Webster Dictionary defines paradigm as "an example or pattern: small,
self-contained, simplified examples that we use to illustrate procedures, processes,
and theoretical points." The most quoted definition of paradigm is Thomas
Kuhn's (1962, 1970) concept in The Nature of Science Revolution, i.e. paradigm
as the underlying assumptions and intellectual structure upon which research
and development in a field of inquiry is based. The other definitions in the
research literature include:
- Patton (1990): A paradigm is a world view, a general perspective, a way
of breaking down the complexity of the real world.
- Paradigm is an interpretative framework, which is guided by "a set
of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and
studied." (Guba, 1990). Denzin and Lincoln (2001) listed three categories
of those beliefs:
- Ontology: what kind of being is the human being. Ontology deals with the
question of what is real.
- Epistemology: what is the relationship between the inquirer and the known:
"epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of
knowledge and the process by which knowledge is acquired and validated"
(Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996)
- Methodology: how do we know the world, or gain knowledge of it?
When challenging the assumptions underlying positivism, Lincoln and Guba (2000)
also identified two more categories that will distinguish different paradigms,
i.e. beliefs in causality and oxiology. The assumptions of causality asserts
the position of the nature and possibility of causal relationship; oxiology
deals with the issues about value. Specific assumptions about research include
the role of value in research, how to avoid value from influencing research,
and how best to use research products (Baptiste, 2000).
Dill and Romiszowski (1997) stated the functions of paradigms as follows:
- Define how the world works, how knowledge is extracted from this world,
and how one is to think, write, and talk about this knowledge
- Define the types of questions to be asked and the methodologies to be used
- Decide what is published and what is not published
- Structure the world of the academic worker
- Provide its meaning and its significance
Two major philosophical doctrines in the social science inquiry are positivism
and postpositivism. The following is a contrast of the research approach that
are entailed from these two different philosophical paradigms.
- The physical and social reality is independent of
those who observe it
- Observation of this reality, if unbiased, constitutes
- Behavioral researchers in education and psychology
exemplify an approach to scientific inquiry that is grounded in positivist
- Social reality is constructed by the individuals
who participate it.
- It is constructed differently by different individuals.
- This view of social reality is consistent with the
constructivist movement in cognitive psychology, which posts that
individuals gradually build their own understandings of the world
through experience and maturation.
- The mind is not tabula rasa (blank slate) upon which
knowledge is written.
- The inquiry focuses on the determination of the general
trends of a defined populations.
- The features of the social environment retain a high
degree of constancy across time and space.
- Local variations are considered "noise"·
Study of samples and population
- Generalization: first defining the population of
interest, select a representative of the population, the researcher
generalizes the findings obtained from studying the sample to the
larger population using the statistical techniques to determine the
likelihood that sample findings are likely to apply to the population.
- The scientific inquiry must focus on the study of
multiple social realities, i.e. the different realities created by
different individuals as they interact in a social environment.
- Find a ways to get individuals to reveal their constructions
of social realities, including the person being studied and the researcher.
- Reflexivity: focus on the researcher's self as an
integral constructor of the social reality being studied
- The study of individuals' interpretations of social
reality must occur at the local, immediate level.
- Study of cases: have you learned something about
his case that informs us about another cases? Generalization of case
study findings must be made on a case-by-case basis. In other words,
it is the reader who made the generalization based on his or her own
interpretation: The focus is on the transferability instead of generalization.
Collection and Design
- The use of mathematics to represent and analyze features
of social reality is consistent with positivist epistemology: a particular
feature can be isolated and conceptualized as a variable.
- The variables can be expressed as a numerical scales.
- Deductive analysis: identify underlying themes and
patterns prior to data collection and searching through the data for
instances of them: hypothesis testing
- Focuses on the study of individual cases and by
making "thick" verbal descriptions of what they observe.
- Analytic induction: search through data bit by bit
and then infers that certain events or statements are instances of
the same underlying themes or patterns
|View of causality
- A mechanistic causality among social objects
- Individuals' interpretation of situations cause them
to take certain actions
Lincoln and Guba (2000) made the following distinctions between positivist
and naturalist inquiries.
|Reality is single, tangible, and fragmentable.
||Realities are multiple, constructed, and holistic.
|Dualism: the knower and the known are independent.
||The knower and the known are interactive and inseparable.
|Time and context free generalization
||Only time-and context-bound working hypotheses are possible.
|Real causes, temporally precedent to or simultaneous with their effects
||All entities are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping, so that
it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects.
|Inquiry is value free.
||Inquiry is value bounded.
Baptiste, I. (2000). Calibrating the "instrument": Philosophical
issues framing the researcher's role. Class notes in ADTED 550.
Dills, C. R., & Romiszowski, A. J. (1997). The instructional development
paradigm: An introduction. In C. R. Dills, and A. J. Romiszowski (Eds)., Instructional
development paradigms. Englewood, NJ: Educational Technology Publications,
Gall, M. D., Borg, W. R., & Gall, J. P. (1996). Educational Research:
An Introduction ( 6th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E., G. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions
and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook
of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 163-188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (
2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Smith, P., & Ragan, T. J. (1999). Instructional Design. 2nd ed. John,
Wiley & Sons, Inc.