The following is from pages 42-45 of: Coomer, D. (1984). Critical science: Approach to vocational education research.

Journal of Vocational Education Research, 9(4), 34-50. Contrasting Three Modes of Inquiry Habermas has identified some essential features of the three modes of inquiry which can be used to help us understand and evaluate the alternatives available. Habermas suggests that human beings organize their experience in terms of particular interests. There are three interests which, according to Habermas (1971), evolve form three different spheres of human life; i.e., work (instrumental action), interaction (language), and power (asymmetrical relations of constraints and dependency). He argues that these interests evolved from human being s as language using and tool making animals. Human beings, he contends, communicate with others within the context of rule-governed institutions through using symbols which are intersubjectively understood. First they use from nature what is necessary for their material existence. Cognitive interest in work (labor) is seen to be the interest in technical mastery over nature. Secondly, the cognitive interest in language is an interest in intersubjective communication. This interest determines the meaning of the symbolic utterances people use to communicate with one another. Therefore, human beings have an interest in the creation of knowledge that will help them maintain communication and control objectified processes (Held, 1980). At the same time, there is another interestan interest in reason. This third cognitive interest is an interest in acting rationally. Acting rationally requires the ability to be self-reflective and self-determining. David Held (1980) suggests in his description of Habermas that as a result of it (this interest in reason), knowledge is generated which enhances autonomy and responsibility (Mundigkut); hence, it is an emancipatory interest (p. 255). The process of self-reflection inherent in the emancipatory interest has the goal of freeing the individual or group of individuals through illuminating distorted communication, institutional oppression or inconsistencies in valued ends, and by actions which are taken. Self-reflection is used in the same way that Freuds patient in psychoanalysis gets insight into hidden sources of repression. This process provides knowledge which can potentially help those involved make decisions about future actions they will take (Habermas, 1970). Each of these three cognitive interests serves to improve human rationality in a different way: 1. Technical: Improvement in technical rationality implies getting better means to accomplish particular ends. It produces technical rules to act upon. 2. Practical: Improvement in communicative action is measured by the extent to which the subjects action actually expresses ones intentions and, also, whether the claims for ones actions can be justified. Rules of language, interpretive symbolic rules of action, and social norms and values are the rules to act upon. 3. Emancipation: Improvement in rationality here is defined as removing distortions in communication as well as locating the positions which actually characterize institutional levels of functioning at any given time. Rules to act on are ethical rules. (Coomer, 1981) In summary then, there are, according to Habermas, three functional cognitive interests which are based upon three areas of human activity. Each cognitive interest gives the possibility of grounding an approach to scientific inquiry: 1. Technical cognitive interest in control underlying the empirical analytic sciences, 2. Practical cognitive interest in consensus underlying the interpretive hermeneutic sciences, and 3. Critical cognitive interest in emancipation or liberation underlying the critical science. (Coomer, 1981) These three forms of interest produce different kinds of knowledge: information, interpretation, and critique. The threeempirical-analytical, interpretive, and critical sciencemake sure the procedures required for success in human affairs are systematized and formalized through the processes used.

The central task of Habermas critical perspective is critical reflection on technical control. He believes that when technical interests dominate human communication, the result is negative for people. However, one cannot just assume that all empirical researchers are interested in domination in the guise of technical control. Oakes and Sirotnik (1983) address this issue by saying: Conducting empirical-analytic inquiry, for example, does not necessarily imply a hidden agenda of domination. On the other hand, a hidden agenda of domination cannot, in principle, survive an inquiry based upon critical theory. And this, indeed, points the way out of the trapapproaching a practical unification of the three faces of inquiry requires the self-correcting epistemological stance that is made to order in critical theory. The Habermasion trilogy in its purest methodological sense becomes, at worst, an excellent heuristic for expanding the boundaries of traditional social research. (p. 39). Habermas states that adherence to only the empirical-analytic view of science forces one to be irrationally fixated on instrumental action and economic reality. Balance between societys technical and communicative interest is the key to effective functioning and to maximizing human life. The point to be made by Habermas is not that empirical-analytic science is unnecessary but that the other arenas of human interest are also of importance in the creation of human knowledge. According to Habermas (1979), emancipatory knowledge can come about only in a particular kind of environment; i.e., ideal speech. In ideal speech, the participants have equal opportunity to take part in the dialogue. He holds that our process of communication presupposes assumptions which if brought to the level of awareness could result in the identification of norms which are satisfactory to all concerned. Habermas conceptions of ideal speech does not require that we hold open the possibility that such an achievement is possible in some areas. If it turns out that some areas of our life are not appropriate to normative governance, then knowing that in and of itself would be significant (Habermas, 1971). If Habermas analysis is accepted, each of the three modes of inquiry can be grounded in human interest. Each view also has a central purpose, particular kind of outcome, and assumptions which can be identified to show similarities and differences. See Table 1 for Contrasting Features of EmpiricalAnalytical, Interpretive, and Critical Science Modes of Inquiry. Interrelationships Between Research Paradigms There are then, apparent differences in underlying assumptions. These differences determine the kinds of questions each approach can justifiably address. Empirical-analytic science cannot legitimately deal with questions of value such as the worth of educational objectives or the meaning the vocational educational environment has for its students and teachers. It can deal effectively with such how to questions as, given this curricular objective, how can we best go about achieving the objective? In other words, empirical research can answer questions which are technical. This would include cause-effect, means-ends and certain descriptive questions. The interpretive view can only address questions which call for understanding. Questions which seek understanding can be answered through description and interpretation of meanings which are held by participants in the educational situation. Research within the empirical or interpretive views focuses attention on problems of efficiency and of understandings which are enclosed within a larger framework of largely unquestioned values and social institutions. Critical science can address these value questions. It can address questions about what to do in everyday practice. Critical science can provide the rational knowledge used to justify the ends we seek as vocational educators.

Table 1: Contrasting Features of Empirical-Analytical, Interpretive and Critical Science Views of Research

View Empiricalanalytical

Areas of Human Life Work (labor)

Cognitive Interest Technical: Practice impacted through newly developed means to achieve established ends Practical: policy and practice informed through interpretations of daily events and contexts Emancipatory: Policy and practice changed through critique and recovering self-reflection in order to unite theory and practice

Assumptions about Values Values are emotive and therefore outside scientific inquiry

Assumptions about Knowledge Generalizations marked by certainty; observational data foundation of knowledge

Questions Addressed Technical meansends causeeffect descriptive

Criteria of Validity Meeting the test of the scientific method

Purpose To explain and predict

Outcomes Laws

Interpretive

Interaction (language)

Values are personally relative; need to be understood

Constructed meanings of actors foundation of knowledge

Conceptual meaning contextual bound

Intersubjective agreement and reasoning

To understand and interpret

Meaning

Critical

Power (reason)

Values can and must be reasoned about

Same as Interpretive critique ideologies will promote needed social change; open ongoing

Critical normative

Reasoned reflection and change in practice

To critique and to identify potential

Reasoned Choice

Epistemology of Dominant Inquiry Modes in the Social/Human Sciences

From Hultgren, F. H. (1989). Alternative modes of inquiry. New York: American Association of Family and Consumer Science. pp. xx-xxi

Type of Science Empirical/ Analytic Science

Unit of Analysis Observable and Inferable Behavior

Validation Procedure Corroborative Empirical Observation and Statistical Analysis

Purpose Explanation Prediction Control

Meaning of Explanation Causal, Functional, or Hypothetical Deductive Arguments, Involvement, Involving Natural Laws or Scientific Generalizations Establishing Interpretations by Clarifying Motives, Authentic Experiences, Common Meanings

Theoretical/ Philosophical Orientation Behavioral Theory, Psychological Theories of Learning, Systems Theory, Structural Functionalism

Primary Interest and Application Technical: Build Abstract Theory; Human Engineering Systems Analysis Applied to Cultural, Social and Instrumental Systems; Explanation of Human Behavior, Predict and Control Educational Practice Practical: Acquiring Insights Into Human Experience, Facilitating Communication, Enabling Meaningful Interactions, Seeing a Continuity of Cultural Traditions, Providing Commonality of Understanding, Guide to Practice Emancipation: Humanization, Social Change, Therapy, Critique of Ideologies and Values, Expose Distortions in Communication

Interpretive Science

Experiential Meaning of Purposes, Motives, Intentions; Truth Claims of Texts

Constructing Intersubjectivity Shared Understanding Through Conversation

Sense Making Understanding Through Conversation

Action Theory Hermeneutics Language Analysis Phenomenology Ethnomethodology Anthropology Ethnography History Feminist Theory Critical Theory Neo-Marxism Psychoanalysis Post Reconstructionalist Theory Feminist Theory

Critical Science

Values, Communication, and Instrumental Actions (Power, Language, and Work)

Practical Discourse Through Validity Claims

Practical Discourse Through Validity Claims

Tracing Back to Underlying Hidden, or Unreflected Aspects of Social Life