Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

asic axioms of positivism, including both classical humanistic traditions such as
phenomenology, hermeneutics and critical theory, and more recent trends in qualitative
research within the humanities and the social sciences. Post-positivism covers specifically the
more recent trends in qualitative research, such as constructivism, feminism and other
emancipatory approaches. – “Postmodernism” might have been a better and more precise
concept, as it is used in the history and theory of humanities.
18. The use of mixed methods:
Bruscia’s standpoints (Bruscia 1995, 1998) in the debate on paradigms and methodologies in
music therapy research have been very influential, and he has been a leading figure in
developing the standards of qualitative research in music therapy, which have historically
been criticised from positivists as inherently lacking in rigour (Ruud 1998, Chapter 7; Stige
2002). In the early 90’es there was a tendency in the music therapy research community to
divide into two camps that were mutually exclusive – there was a tendency of what Aldridge
(1996, p. 278) called ”methodolatry”. In the last ten years a trend towards inclusivity and
mutual tolerance and a more pragmatic than polarized paradigmatic understanding can be
observed – a good example is the development of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, and
to a lesser degree the Journal of Music Therapy from journals exclusively devoted to
qualitative and quantitative research respectively to journals embracing all types of empirical
research. However, as Bruscia (1995) pointed out, we shall not forget that the methodological
traditions of quantitative and qualitative research are underpinned by philosophical paradigms
that cannot be integrated or combined, since they are ”two different roads” to a research goal,
and thus a combination is neither easy nor unproblematic. Bruscia (1995, p. 73-74) suggested
three types of combinations, allowing ”us to benefit from both paradigms and prevent us from
adopting one to the exclusion of the other”:
- Studying certain phenomena with one paradigm and others with the other paradigm
- Studying different aspects of the same phenomenon in two or more separate and
independent research studies anchored in either positivist or nonpositivist paradigms
- Combining (triangulating) types of data and methodologies within the same study but
remaining solidly anchored within one or the other paradigm.