Torn between the positivist and interpretivist paradigms for research on children's talk in cooperative learning?

Considerable disputes have emerged with the development of quantitative and qualitative research methodology within the evaluation arena. The positivist paradigm concerns quantitative and the interpretivist concerns qualitative research methods. Before World War II, the latter was more common. With the demand for market research, quantitative methods became more popular (Rossman and Wilson, 1984). Since the last decade, the debate has gradually changed to question the complement of these alternative methods or the possibility of cross-perspective integration (Greene and McClintock, 1985). The present paper aims at examining recent research methodology on children's talk in cooperative learning. Emphasis is given to evaluate the paradigm shift and to investigate the relevance of the research paradigm with the research question posed. Finally, the validity of adopting either the positivist or the interpretivist paradigm in proposed studies of children's collaborative talk in Hong Kong will be discussed.