A Reflective Hermeneutic Approach to Research Methods Investigating Visitor Learning

Abstract

This chapter advocates for the study of new research methods that allow researchers a more unbounded-responsive approach to qualitative – interpretivist studies of visitor learning in informal settings. The focus is on the utility and merits of research methods that evolve during the course of interpretive research studies; such methods have considerable potential for researchers to more deeply understand emergent experiential visitor learning in informal contexts. Many research studies, typically situated within a positivist paradigm, often establish methods and hold them fixed throughout data collection. This static approach to data collection has historically been seen a virtue, and is celebrated for the scientific rigor it brings to research design. This chapter looks critically at traditional positivist research, arguing that a repetitive, dialectic, hermeneuticⁱ approach may be more effective when research questions seek understanding of the nature of learning in informal settings.