A pragmatic paradigm was deemed appropriate to address the current research ques- tions, which facilitated the use of a qualitative approach to data collection, within a soci- ocultural framework. To reflect on how the researcher arrived at such a paradigm, she ini- tially investigated the literature surrounding ‘paradigms’. To begin, according to Mertens (2015, p. 8), “A paradigm is a way of looking at the world”, while Morgan (2007, p. 49) states that paradigms include, “Systems of beliefs and practices that influence how re- searchers select both the questions they study and methods that they use to study them”. The researcher understands a paradigm to offer a framework to guide and scaffold a re- search investigation. Ultimately, it underscores how researchers gather knowledge and in- terrupt it. Researchers (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Guba, 1990; Shannon-Baker, 2016) iden- tify four basic belief systems that philosophically underpin the researcher’s choice in choosing a paradigm. These include:
Question of Axiology (Ethics): What is the role of values in the inquiry or the nature of ethics? Or, “How will I be a moral person in the world?” (Mertens, 2015, p. 10).
Questions of Ontology: What is the nature of the reality? (Shannon-Baker, 2016).
Questions of Epistemology: How does the researcher know the world? What is the relationship between the researcher and the known knowledge? (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 91).
Questions of Methodology: How can the researcher obtain the desired knowledge and understandings? (Mertens, 2015, p. 10).
Literature continuously emphasises the need for each of the four questions to be considered in detail before deciding on a specific paradigm.
Interestingly, the researcher discovered that in the past, there was a basic choice to be made when deciding on a suitable paradigm for a study. The two alternatives were known as a quantitative paradigm and a qualitative paradigm. There is, however, a long established debate regarding the merits and demerits of both, with studies illustrating both ends of the spectrum (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Primarily, the qualitative paradigm is often portrayed as subjective of participants’ perspectives and those of the researcher,
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while the quantitative paradigm can be seen as objective, suggesting that results may be interpreted out of context, discarding perspectives of the participants of the study (Robson, 2011). Petrou (2007) and Howe (1988) maintain that such ‘paradigm war’ is non- productive to the research world, indicating that the researcher should decide on the para- digm that will best answer the research question at hand. Although both qualitative and quantitative paradigms facilitate research in different ways, it has been suggested that nei- ther paradigm is suitable to disclose practical research questions that explore methods of improving practices (McNiff, 1998), as was the case in the current investigation. For this reason, the researcher chose a pragmatic paradigm to underpin the current investigation.
3.5.1. Pragmatism. Maxcy (2003) suggests that pragmatism, “… seems to have emerged as both a method of inquiry and a device for settling of battles between research purists and more practical-minded scientists” (p.79), a way of negotiating the dilemmatic terrain discussed previously. Pragmatism is suggested to offer a degree of inter-subjectivity between the dichotomy of “complete objectivity” of quantitative paradigms and “complete subjectivity” of qualitative paradigms (Morgan, 2007, p. 71). According to Creswell (2009, p. 231), the pragmatic paradigm enables the researcher to focus on the research problem at hand, allowing one to use “… all approaches available to understand the problem”, rather than relying rigidly on specific research methods. However, a pragmatic paradigm is not without its shortcomings, and it is often criticised for neglecting philosophically assumptions such as ontology and epistemology (Mertens, 2015). Therefore, prior to choosing a pragmatic paradigm to guide the current study, the researcher reflected and considered each of the four philosophical questions and answered each with specific reference to the needs and intentions of the current investigation. Guided by literature, the researcher concluded the following in relation to the current study:
Axiology: An emphasis on ethics of care, which ensures the informed consent, privacy, and anonymity of participants. The overall ethical objective of the investigation is to gain knowledge in the “pursuit of the desired end” (Mertens, 2015, p. 37) to enhance a more accurate L2 process among immersion students.
Ontology: Rather than a single “truth” or “reality”, the researcher uses “effectiveness” to measure the value of the reality by placing an emphasises on what difference the reality of CF makes (Morgan, 2007, p. 68) to students’ L2 grammatical accuracy in their individual sociocultural settings.
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Epistemology: Given her immersion educator background, the researcher is not positioned as a “distanced observer” (Mertens, 2015, p. 38); rather, she is studying what interests her (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p. 30), which includes her own felt need i.e., immersion students’ L2 inaccuracies and the need to problematise this observation of discomfort and to confront it as a teacher researcher.
Methodology: Mertens (2015, p. 38) recommends that within a pragmatic stance, appropriate methods should be decided upon based on the purpose of the research, which ultimately guided the researchers data collection choices. The sociocultural framework adopted for the current investigation required the phenomenon of CF and students’ linguistic accuracy to be explored using varying methodological tools. Thus, the use of a mixture of qualitative research methods best provided a “practical solution” (Shannon-Baker, 2016, p. 321) on how to critically examine a systematic approach to CF to support students’ grammatical L2 accuracy.
In essence, the current study offers a practical and applied research philosophy (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003), which provides a sound rationale for the adoption of a pragmatic para- digm The pragmatic stance influenced the choice of research methods to study the phe- nomenon, from participants’ perspectives, of systematic and scaffolded CF use in support- ing immersion students’ L2 accuracy, specifically in relation to noun gender.
It is important to note, however, that pragmatism is often criticised for this “any- thing goes” philosophy (Robson, 2011, p. 171). More recently, Robson and McCartan (2016) advised researchers to ensure that a structured set of research questions be devised and seated at the forefront of the study to minimise such risk of criticism. Furthermore, other researchers (Mertens, 2015; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003) recommend pragmatic re- search to place a definite emphasis on the creation of research questions prior to decision of research methods. Therefore, structured questions steered the direction of the philosoph- ical view of pragmatism from “anything goes” (Robson, 2011, p. 171) to the epistemologi- cal view of “What works?” (Mertens, 2015, p. 39) to best enable the researcher to answer the research questions in an effective and systematic manner. For this reason, the ICCM framework, described in Section 3.2, was essential in ensuring structured research ques- tions were devised.
Guided by the pragmatic epistemological stance of ‘what works’ (Creswell, 2009; Mertens, 2015), to critically examine participants’ perspectives on the phenomenon of sys- tematic CF use, the researcher considered qualitative methods to be critical, in order to
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gather the lived experiences, observations, views of key stakeholders in the context of practice, the immersion setting. This methodology was further guided by the theoretical framework, i.e., the analytical frame provided the researcher with a lens to assess and doc- ument the L2 development processes (from other-regulated to self-regulated learning) through social and cultural interactions (i.e., qualitative data collection through observation and interaction). This rationale coincides with Mertens (1998, p. 3), who posits that the theoretical framework, “… has implications for every decision made in the research pro- cess”. Therefore, the researcher deemed a mixture of qualitative methods to be crucial in investigating the research questions. These methods will now be discussed.