Hello everyone, thank you for joining this presentation. The topic of discussion here is research paradigms or philosophy of research. There are two main research paradigms positivism and post-positivism.
Post-positivism paradigm include interpretivism or also called constructivism and pragmatism. So, let's get started. Authors and researchers have talked about two or three other paradigms, but they are part of or related to these three main paradigms.
Before learning to research paradigms, it is important to have an idea of three important underlying terminologies, that are ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Ontology is concerned with being or reality. It is claim and assumptions about nature of social reality.
It answers the question of existence, that what is existence and nature of existence, what actually we want to know. Epistemology is about gaining knowledge of social reality by establishing the relationship between researcher and reality. It answers the question of how we can know about social reality.
Methodology is the process, method or layout to find social reality. It is the appropriate research design and the underlying principles to investigate social phenomena. It answers the question of what procedures we use to acquire knowledge about social reality. As we have discussed earlier there are two research paradigms positivism and post-positivism. Post-positivism talks about interpretivism or constructivism and pragmatism.
Let's learn what these paradigms are. Positivism The father of positivism Auguste Comte has given the concept of positivism in 19th century. Positivism is acquisition of knowledge through scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, application and classification. Positivism is attributed to scientific truth, experimentation, facts, objectivity and quantitative methodology.
It supports philosophy of strict empiricism by exploring real situation for the purpose of prediction and formulation of general laws. Ontological belief of this paradigm is that reality is always tangible. That should be proved by our five senses. The epistemological beliefs state that knowledge is gained through scientific methods.
Investigator and investigated are the same. independent of each other and with his or her instrument. It means that researchers do not influence the reality and vice versa.
The methodology of positivism is quantitative research design. The second paradigm is as interpretivism or constructivism. It is a philosophical perspective interested in finding the ways in which human beings individually and collectively interpret or construct the social and psychological world in specific social, linguistic and or historical context. Interpretivism is based on critical reality.
It combines empirical evidence with logical reasoning. The characteristics of interpretivism is qualitative, subjective, humanistic and critical realism. The ontology of interpretivism is that it is based on multiple realities.
Realities are context bound and varies in different context and time. Epistemology of interpretivism state that it is subjective. The knower and respondent co-create understanding. Methodology used in this paradigm is qualitative. It is naturalistic that can be interpreted by the researcher with logical reasoning.
Third paradigm is pragmatism. Pragmatism is concerned with practical issues. Pragmatists are not driven by rules but by the desire to achieve their goals.
They are called fallibilists who see knowledge as practical and useful that helps in getting things done. Pragmatics can combine both positivism and interpretivism approaches within the scope of a single research according to the nature of research question. The ontological belief of this paradigm is that the reality is multi-dimensional and practical, that is context-based.
Epistemological beliefs state that knowledge is gained in a practical way. And methodology used in this paradigm is mixed method research design in which qualitative and quantitative methods are combined in an appropriate manners. Here is a quick view of the main differences between positivism and post-positivism philosophies. I hope this video enhanced your knowledge on the topic.
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