Historically, the quantitative approach has dominated education research.For a time, the relationship between quantitative and qualitative 
researchers was somewhat adversarial, but gradually there was a trend toward 
rapprochement as researchers began to see quantitative and qualitative methodology as complementary.They 
believed that using quantitative methods in highly controlled settings ignored 
the participants' perspectives and experiences.In 
the late 20th century, however, scholars began to call for an alternative to the 
quantitative approach in educational research (Guba & Lincoln, 1988).