in this video we're talking about research philosophy and research paradigms specifically will unpack the three most popular research paradigms that is positivism interpretivism and pragmatism so that you can one understand them and to apply them to your research project this particular video is based on an extract from our popular online course research methodology boot camp in the course we walk you through the basics of a research methodology from the philosophical fluffy conceptual stuff through to the Practical and tactical aspects such as data collection and Analysis methods if you're new to research methodology you'll definitely want to check that out as a thank you for watching this video we've prepared a special discount offer for you and you can find the link in the description research philosophy is one of those things that students tend to either gloss over or become utterly perplexed by when undertaking a dissertation or any sort of formal academic research for the first time and understandably so it's rather fluffy conceptual and up in the air but that said understanding and making intentional decisions regarding the philosophical underpinnings of your research is genuinely important especially within the social sciences so first let's clear up some terminology research philosophy and research paradigms are terms that tend to be used pretty Loosely sometimes even interchangeably broadly speaking they both refer to the set of beliefs assumptions and principles that underlie the way that you approach your study whether that's a dissertation or a thesis or any other sort of academic research project for example one philosophical assumption could be that there is an external reality that exists independently of the observer in other words a completely objective reality whereas an alternative assumption could be that reality is constructed by The Observer in other words a pretty subjective reality naturally these two assumptions would have quite a big impact on how you approach your study and we'll talk more about that a little bit later the research philosophy and research Paradigm also encapsulates the nature of the knowledge that you seek to or expect to obtain by undertaking your study in other words your philosophy reflects what sort of knowledge and insight you believe you can realistically gain by undertaking your research for example you might expect that you could find a really concrete absolute type of answer to your research question or you might anticipate that things will turn out to be a bit more new and let's directly calculable and measurable but another way it's about whether you expect hard teen answers or softer more opaque ones so what is the difference then between research philosophy and research Paradigm well it depends on who you ask different textbooks will present different definitions with some saying that philosophy is all about the researcher themselves while the Paradigm is about the approach to the study others will use the two terms interchangeably and others will say that research philosophy is the top level category and their paradigms are the pre-packaged combinations of philosophical assumptions and expectations to keep things simple in this video though we're gonna avoid getting tangled up in all of this terminology and rather we're going to narrow in on the shared focus of these two terms in other words that is that they both involve the set of beliefs and assumptions that underlie the way that you approach your study so with the definitions out of the way the next logical question is of course well what are the options what are the paradigms well to be honest it's a bit of a rabbit hole as you would expect with pretty much anything for the soccer key related and there are many many different approaches you can take each with their own perspective on the nature of reality and what can be achieved in terms of knowledge gain so to keep things simple we're going to focus on the big three in this video and that is positivism interpretivism and pragmatism understanding these three is really a solid starting point and in many cases if not most cases they'll be all that you really need so let's unpack each member of this Dynamic Trio first up let's look at positivism when you think positivism think hard Sciences physics biology astronomy that sort of thing simply put positivism is rooted in the belief that knowledge can be obtained through objective observations and measurements in other words the positivist philosophy assumes that answers can be found by carefully measuring and analyzing data particularly numerical data as a research Paradigm positivism typically manifests in methodologies that make use of quantitative data and oftentimes but not always adopt experimental and quasi-experimental research designs if this terminology sounds a bit unfamiliar be sure to check out our videos covering research methodology and research design and I'll include the links to those in the description with positivism the focus is quite often on investigating causal relationships in other words understanding which variables affect other variables and in what way and to what extent as a result studies with a a positivist research philosophy typically aim for objectivity for generalizability and for replicability of findings that's quite a mouthful I know so let's take a look at example to make this a little more tangible assume you wanted to investigate the relationship between a particular dietary supplement and weight loss in other words we wanted to find out whether a supplement has a causal link to weight loss in this case you could design a randomized control trial and RCT where you assign participants to either a control group who don't receive the supplement or to an intervention group who do receive the supplement with this design you could measure each participant's weight before and after the study and then use various quantitative analysis methods to assess whether there's a statistically significant difference in weight loss between the two groups as you can see in this example the under lying assumptions and beliefs revolve around the Viewpoint that knowledge and insight can be obtained by carefully controlling the environment manipulating specific variables and analyzing the resulting numerical data therefore this sort of study would be considered to have a positivistic research philosophy this is particularly common for studies within the hard Sciences so much so that research philosophy is often just assumed to be positivistic and therefore isn't even discussed within the methodology section of the paper all right so next up we've got interpretivism now if you can imagine a spectrum of research paradigms interpretivism would sit more or less on the opposite side of the spectrum from positivism the one that we just spoke about essentially interpretivism takes the position that reality is socially constructed in other words that reality is subjective and it's constructed by the Observer through their experience of it as opposed to being independent of the Observer which if you recall is what positivism assumes the interpretivist Paradigm is typically adopted for studies in which the research aims involve attempting to understand the meanings and interpretations that people assign to their experiences as a result these studies often adopt a more qualitative methodology relying on data collection methods such as interviews observations and textual analysis these types of studies commonly explore complex social phenomena and individual perspectives which are naturally more subjective and nuanced there probably sounds a bit fluffy so let's take a look at an example of the interpretivist approach in action let's assume you're interested in understanding the experiences of individuals suffering from chronic pain in this case you might conduct in-depth interviews with a group of participants and asked pretty open-ended questions about their pain and its impact on their lives their coping strategies and their overall experience of living with pain you would then transcribe those interviews and analyze the transcripts perhaps using something like thematic analysis to identify recurring themes and patterns in the responses as you can see in this example the underlying assumptions and beliefs revolve around the Viewpoint that Insight can be obtained through engaging in conversation and exploring the subjective experiences of people as opposed to collecting numerical data and trying to measure and calculate all of it as a result this sort of study would be said to adopt an interpretivistic research Paradigm or philosophy naturally this makes sense because if you're looking to understand people's lived experiences you have to operate on the assumption that knowledge can be generated by exploring people's viewpoints as subjective as they might be now that we've looked at the two opposing ends of the research philosophy spectrum that is positivism on the one side and interpretivism on the other side you can probably see that both of these positions have their merits and that they both function as sort of different tools for different jobs more specifically they lend themselves to different types of research aims objectives and research questions but what happens when your study doesn't fall into a clear-cut category in other words when it involves exploring both hard and soft phenomena well that's where pragmatism comes in as the name suggests pragmatism takes a more practical and flexible approach focusing on the usefulness and applicability of research findings rather than focusing on an oral thing mutually exclusive philosophical position this allows you as the researcher to explore research aims that cross philosophical boundaries using different perspectives for different aspects of this study with a pragmatic research philosophy both qualitative and quantitative methods can play a part depending on the research questions and the context of the study this often manifests in studies that adopt a mixed methods approach utilizing a mix of different data types and Analysis methods ultimately the pragmatist adopts a problem-solving mindset seeking practical ways to achieve diverse research aims so let's look at an example of pragmatism in action imagine that you want to investigate how well a new teaching method performs in terms of improving students engagement and of course learning outcomes in this case you might adopt a mixed methods approach which makes use of both quantitative and qualitative techniques one part of your project could involve comparing standardized test results from an intervention group in other words students that received the new teaching method and a control group in other words students that didn't receive that method that just received the traditional teaching method Additionally you might conduct in-person interviews with students from both groups to gather qualitative data on their perceptions of the respective teaching methods as you can see in this example the pragmatic approach incorporates both quantitative and qualitative data this allows the researcher to develop a much more holistic comprehensive understanding of the teaching methods efficacy and the Practical implications by drawing on a synthesis of both types of data naturally this type of insight is incredibly valuable in this case as it's essential to understand not just the impact of the teaching method on test results but also whether the students actually enjoy the process now that we've unpacked The Big Three research paradigms and to recap that was positivism on the one side interpretivism on the other side and pragmatism sitting somewhere in the middle hopefully you can see that the research philosophy really underlies all of the methodological decisions that you'll make in your study so it's really quite foundational and therefore important to understand in many ways it's less a case of you choosing your research philosophy and more case of it choosing you or at least being revealed to you based on your world view combined with the nature of your research aims and your research questions now we've covered a lot of ground in this video so let's do a quick recap research philosophy encapsulates the set of beliefs assumptions and principles that guide the way that you as a researcher approach your study and develop your methodology positivism is rooted in the belief that reality is independent of the Observer and consequently that knowledge can be obtained through objective observations and measurements on the other hand interpretivism takes the opposing position that reality is subjectively constructed by The Observers through their experience of it rather than being an independent thing pragmatism attempts to find some sort of Middle Ground focusing on the usefulness and applicability of the research findings rather than an All or Nothing philosophical position if you want to learn more about research philosophy and research methodology be sure to check out the grad coach blog alternatively if you'd like Hands-On help with your research methodology you might want to consider our private coaching service where we guide you through each step of the research Journey step by step if you got value from this video please do hit that like button so that more people can find this content and if you're currently working on a research project such as a dissertation or thesis you'll also definitely want to subscribe to the channel for loads of practical tips and tricks to help you fast track your research Journey thanks for watching and until next time good luck you know [Music]