An Interpretive Methodology

Abstract

The research objective of my methodology was to map the qualitatively different conceptualizations of Nature¹⁶ held by people, or what might be called terrain.of belief regarding Nature (also see Jones, 1972; Marton, 1988), and thus to better understand conceptualizations of Nature and the place science finds in those conceptualizations. The worldview methodology described here is a modified naturalistic inquiry, interview technique (Kvale, 1983; Spradley, 1979) with constant comparative analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1990) and assertion development (Strauss, 1987). The concept of Nature, however, is quite profound and not easily addressed extemporaneously. Thus, for most persons, one cannot simply ask, “What is Nature?‘, and expect to learn much. One could ask a series of questions, but questions inevitably suggest certain types of answers to the exclusion of others. Instead, in this methodology, data was gathered via semi-structured interviews that involved elicitation devices (Bliss & Ogborn, 1987; Fetterman, 1989) designed to encourage a person to talk at length about Nature, to “think aloud” about Nature. So as not to lead the interview, the elicitation devices are multi-directional prompts; that is, each device prompts in many directions at one time. It is up to the informant to decide which of the many directions to take. At no time does an interviewer intro-duce science (or any other specific domain of knowledge) in the conversation. It was solely up to the informant to bring science or any other topic to the discussion. The interviewer does use a set of heuristic questions (discussed in the next section) that are important for uncovering scientific ideas without directly asking about science. The interviewer, consistent with Spradley (1979) and Kvale (1983), is there to ask probing questions and to encourage the informant to speak freely and at length.