George M. Bodner has kindly share PDF copies of Theoretical Frameworks for Research in Chemistry/Science Education. Why use a theoretical framework? The book's editors tell us:
"For qualitative research studies in education, the theoretical framework plays a role analogous to the role of the instrument. A theoretical framework is a system of ideas, aims, goals, theories and assumptions about knowledge; about how research should be carried out; and about how research should be reported that influences what kind of experiments can be carried out and the type of data that result from these experiments. Crotty (1998) defined a theoretical framework as “the philosophical stance informing the methodology and thus providing a context for the process and grounding its logic and criteria” (p. 3). Because a theoretical framework has great influence on the design, data collection, and data analysis of qualitative studies, each qualitative researcher must make explicit the framework he or she has chosen for a particular study." Prologue by editors George M. Bodner and MaryKay Orgill.
You can find the whole book in the Research section or below: