Reframing educational research through principled pluralism: rethinking philosophies, paradigms, and methodological traditions

Educational research now draws on a wider range of methodologies than at any earlier point in its history, but this diversity is usually presented as a catalog of options rather than as a problem of justification. This article raises questions on how researchers can choose and combine methodologies in ways that are philosophically coherent rather than merely eclectic. Drawing on foundational and recent methodological literature, the article examines the philosophical foundations, paradigms, and methodologies of educational research and shows that the distinction between “traditional” and “emerging” methodologies is less informative than the distinction between the kinds of knowledge claims methodologies can warrant: estimates of effect and prevalence, interpretive understanding, critical and emancipatory knowledge, design and practical knowledge, and relational or community-based knowledge. It clarifies how mixed methods, multimethod, and multi-paradigmatic research differ, and how methods can be mixed in terms of purpose, timing, priority, point of interface, and level of integration. Building on this analysis, we propose the Question–Assumption–Method Alignment (QAMA) framework for principled pluralism. The framework links the knowledge claim a research question seeks to the assumptions that the claim requires and to the methodological options that can support it, and it offers four tests—coherence, commensurability, integration, and consequence—for judging when combinations are defensible and when they become conceptually inconsistent. The framework offers researchers, supervisors, and reviewers a practical tool for designing and evaluating pluralist educational research.