"Paradigms and Different Types of Research" provides a comprehensive overview of research paradigms and their various types. It explores the philosophical foundations that underpin different research paradigms, emphasizing their role in guiding scientific inquiry. The article delves into the significance of understanding research paradigms, as they shape the assumptions and principles governing research endeavors. With a focus on ontology, epistemology, methodology, and methods, the abstract highlights the diverse nature of research paradigms. Readers can expect insights into how positivism, and post-positivism, interpretivism, criticism and complexity can be applied in information research. The aim is to offer a clear and accessible introduction to the subject, assisting researchers in planning and executing their projects effectively. As well as a classification of the different types of research, accordingly classified, with the correspondent paradigmatic nature of knowledge. which in turn explains the techniques, procedures, types of samples, methods, and language used during research.
When Lincoln and Guba (1985) introduced the idea of paradigms as a basis for understanding different approaches to social science research, they insisted that issues of ontology and epistemology only applied to broad concerns about methodology (e.g. induction versus deduction, etc.), and not to the choice of methods for collecting and analyzing data. Instead, they treated the choice of methods as a mechanical or technical issue.
Of course, their position was frequently either misunderstood or ignored, because people wanted to make a direct connection between post-positivism and constructivism as really being a choice between quantitative and qualitative methods.
But if the primary concern in ontology is the existence of reality, and epistemology is a concern with what can be known about reality, then neither of these big issues says anything about how to collect and analyze data. This gap between philosophy and practice is one of the main reasons why this whole debate has gone out of fashion. Other reasons include the rise of mixed methods research and the reliance on pragmatism as an alternative approach to the philosophy of knowledge.
Bottom line is that what amounted to a new paradigm (in the actual Kuhnian sense) back in 1985 is now a very old and tired set of arguments.
With great respect, I do not agree with your answer, of course this debate has not gone out of style. What happens is that some have made an epistemological mishmash to justify "mixed models of research." In a paradigmatic view of research, methodology plays a crucial role in providing the framework and methods through which knowledge about research is acquired. reality. In this context:
Ontology focuses on the nature of reality. The methodology determines how that existing reality is studied and understood.
Epistemology deals with what can be known about reality. The methodology defines the strategies and techniques to acquire that knowledge, establishing the basis for research.
Methodology represents the set of approaches and techniques used to investigate and understand reality. Their choice is guided by ontology and epistemology, ensuring coherence within the selected research paradigm.
In summary, methodology acts as the practical bridge between ontology and epistemology, providing the concrete tools to explore and understand reality in the context of a specific research paradigm.
The mixture of methods, techniques and procedures must be taken with a grain of salt since epistemological coherence dissipates and knowledge has an epistemological nature and therefore the techniques, methods, procedures, and even language used are different in each paradigm.
Jairo Eduardo Soto Of course it works in practice but will it work in theory?
I just checked the Web of Science and found over 15,000 citations to "mixed methods" for 2022.
Since 2000, there has been huge growth in articles that use mixed methods, which now totals over 15,000 per year. According to Thomas Kuhn's original version of paradigms, this is how new paradigms grow and old ones get abandoned -- people "vote with their feet."
According to Kuhn, new paradigms seldom convince those who have invested their careers in older paradigms. So, the followers of the older paradigm still claim that they are "right," even as everyone else moves on.
Karl Popper, in his 'Objective Knowledge' seemed to resolve the issue about any need to tie epistemology, ontology and methodology together. While Popper is widely identified as a positivist, he did not accept that the existence of the material world could be proven. Instead, accepting its existence was a matter of commonsense - the metaphysical arguments didn't need to be resolved because research proceeds through informed discussion and evidence (his conjectures and refutations). Pragmatism provides a methodological resolution because, once a research objective is defined, any methods that are appropriate to its investigation can be used: qualitative, quantitative or mixed. There is thus no need to be locked into any research paradigm at all.
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