Reflecting on the methodological dualism in higher education research

— By Tessa DeLaquil
It seems that a somewhat curious dualism exists in the methodological approach to research in our social-scientific field of higher education. On the one hand, we are empiricists, strictly following the rule of objectivism and the analytic scientific method, eschewing all but the observable and the factual. On the other, we engage wholeheartedly with value and subjectivism, partaking in hermeneutic methodology to interpret the influence of the social institution of higher education on the human person and on various sectors of society.