Unit 4-5: Metatheoretical Considerations (I know, it’s a mouthful)
28 Paradigms Extended (added per request)
Created for the Fall 2023 Methods class (so thank your elders)!
PARADIGM (GENERAL)
- Refers to a few overlapping ideas
- A way of seeing and acting on reality
- Metaphors: lens, recipe, box (textbook ex.)
- Starting points of research traditions, but are subject to change through further education or discoveries
- Impacts the fundamental concepts and aims of a field of study
- Paradigms determine how “evidence” is identified in a given discipline.
- Paradigms for this class: Post-Positivist, Interpretivist, Critical Cultural
PARADIGM: POST/POSITIVISM
Buzzwords: predict, generalize
Ontology: realist (reality is fixed and measurable)
Epistemology: objective, one truth (we can know and study objective reality)
Axiology: value-free
Methodology: quantitative
PARADIGM: INTERPRETIVISM
Buzzwords: explore, understand, & interpret
Ontology: social constructivist (reality is both orderly and chaotic)
Epistemology: subjective, multiple truths (co-created realities)
Axiology: value-laden
Methodology: qualitative
PARADIGM: CRITICAL, CRITICAL/CULTURAL
Buzzwords: power, voice for marginalized peoples
Ontology: social constructivist (realism shaped by outside forces)
Epistemology: subjective, multiple truths (based on values and contexts)
Axiology: value-laden
Methodology: qualitative
Detailed Chart
| Paradigm | Positivism | Post-Positivism | Interpretivism | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ontology (What is real? What do we believe about reality?) | Objectivist: reality is tangible. Findings = truth, realism. Person (researcher) and reality are separate. | Modified objectivist. Findings = probably true, transcendental realism. Reality – orderly, fixed, measurable. | Local, relative, co-constructed realities. Reality may be socially constructed, is both orderly and chaotic; subjective objectivity, relativism. Researcher and reality are inseparable (life-world). | Historical/virtual realism shaped y outside forces, material subjectivity. May believe reality is orderly, measurable, objective (like pos and post-pos), or maybe subjective (like interp). |
| Epistemology (What is true? What can we know and study?) | The only knowledge is scientific knowledge – which is truth. Reality is apprehensible. Objective reality exists beyond the human mind. | Approximate trust, reality is never fully apprehended – BUT, we can know and study objective reality. | Co-created multiple realities and truths. Knowledge of the world is intentionally constituted through a person’s lived experience. We can know and study subjective reality as it is constructed, mediated, and biased. | Findings based on values, local examples of truth. We can know and study reality that is either objective or subjective – reality that is interpreted or observed as-is |
| Axiology (What do we value in research and knowledge?) | Overriding goal = “explanation” via subsummation under general laws, prediction. Value-objective research and expert authority researchers. | Overriding goal = “understanding.” Value research where all participants are equal authorities and all perspectives represented. | Value research that includes marginalized voices, and where researchers share power with participants. | |
| Method | QUANT stats, content analysis, experimental, quasi-experimental. | Similar to pos-method, AND concerned with threats to validity. Also, Qual (e.g. case study). | Hermeneutics, phenomenology. Often qual or quant. | Usually qualitative but also quantitative. |
Wait, it sounds like critical is…all the things?!
The critical paradigm is actually very metatheoretically adaptable – except in the communication discipline where only subjective truths and realities tend to be applied. Here is an example of the critical paradigm that is ‘more like’ positivism or post positivism:
In the communication discipline, the tendency is to focus more on subjective ologies, and therefore, in the communication discipline, critical scholars DO NOT emphasize the need for empirical evidence to prove truth. In fact, they often think empirical evidence is antithetical to the critical paradigm. They control scholarship, through publication, based on their interpretation of the critical paradigm.
There are SO many ways to think and talk about these metatheoretical issues.
The goal of this class is to present some that are dominant in the social scientific paradigm (post/positivism, interpretivism) or related to the construction of the social scientific paradigm (critical).