Teaching Statistics to Doctoral Students with Lonergan's Insight-Based Critical Realism

The authors report on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a doctoral level intensive quantitative methods course featuring an integrated orientation to, and practicum in, statistics competence for qualitative researchers. A feature of this integrated approach is the inclusive point of course departure: the general empirical method offered by the insight-based critical realism of Bernard J.F. Lonergan. This epistemology grounds curriculum design, wherein key statistical concepts are presented in the very first session and reinforced throughout the intensive. The practicum component offers guided study in the statistical use of SPSS using a common EU data set. Course evaluations indicate students who had previously felt disinterested or unaware of the significance and role of quantitative studies emerged from the three day intensive with a better understanding and sense of empowerment in both the basic use of statistics as well as the complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative research methods.