2.

The Role of Paradigm and

Theory in research
Role of paradigm
 Paradigm in natural science
• Paradigm: is set of shared assumptions or ways of thinking about
the world. Currently the dominant paradigm is positivism but there is
growing quest of alternatives such as Interpretivism, and Critical
approach
• Positivism: this is the oldest paradigm and underlies what is viewed
as the scientific method or approach to natural science such as
physics, biology, and chemistry metallurgy and has evolved over
400 -500 years during the epoch of Galileo, Bacon and Newton.
• Positivism can be seen as systematic way of doing research
that emphasises the importance of observable facts.
• Even from a social science point of view positivist believe that
people react predictable to their environment because they are
rationale individuals –is this so?
 Positivism continued
• The underlining issue of positivism is that:
• The world is ordered and regulated not random
• We can investigate it objectively
• The first assumption views the world as structured and regulated by laws
and pattern that govern behaviour of things for instance gravity, and the
second assumption is that we therefore are guaranteed of an investigation
that is value free – objective.
• For instance scientist are currently trying to find out if there is a law or
regularity or regular pattern that:
• The measles –mumps –rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause autism
• People who smoke cannabis are more likely to develop brain tumour
• In this case scientist who subscribe to positivism are always working to find
universal laws, patterns and regularities and to achieve this they carry out
experiment to prove or to look for evidence of a cause and effect through
hypothesising that A causes B and then spent time looking for evidence.
 Positivism continued
• Positivism and basic science hinges on three aspects:
• Reductionism: this means breaking down complex
things so that they are easily studied. For instance in the
study on how cigarette cause cancer one would need the
constituents parts of the cigarette such as tar and
nicotine and then study how these interact with body
tissue to cause tumours. When hypothesis is proven it
can be built up into theory.
• Repeatability: Scientist repeat experiment several times
to prove that their finding was not just a matter of chance
or influenced by the researcher’s personality or faulty
equipment
• Refutation: if other researchers can’t repeat the
experiment and get the same results then they refute the
findings but if is stands up then the stronger
 Positivism characteristics
• The world exist independent of humans
• Measurement and modelling: this means one
model and hence the truth world exist
independent of humans
• Objectivity: research is neutral and achieves
internal validity
• Quantitative data analysis; use of mathematical
and statistical analysis
• Universal laws: research looking for
generalisation across the board. External validity
 Criticism of Positivism
• Reductionism: it sometimes difficult to break the component of an important
unit say a family into father, mother, children for one to understand the
family dynamics we obviously need a holistic view. In many instances of the
society especially in primary health care one needs a holistic approach to
deal with social health problems.
• Repetition: this is not always the case in environmental science for we study
fluid items such as animals, plants that change due to some forces related
to inbuilt behaviour that can respond differently to certain external forces. In
these cases contextual analysis and specific study application to that case
only is necessary for instance a study of dam and its catchment area,
pollution in a city
• Generalizability: this is not always desirable but one might prefer particular
study to understand dynamics in that study area say the study of the
Okavango delta which is unique on its own must not be done for the
purposes of generalizabilty.
• One view of the world is not always possible: half full and half empty glass
view
• Regular laws and patterns in the social world might appear to exist in the
social world but these are a construct of people
 Interpretivism
• In environmental science interpretivism aims to deal with the social
issues and the context by which these issues are developed and
constructed by people, and acknowledge that these social realities
are influenced by the social setting
• Characteristics
• Do not prove or disprove hypothesis but try to identify, explore and
explain how all the factors in a particular social setting are related
and interdependent
• They try to understand phenomena through the meaning and the
values people assign to them and try to understand how those value
vary over time and from one group to another or from individual to
the other
• There is strong preference in qualitative data analysis ie the words
people use, the metaphors they employ, the images they construct
 Comparison between positivism
and interpretivism
• .Comparison

Positivism Interpretivsm
validity trustworthiness
objectivity comfirmability
reliabilty dependabilty
internal validity credibilty
external validity transferabilty
 Observation about
Interpretivism
• There fore interpretive research must prove
plausibility of the research findings as a lawyer
in a court of law eg proving to the jury that their
evidence, description, explanation and
interpretation are plausible.
• Criticism of Interpretivism
– It is viewed as non scientific
– Is less well established compared to positivism
making it difficult for publishers to accept finding
derived from the method
– Researchers ought to include a summary of what it is
how it differs from positivism
 Critical research
• Characteristics of critical research
• Emancipation: aim at empowering people rather merely
explaining things
• Critique tradition; for instance were interest on one group
is served at the expense of the other eg managers vs
general workers
• Non reformative events eg technology that aims at
increasing input whilst reducing manpower therefore
reinforcing the interest of the managers at the expense
of the worker is criticised.
• Critical on redundancy: that technology for instance must
take its course and people must follow its rules
 Theory and research
• Reconsidering theory and research
• It is naïve to consider research without a theoretical
grounding for the relationship between the two are
reciprocal. Empirical studies are based on theory
and theories in turn are based on empirical studies
(Sayer 1992).
• Theory is a conceptual framework that provides an
explanation of certain occurrences or phenomena
and further theories are seen as consisting of
logically interconnected propositions.
• Propositions are generalised abstraction about
reality; or general statements about the state of the
world supported by evidence (facts). Therefore
theory prevents fragmentation of knowledge by
ordering and at least identifying a clearly defined
relationship between phenomena. Let’s look at one
social science theory:
 Frustration-aggression theory
 This consist of the following propositions:
• people are motivated by goal
• reaching those goals provide a pleasurable release
of energy
• being frustrated in reaching those goals leads to the
build up of energy
• Aggressive behaviour leads to release of the pent up
energy
• Frustration therefore leads to the occurrence of
aggression as a way of releasing pent-up energy
• The above interconnected propositions explain aggressive
behaviour and we can apply the same logic to explain
aggressive behaviour in football matches, etc
 Classification of research
• Note that researchers sometimes classify research into Basic and
Applied
• Basic research is used to test, support or reject theory whereas
applied research tend to be used to solve specific problems such as
a problem within an organisation and the demise of this is that the
results are seldom published.
• Further to this classification research can be divided into quantitative
and qualitative research based on the type of data that is generated.
• Quantitative research is derived from positivism and is regarded as
formal, objective, systematic process in which numerical data are
used to obtain information about the phenomena under
investigation. It is well suited for cause effect relationship.
• Qualitative research is viewed as the approach in which the
procedures are formalised and explicated in a not so strict manner
but in which the scope is less defined in
 Difference between quantitative
and qualitative research
• Handout
• Conclusion