Method and methodology in interpretive studies of cognitive life

The purpose of our chapter is to contribute to understandings of “mixed methods” in psychology by considering cases in which quantitative representations of cognitive life are used as methodological strategies of interpretive cultural psychology. Although quantification may seem to be at odds with principles of interpretive studies, these studies urge us to think about a different possibility: that such “odds” may derive from ways in which quantification, as a mode of representation, is mapped onto social and cognitive phenomena rather than from any inherent attribute of quantitative methods in general. We discuss two related research projects that suggest that quantification may enable the tasks of interpretive studies of cognitive life when cognitive phenomena are conceived of and juxtaposed in particular ways. We focus on the design and uses of experimental tasks and quantitative comparison-as parts of an overall cultural-historical research methodology-to illustrate moments in which fruitful meshing of qualitative and quantitative approaches has been attempted.