Naturalistic Context

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Distinctions have been made between conventional (positivistic) and constructivist (naturalistic) paradigms. Jerome Bruner described these two distinct ways of thinking as paradigmatic and narrative modes of thought, respectively, and examined how they lead to two very different ways of interpreting reality. The paradigmatic mode tests for empirical truth while the narrative mode deals with human intentions, actions, and consequences. Jean Clandinin and Michael Connelly offer five distinctions between narrative and paradigmatic forms of knowing: (1) Along the temporal dimension, narrative knowing incorporates a sense of past-present-future, of events [Page 598]unfolding over time, while in paradigmatic knowing, a sense of timelessness is valued; (2) narrative thinking focuses on persons in a process of change, contrasting with paradigmatic knowing, where people-free notions are valued; (3) narrative knowing focuses on meaning behind actions embedded in a narrative history, while in paradigmatic knowing, actions are taken as directly evidential; (4) narrative knowing values the person in context, while in paradigmatic knowing, the universal case is valued; and (5) narrative knowing always has a sense of tentativeness, that there are multiple possible interpretations from multiple perspectives for an event, while in paradigmatic knowing, the establishment of causal links and solutions to problems is valued. Thus, in naturalistic, interpretive, narrative forms of knowing, the context is an essential component of the research. Therefore, cases are studied in the naturalistic context—what Donald Schön calls the “swampy lowlands of practice” rather than the “solid high ground of theory.”

Application

An ontological shift from positivistic to naturalistic forms of knowledge construction—from searching for “the truth” to developing “more truthfulness” by including multiple perspectives—creates an epistemological shift that Donald Schön calls a shift from technical rationality to refection-in-action. This leads to two possible kinds of case study applications—first, one in which a case is studied and reported to provide new theoretical understandings, and the second in which cases are created to inform professional practice. In the first kind, case study data collection takes place in the naturalistic context and it may be referred to as a field study. This means that data are collected within the places, or the natural context, in which the phenomenon under study took place rather than in a laboratory or a different setting. Participants are interviewed where they work, live, or otherwise carry out their daily activities. Observations, often called field notes, and other forms of action-based data collection take place in this contexts as well. Rather than making a priori assumptions of case boundaries and predetermined questions, these are allowed to emerge in the context of cyclical data collection. For example, in the field of education, Amy Wells, Diane Hirshberg, Martin Lipton, and Jeannie Oakes carried out a multi-site case study of 10 schools through which they learned to build outward from the school site into the local community. What they had initially imagined would be a case geographically bounded by the school soon spilled out into the surrounding communities as they began to co-construct the boundaries of the cases with the help of their respondents. They discovered that each case was made up of different boundaries, of different people, places, and things in unique relationships depending on the particular situation. They point out that the size and shape of each case was as much a finding as it was a methodological consideration. In the second application, case books are created in which professionals are asked to tell or write storied cases from their own professional experience. These are then used as data or exemplars for other professionals (or those preparing to enter the profession) to get at underlying assumptions, often by having others inquire into them and respond with their own interpretations. This leads to multiple interpretations of the case under study. For example, Patricia Goldblatt and Deirdre Smith compiled 13 cases, written by practicing teachers, of professional dilemmas the teachers have encountered in their practice. These have been responded to in case commentaries by three to five education professors who gave different perspectives and open questions for reflection and discussion. This type of case book is used extensively in the education of a variety of professionals including teachers, doctors, and lawyers.

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