Belfast