Women's Decision-Making And Factors Affecting Their Choice Of ...

observable behaviour are used (Holloway 1997; Taylor and Bogdan 1984). The
aim is to obtain nuances of descriptions from the participants' perspective about
the subject of the research.
The view of qualitative research is that human behaviour can be better
understood in the setting in which it occurs (Guba and Lincoln 1994; Lincoln and
Guba 1985). It is necessary, therefore, to describe experiences within their natural
context to generate theory capable of explaining that behaviour, while at the same
time preserving the meaning of the experience. Qualitative research is inductive;
concepts, insights, and understandings are developed from patterns in the data
(Taylor and Bogdan 1984).
Qualitative research derives from the qualitative paradigm (Creswell 1994;
Patton 1991), which is informed by the naturalistic or constructivist approach
(Guba 1993; Lincoln and Guba 1985). Naturalistic inquiry is explained in terms
of how it addresses questions concerning four philosophical categories of
ontology, epistemology, logic and teleology (Creswell 1998; Maylcut and
Morehouse 1994). The questions are answered by a set of postulates, or axioms,
which make a claim for a way of conducting research. A postulate is something
that is stipulated and given the status of acceptance in order to get on with the task
at hand (Maylcut and Morehouse 1994). Postulates, therefore, provide the
platform for conducting research, by shaping the way researchers approach
problems, the methods they use to collect data, and the type of problems they
choose to investigate.
The first philosophical area is ontology, which deals with assumptions
relating to the nature of reality. One key ontological question is about the nature
of reality. Naturalistic inquiry posits that there are multiple realities, which are
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