Psychology was once a methodologically diverse field. Yet psychology, including educational psychology, has been showing signs of a return to that methodological diversity by exploring ways to adapt "qualitative" research methods to psychological research. This has raised concerns about the disciplinary integrity of psychology and whether such methodological explorations are possible while psychology remains distinctly "psychological." I suggest what is needed is a qualitative research methodology that psychology can call its own. The conceptual framework for such a methodology exists in John Dewey's philosophical writings. His work points the way to a qualitative experimentalism in the social sciences that takes individual lived experience as the beginning and ending point of its inquiries. Some of the specific features of a qualitative experimentalism are identified, and its unique appropriateness for psychological inquiry is highlighted. We may ask what is the effect on psychology of considering its material as something so distinct as to be capable of treatment without involving larger issues (Dewey, 1899, p. 159).
CITATION STYLE
Rosiek, J. (2018). A qualitative research methodology psychology can call its own: Dewey’s call for qualitative experimentalism. In Educational Psychologist (Vol. 38, pp. 165–175). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203764596-6
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