Education is a human activity of understanding and emancipation. Education begins with mutual understanding among teachers, students and knowledge. Its primary aim is to emancipate learners’ potentials. Understand the natures and features of processes of understanding and emancipation is, therefore, vital to education in general and educational research in particular. This course is design to familiarize students with the theoretical and practical aspects of research methods, which are design to reveal the understanding and emancipatory features of education. Topics to be covered may include: (1) the nature of qualitative research in education; (2) the theoretical foundation of qualitative research ineducation: hermeneutics, phenomenology and critical theory; (3) methodological features of major branches of qualitative research: ethnography, historical-comparative study, and reflective and critical action research; and (4) case studies of major branches of qualitative research in Hong Kong educational settings.