Educational Researcher, Vol. 35, No. 9, pp. 3–12
“In this sense, it is important to recognize that the adoption of a method will implicitly commit researchers who use it to certain kinds of assumption-based outcomes that both reveal and conceal (or obscure) phenomena in particular ways and that bring with them certain affordances and limitations.” (p. 4)
“A soft incompatibility would recognize that any method will be informed by philosophical and historical assumptions and will, in a sense, beg the theoretical question by producing detailed accounts based on those underlying assumptions. However, a soft incompatibility thesis would also recognize that creative, reflective investigators can, at times, reconceptualize methods to cohere with a particular assumptive framework or develop
the methodological resources needed. In short, rather than foreclose on flexibility and openness, a softer version of the incompatibility thesis would allow researchers and theorists to form a more or less coherent strategy that could be adapted to questions and problems arising in the course of inquiry.” (p. 10)