The book offers a critique of positivism and suggests the ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology, and methods that comprise a "naturalistic" paradigm for inquiry.
"[3] In their preface, Lincoln and Guba explain that "We [researchers, scientists, and laypersons] are all so imbued with the tenets of science that we take its assumptions utterly for granted, so much so that we almost cannot comprehend the possibility that there might be other ways of thinking.
"[5] The goal of Naturalistic Inquiry was not to introduce previously unconsidered ideas as much as it was to aggregate, streamline, and sell a "palatable" and "reasonable" alternative to traditional positivist research.
Early criticism of Naturalistic Inquiry resulted from perceived inconsistencies in the subjective nature of the paradigm and the objective evaluation strategies of trustworthiness.
Holt (1991) argues that while Lincoln and Guba "advocate that the field researcher follow certain techniques that increase the trustworthiness of the research (dimensionalized as credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability)...the trustworthiness criterion and associated techniques proposed by Lincoln and Guba and Wallendorf and Belk contradict the nature of the interpretive task, and furthermore, pose insurmountable problems in application.
Later criticism of Naturalistic Inquiry has revolved around presumed orthodoxy in the paradigm that binds post-modern approaches to collection and analysis of qualitative data.
The book (co-authored with her late husband Egon Guba) is a "set of foundational principles for those wishing to conduct social science research within the constructivist paradigm."