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.

While it is debatable that educational trends can be fully documented as being cyclical, I would like to resurrect an educational issue that has lain more or less dormant for several years. The issue is the use of metaphor as a pedagogical technique.' I am raising the issue (metaphorically speaking) once again not only because of the fairly recent resurgence of interest by scholars in a variety of disciplines, but, more importantly, because there may be a new way of viewing its strengths and weaknesses within educational settings. My point of view differs rather radically from the issues that were originally raised by Green,* H a y n e~,~ Miller? and Ortony.' The usefulness of metaphors will not be at issue in the present discussion. There are cases in teaching where undoubtedly they are useful devices for getting students to think about certain topics in rather different and, it is hoped, unique ways. There are other instances where they are simply not appropriate, for example, in the teaching of certain mathematical concepts.I am interested in the case where metaphors are used in instructional settings as a means of providing This is not to say that metaphors are unique types of explanations, but rather that they are a means of trying to make an explanation, in a very broad sense of that term, or a way of "translating" a specific type of explanation (i.e., deductive, genetic, teleological, etc.) by way of metaphor. On this view, then, I am interested in examining the role of metaphors in the instructional setting but, as will be shown, in a rather nonconventionai manner. In addition to the literature cited, the contributions of Petrie7 and Green' are pivotal in understanding the use of metaphors as a deliberate pedagogical technique to bring about some form of learning. For Petrie,

This study provides an ethnographic account of a mobile home park with specific attention upon the lives of adolescents living in the park and attending a local suburban high school. A symbolic interactionist perspective is utilized. Historical factors leading to the mobile home experience, as well as present policies at the local, state, and federal levels, perpetuate the outsider status of the mobile home park dweller. The mobile home unit and the mobile home park defy conventional categories and are thus “polluted”; an extension of this attitude comes to attach to the consumer of the mobile home experience as likewise being polluted or undesirable. Furthermore, the park dweller appears in the eyes of the American “mainstreamer” to fail to uphold an important symbolic value: the sacred site-built house. Park students are shunned in the school and, when at home, tolerate an adversary relationship with park management. An aura of fear in the park is reflected in the passivity on the part of the tenants. Most importantly, his lack of belonging is an obstacle to the self-image of the park adolescent. He is considered profane in one-to-one relations and becomes part of a new minority group (the mobile home park dweller) in terms of other group relations.