Qualitative Research and Evidence-Based Practices in Psychology and Education

The article is dedicated to the relationship of qualitative research and evidence-based movement in psychology and education. We analyze the ways in which they enrich and reshape each other. The qualitative research methods open up additional opportunities for evaluating the social validity of practices, ways of their implementation, and allow taking into account contextual factors in studying the efficacy of practices. To meet the demand to increase evidence, qualitative researchers are developing the principles and procedures of meta-synthesis (as an equivalent of meta-analysis in quantitative research) aimed at integrating the results of many qualitative studies on a specific topic. The article focuses on the role of the qualitative research methods in the development of causal explanation. We follow the realist approach to causality and accept the view that qualitative research is a particular way of identifying causal processes. The explanatory possibilities of the qualitative research methods for the studies of practice efficacy are discussed.