[Music] hi everybody Welcome to a simple overview of research paradigms which includes positivism interpretivism and pragmatism if you're watching this video you're probably conducting research or you might be writing a PhD as a doctoral student and I'll explain how research paradigms fit into your thesis and research study as a simple overview so what is a research paradigm research Paradigm is an overarching framework model guiding your research study and each type of research Paradigm reflects core philosophical assumptions that determine how your study will be conducted research paradigms in social science research usually reflect a positivist interpretivist or pragmatic view so your chosen research Paradigm will be reflected in your research methodology your research design and the methods be it qualitative quantitative or mixed method study so your research philosophy will align to a research Paradigm and they're closely related so how do they fit into athis so at the prior to you presenting your methodology and your methods you will need to examine and present your philosophical stance and that will align to a research Paradigm and your research philosophy links to two branches of philosophy which are ontology and epistemology and they inform your research Paradigm which in turn informs your research design and research methods so you're F focusing down from a larger foundational concept of research philosophy which informs your research Paradigm and your research approach design which might be and methods which would be qualitative quantitative or mixed methods so the branch of philosophy that is ontology focuses on the study of existence and beliefs about truth and reality and epistemology focuses on the study of knowledge for any of you interested especially if you're doing phds I have a free video on my YouTube channel onology and a piece demy linked to practical application that might help so how do you decide on which research Paradigm is going to underpin your study so when we reflect on our philosophical assumptions ontological perspectives relating to the study and the nature of what you're going to examine and what exists in that area um your philosophical perspectives and your ontological stance is sometimes explained using this Continuum at one end of the spectrum we've got a realist perspective where a single reality exists which is independent from the person it's driven by objectivity and deductive reasoning which reflects a quantitative approach and quantitative meth research methods at the other end of the spectrum we've got this relativist perspective and a belief that we derive knowledge subjectively through lived experience and inter interactions with people which reflects a qualitative research approach and qualitative research methods so you've got these two ends of the spectrum reflecting quantitative research versus qualitative research so when you're reflecting on your study is there only one single reality and truth that exists where you just where you want to examine the effects of medication on patient symptoms using a randomized control trial and quantitative research approach for example or do multiple realities exist where you've got perspective from different people and you want to examine um experiences of patients or nurses using a qualitative research approach using interviews for example but if your study doesn't fit with the traditional philosophical dualism of objectivity and subjectivity which was the case in my mixed methods PhD research study I Ed both qualitative and quantitative mixed methods um so the reality of my study was set within a dynamic Ward environment I felt that the reality needed to be interpreted and debated using mixed methods so I used both qualitative and quantitative data and this my study was more multi-dimensional so it didn't fit on either end of that those philosophical spectrums so you need to think about these aspects this is sort of me trying to practically apply it but think about is my study fitting with more quantitative qualitative um or mixed method um approach so it might your philosophical views and assumptions will come in there too and it's going to be something that you're going to need to reflect on and think about reflecting with your supervisors as well um as to what aligns which research Paradigm really aligns with my study when we focus on our philosophical stance linked to the um epistemology and the assumptions the researcher makes about the study of knowledge we think about what's the best way to gain knowledge in our study and and to study this area and as a researcher we reflect on whether knowledge can be measured using Reliable Tools using an objective approach and deductive reasoning which links to quantitative research methods where you might prove or disprove a hypothesis or examine causal relationships or predict and measure differences between groups using quantitative research methods and statistical data analysis or should knowledge be interpreted using a more subjective qualitative approach for example um analyzing narrative from patient interviews then we have knowledge based on the research question or the problem where knowledge is examined using whatever tool and research methods best suit the study to solve the research problem or answer a research question which links more to mixed methods research so there are different ontological epistemological philosophical perspectives to reflect on um and I've discussed um and reflected on three main re research paradigms in social sciences which are positivism interpretivism or pragmatism and you can see there are others out there but these are the three sort of main ones that I thought I'd used to practically apply so positivism as a research Paradigm emerged from positivist science and um whereby a single reality is measured and understood so knowledge is based on what's observed and what's experienced and positivism aligns to quantitative research of approaches and methods which operate on strict rules logic truth predictions so positivist researchers aim to reduce complex phenomena into simple units that can be measured objectively using deductive reasoning and focuses on objective facts in comparison interpretivism as a research Paradigm focuses on understanding subjective meanings experiences of individuals within their social context so it aligns with qualitative research approaches and methods and researchers aim to interpretive interpret qualitative data to find a meaning within a social con context in comparison to both positivism and interpretivism we've got pragmatism which rejects the idea of a single scientific method pragmatists assume that research methods need to focus on answering the research question so single or multiple realities are open to empirical inquiry and depend on the social context and Human Experience so pragmatists assume that researchers should use the best philosophical Andor methodological approach to investigate real research problems and answer research real world sorry research problems and answer research questions based in Social reality which aligns to mixed my mixed methods research study so how do you decide which Paradigm aligns to your study what's going to work in your study it involves research or reflexivity um where you critic reflect on your role as a researcher and how you might impact your research study and part of reflexivity and reflection in your study is looking at your philosophical assumptions um you're going to have your own experiences past experience background social political beliefs um you you'll have an area of interest that all and a philosophical stance will it reflect that so talking through your study um Reading literature reflecting with supervisors is going to help help you design decide which Paradigm aligns which research design which research methods best suit your study so peir and supervisory discussion is very important to increase your understanding of the research problem and the phenomenon of Interest I found that really helpful and you might have a very clear philosophical stance that aligns to a paradigm research Paradigm very early on in your study from the outside set or it might develop later and change and as your understanding increases pieces linked to your role as a researcher and and when you're investigating and doing your literature reviews and also it's it's what's feasible so when I looked at doing a mixed method study um it was very time consuming and actually it's not for everybody and you know it may be that it's not feasible for you to do both quantitative quantitative research um and that you need to narrow it down because of what's going on later on and you might change that Paradigm later um so it's very much independent to you in your research study and what works for you for any of you still deciding which re research methods and type of study you want to conduct I have a free video on my YouTube channel qualitative quantitive and mixed method research and I align the different data collection methods and Analysis methods according to each of those approaches that you might find helpful I also have um a playlist on my YouTube channel under research and it is free videos so you may find some of these videos also helpful and finally I wish you good luck with your research study and if you have any comments at all or any questions don't hesitate to put them in the YouTube comments or if you prefer to DM me privately you can DM me on Twitter and I hope you found this talk helpful