This article argues that the concept of grounded theory, widely used in research in the human sciences, has not been adequately analyzed as to its structure as a theory. Analyzing grounded theory from predictionist and accommodationist views, as well as focusing on the issue of inference to the best explanation, it is concluded that this form of theorizing is basically accommodationist. Moreover, grounded theory, in terms of providing explanations, is simply a different version of a standard inductive argument. However, grounded theory’s strength lies in its potential to articulate a unique context and logic of discovery.

In this article, the authors attempt an initial exploration of the relevancy of the newly emerging field of mixed-methods research for educational evaluation. They give a brief introduction concerning the intent and variety of mixed-methods designs and models. They focus the analysis on some of the general issues and problems of this emerging field, including the lack of clear-cut procedural rules and differing ontological commitments. However, they argue that a particular form of mixed-methods design called quantitative-dominant sequential analysis might prove useful for some educational evaluation and policy studies.

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The article is an attempt to show that a continuing issue in qualitative research methods is describing and justifying how qualitative data become “evidence” for a claim. Several models from the field of Confirmation Theory are developed and described within the context of a qualitative research example. It is argued that for the qualitative research case, the meaning and application of what constitutes evidence is best viewed in terms of a primary logical distinction.