Positivism and interpretivism are two general theoretical perspectives emerging from natural and social sciences (Crotty, 1998). Positivism accepts objective, empirically verifiable, accurate and visible, scientific cognition as scientific
knowledge (Blaikie, 2000; Crotty, 1998; Scott & Morrison, 2005; Silverman, 2000).
Phenomena such as meanings, understandings and experiences are beyond the scope of what positivism entails (Clark, 1998). The nature of my research suggests that positivism is not an appropriate perspective for me to adopt as I have conducted data gathering and analysis in ways which are different from ways in which
positivism works. I have been further informed in this by the work of Kuhn (1970).
Kuhn (1970) argues that scientific revolutions may be considered as a change of paradigms, where a new paradigm completely or partly replaces the older one that is to be overthrown. Kuhn (1970) also argues that science does not develop uniformly, but has certain alternating stages between normal and revolutionary, as he maintains:
Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise, an actualization achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particularly revealing, by increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the paradigm’s predictions, and by further articulation of the paradigm itself (p. 24).
According to Kuhn (1970), paradigms which have been designed to develop scientific truths, senses or practices shift when new knowledge is generated by the research world, and such shifts challenge traditionally accepted so-called scientific truths. He suggests that the unobservables denied by scientists are nonetheless present in all research, which challenges positivist approaches. The argument is a critique of positivism, and it provides a theoretical impetus to my research in providing a research perspective in interpreting the meaning of the participants’
perceptions and attitudes to the reform under study, in full acknowledgment of my non-positivist position. I have explored participant EFL teachers’ perspectives in relation to the reform under study where their attitudes, feelings and beliefs are socially rather than scientifically constructed. According to Kuhn (1970), these perspectives may legitimately be included in scientific research paradigms.
Interpretivism is the idea that the generation of meaning in social and personal life in the human world is based on understanding and interpretation of the social, human world (Walter, 2006). Seale (1998, cited in O'Brien, 2003) argues, ‘[A]n interpretivist approach emphasizes the understanding of people‘s intersubjective worlds which produce corresponding action and interaction’ (p. 10). Interpretivism provides the conceptual tools with which to explore underlying meanings within people’s inner worlds, including their perceptions or attitudes (Blaikie, 1993), a different view of the world from that of positivism.
My project has been designed to explore the research participants’ perspectives and attitudes to the changes that the reform has brought. I have conducted a number of interviews and generated a number of interview transcripts for analysis. I have also examined a number of relevant documents, including ECS (Ministry of Education, 2001a), relevant policies and research literature. In my analysis of these I have identified what has emerged as meaningful or relevant to the teachers concerned in implementing this reform. As Neuman (1997) argues, an interpretivist researcher aims to ‘develop an understanding of social life and discover how people construct meaning in natural settings’(p. 68), which is the case with my research. Acceptable knowledge for a positivist researcher is ‘observable, precise, and independent of theory and values’, while an interpretivist researcher ‘sees the unique features of specific contexts and meanings as essential to understand social meaning’ (Neuman,
1997, p. 72). It is for such reasons that I have selected interpretivism as an appropriate approach for my research.
I have identified an appropriate theory to give coherence and rigour to my research.
A theory is a system of ideas which condenses or organizes knowledge for the purpose of shifting people’s view of the world (Neuman, 1997). Zeegers (2000) argues that a theory is used as a tool to guide researchers to conduct their research. I have taken up such considerations to investigate appropriate theories to guide my research, exploring two major theoretical perspectives: phenomenology and reconstructionism. Phenomenology applies to my research question in data
collection and analysis. I have drawn on reconstructionism as a tool in the analysis of the current EFL curriculum reform in secondary schools in North East China as part of a social dimension of the EFL curriculum reform. I have further explored links between phenomenology and reconstructionism below.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology is represented as a philosophy, a paradigm or a methodology tied to a qualitative methods in research, having been applied to education research as well as other academic fields (Creswell, 2007; Danaher & Briod, 2005; Ehrich, 2003; Goulding, 2005; Rehorick & Taylor, 1995). Whether one considers
phenomenology as a philosophy (Heidegger, 1988; Husserl, 1970; Merleau-Ponty, 1962) or a methodology (Schutz, 1963, 1973), it aims to extend and intensify understanding of direct experience (Spiegelberg, 1982). Danaher and Briod (2005) point out that, ‘Phenomenology remains research in the first person, one that describes from the explicit life-world experiences of individual Is, the shared structures of meaning implicit in the we’ (p. 217). Phenomenology is used to examine first-person experience, predominantly in relation to intentionality as far as that experience is concerned (Grbich, 2007). It is the study of phenomena that occur in everyday life in the human world through the lived experience of people who encounter them (Creswell, 2007; Crotty, 1996; van Manen, 1990). In
examining the current EFL curriculum reform in Chinese secondary schools and its relationship with globalization as a major phenomenon through EFL teachers’
experiences of it, I have drawn on Metcale and Game’s (2006) representation of phenomenology as being concerned with ‘direct and specific descriptions of experiences, of the space and time of our relations with others’ (p. 92).
I have, then, used phenomenology as a conceptual tool to examine phenomena in the social world, as suggested by Lyotard (1991). A phenomenon is ‘anything that appears or presents itself, such as emotions, thoughts and physical objects’ (Ehrich, 2003, p. 45), and phenomenology is an attempt to understand and describe the phenomena of an individual’s awareness (Phillipson, 1972, cited in Willis, 1999). It is a conceptual tool which has allowed me to see how the participants in my research live through and convey phenomena (Creswell, 1998, 2007).
Ehrich (2003) takes issue with phenomenology as a research methodology, contending that it aims at describing phenomena, rather than explaining them, identifying phenomenology as a tool for obtaining certain knowledge through description of experiences in the world, a departure from a positivist perspective in this aspect of research, but no more than this. I have described the phenomena associated with the design and implementation of the reform under investigation, as Ehrich (2003) suggests, but I have also drawn upon phenomenology as a conceptual tool for use in my analysis of the data that I have generated, having turned to the work of other scholars to inform my activity in this regard (see for example Lyotard, 1991; Moustakas, 1994; Neil, 1979; van Manen, 1990). Willis (1999) argues:
Phenomenology is not so much a particular method as a particular approach by philosophers who wanted to reaffirm and describe their “being in the world” as an alternative way to human knowledge, rather than through the objectification of so-called positivist science (p. 94).
Phenomenology, then, is an interpretive approach which focuses on everyday subjective meaning and experience (Holstein & Gubrium, 1998), and I have taken up this perspective to study participant EFL teachers’ experience of the reform under study.
The selection of Phenomenology
Education research in the second half of the 20th century has seen a turning towards interpretivist approaches based on qualitative research, and this development has included phenomenology (Burns, 1994). Phenomenological research exhibits particular features which are different from any other type of research suggested by van Manen (1990), who argues:
Phenomenology is the study of the lifeworld—the world as we immediately experience it
pre-reflectively rather than as we conceptualize, categorize, or reflect on it. Phenomenology aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the nature or meaning of our everyday experiences (p. 9).
It is a perspective that allows researchers not only to enter participants’ lives, but also to gain insights to their lived experience. Phenomenology focuses on an understanding of the meaning of individual lived experience (Barnacle, 2004).
Creswell (2007) argues that phenomenology focuses on understanding the meaning of a concept or phenomena and that this can be extended to consider the meaning of individuals’ lives. Phenomenology is a unique theory (van Manen, 1990) which I have used to obtain an in-depth understanding of lived experience of the
participants in my research.
Grbich (2007) argues that phenomenology is a tool with which to describe given phenomena as accurately as possible in order to achieve understanding of their essence, and I have applied this idea to my research. I have turned to
phenomenology as a theoretical perspective to underpin my research as it allows me to enter participant EFL teachers’ inner worlds to gain an in-depth understanding of their lived experience, enabling me to understand its meaning for teachers as they implement the reform under study. This is of some importance as I have been able to approach my research questions by means of these EFL teachers’ perspectives, attitudes, feelings, and reflections on their professional experience in relation to the reform. My research has focused on an investigation of EFL teachers’ experiences as part of generating an understanding of the relationship between the reform and globalization. In drawing on phenomenology in the design of my research, I have
examined two pivotal terms that have emerged for address: intentionality and lived experience.
Intentionality
In Husserl’s (1970) view, intentionality plays an influential role in gaining an understanding of the research world as it provides direction in guiding human mental processes and consciousness. This is a unique feature of human
consciousness which other features cannot replace, as Moustakas (1994) argues,
‘Intentionality refers to consciousness, to the internal experience of being conscious of something; thus the act of consciousness and the object of consciousness are intentionally related’(p. 8). I have highlighted the concept of intentionality as it has helped to guide me to an understanding of the reform, as suggested by Moustakas (1994).
According to Budd (2005), intentionality is a cognitive demand, or an authoritative tendency that guides researchers to negotiate the research world. Intentionality itself suggests a relationship between the subject and the object of experience (Willis, 1999)— a concept which can help researchers to understand that experience (Ehrich, 1999). Husserl (1970) comments on intentionality:
We must say to ourselves again and again that without them (intentionality or intentional mental processes) objects and the world would not be there for us and that they are for us only with the meaning and mode of being that they constantly derive or have derived from these subjective achievements (p. 163).
My research draws on the concept of intentionality in its deliberate and conscious engagement with EFL teachers’ descriptions of their experiences with the reform under study, where I have come to understand the meaning of the reform in this teacher world. Intentionality in my case are the processes that I have engaged to gain an understanding of EFL teachers’ attitudes to and perceptions of EFL curriculum reform as a response to globalization. This has been based on
considerations of their views as having influenced their behaviours or experiences as they have implemented this reform.