Positivism, Postpositivism, & Constructivisim

Postpositivism

Mantzoukas (2005) KEY POINTS

* In this article I have debated and argued against the notion that biased research necessarily constitutes invalid research.

*On the contrary, and drawing upon the wider literature on the philosophy of knowledge, science and research I suggest that bias cannot sincerely be extricated from research.

*Researchers conforming to the paradigmatic rules of positivism or post-positivism would still need to subscribe to the pretentious assumption that bias can be extricated from research.

*However, researchers conducting qualitative reflective and reflexive studies are bound by a set of different rules that require the researcher’s bias to be included rather than excluded from the study.

*Thus, valid reflective and reflexive studies are biased studies that the researcher’s bias in the form of a reflective commentary is an explicit and integrated part of the study.

Reductionistic, logical, emphasis on empirical

data collection, cause and effect oriented, and

deterministic based on a priori theories.

In what is called the post-positivist correction, the approach to understanding of the world through the scientific method was redirected. This redirection entailed accepting that facts produced using emprical means were suceptable to human conjecture and not based upon rock solid truth. This approach radically changed the way that the scientific method is used to gain knowledge of the world. Human conjecture changes the essence and importance of objectivity by underscoring that our bias as researchers is always present. Nevertheless, postpositivits' retain the belief that an objective truth exists but human values get in the way of being able to see it directly.

It has been said that the vast majority of human knowledge that has been constructed throughout the ages has been proven to be incorrect. In what is called the positivist correction, a movement in the last half of the twentieth century, the dominant view became that knowledge is not based upon rock solid, intangible truth, but rather upon human conjecture. While scholars oriented within this evolved paradigm reject logical positivism, they do not reject the scientific method, Rather, they uphold the existence of a unified truth in the universe that has yet to be found and the path to get there is based upon hypothesis (conjecture) building to theory leading to more hypothesizing until a critical mass of understanding is reached. Those qualitative researchers who orient themselves within this worldview are more likely to position their thinking within a a priori theory and examine and report how that theory changes in practice.

Clifford Hooker list of ten ways

that postpositivist challenged positivism:

1. Theories cannot be reduced to observations

2. Scientific method is not merely logical progression and design

3. Observation is not theory-neutral

4. Theories do not cumulate historically

5. Facts are theory laden

6. Science is not isolated from human individuals

7. Science is not isolated from society

8. Method is not timelessly universal

9. Logic should not be priviliged

10. There is no gulf between fact and value

Constructivism

People create subjective meanings of their experiences. Their meanings are directed toward certain objects or things. These meanings are varied and multiple, leading the researcher to look for the complexity of views rather than narrow the meanings into a few categories or ideas.

Those who orient their thinking within the constructivist worldview acknowledge that there exists multiple realities that are manifested through multiple tangible mental constructions, that are local and specific in nature, and whose meaning relies on the individual groups embodying the realities. In the constructivist realm, knowledge, instead of existing ‘out there’ somewhere to be found is constructed by the individual in an everlasting process of interaction with other people and environment. There may be large groups of individuals that possess the same beliefs based upon a shared reality or there may be just one lone individual that espouses a certain view of the world. One can think of constructivism as being oriented along a continuum where on one extreme end the individual is alone in their belief, and on the other the individual is part of a large group of people with shared beliefs. However, the cognition and worldview of the lone individual is assumed to have been influenced by their social interaction at some point in their lives. Rather than gathering evidence of existing truth in the world, truth is subjective and what resides inside the individual as a result of social experiences and of cultural history.

An important distinction must be made in the constructivist realm in that it is not a set of procedures for teaching or conducting research. Rather, a constructivist world view clarifies (1) a way of approaching the world and (2) a way of understanding how individuals make meaning and knowledge for themselves. In the first realm, the constructivist researcher sees truth and reality as being entirely subjective and oriented within the individual as a product of that individuals social interaction. What ensues is a negotiation of multiple realities, which in many ways is much more complex and difficult than the logical positivist belief that there exists one truth, and because we don’t yet know it means that we haven’t yet found it. The second realm is simply a way of understanding how one creates meaning and understanding individually and only tangentially relates to an external research paradigm. Essentially, this process can be thought of as a sociocultural approach to understanding human cognition that occurs on two separate planes. First, the individual interacts with others to create intermental meaning that impacts psychological organization and is the product of culture and history of that culture. Second the individual operates on a intramental plane where information received in a social context is then in relation to an individuals past experiences. Cazden (2001) refutes the common term ‘internalization’ for this process and uses the term ‘appropriation’. Her reasoning is that internalization suggests that the individual is open to receiving all information in their environment. Instead, she suggests that an individual sifts through information and appropriates it where it fits best within their own knowledge and experience. Taken together, these two approaches to understanding constructivist ways of knowing suggests powerful implications for how a researcher interacts with the participants within their study. Rather than approaching the study with systematic logic, the researcher seeks to paint a picture that is representative of all of the understandings present to represent collective reality. Within this picture, realities interweave and create meanings of their own that are context specific. The researcher considers these interwoven meanings and seeks to report consonance and dissonance within them.

Reflective studies are those that examine bias with the ultimate goal of pushing it aside to make the study more valid. (positivist or post positivist views)

Reflexive studies on the other hand examine bias with the ultimate goal of including it as an element or voice in the study. (non-positivist or constructivist views).

In the process of reflecting on one’s bias, if one acknowledges the power of their bias to redirect the study then the study essentially becomes reflexive. On the other hand, if the reflection upon bias leads to the ‘bracketing out’ of bias, the study remains reflective and attempts to emulate the scientific reductive process.

The essential contested idea between positivist, post-positivist, and non-positivist paradigms is how bias is treated. In the positivist realm, which reached it’s height during the days of the Vienna Circle during the early twentieth century, bias plays no role in the pursuit of truth. This viewpoint maintains that a researcher following in a disciplined and rigorous fashion the tenets of scientific inquiry should remain objective, negating subjectivity at all times. in essence, this worldview maintains that a scientist is able to get a “God’s eye” glimpse of the truth of natural processes in our world.

Three prominent philosophers that belonged to the Vienna Circle, Ayers, Popper, and Wittgenstein would eventually change their positions and present views that would ultimately become known as post-positivism. Post-positivists retain the belief that a uniform truth exists, yet acknowledge that bias is always present and must to be reduced or eliminated to the greatest extent possible. The essential difference here is that positivists believed that a scientist could operate without bias, and post-positivists believe that bias is always present and can’t be eliminated. Thus, the post-positivist scientist/researcher will strive to reduce bias to the greatest extent possible.

Similar to the post-positivist view, the non-positivist’s acknowledge that bias will always be present, yet take an entirely different approach to dealing with it. The non-positivist will embrace the bias that they as the researcher bring to the study and strive to highlight themselves as an equal voice in the study. Rather than trying to reduce or eliminate their voice as, in the effort of being objective and reductionistic, the non-positivist will reflect on their bias and by incorporating their bias into the study will, according to Mantzoukas (2005) take it to the level of a reflexive study.

In this sense, reflection can take bias in two directions: to examine and lead to its reduction, or to examine and lead to its incorporation. The former is associated with post-positivist views of aiming to maintain the scientific process and the latter is associated with the non-positivist view of voicing and embracing bias as yet another voice in the study thus taking it to the level of a reflexive study.

Thoughts on the distinction of “meaning” and “truth” (Donmoyer, 1985)

For a positivist, the distinction between meaning and truth is akin to the distinction between belief and knowledge. Belief would be a proposition that is testable yet remains untested, whereas knowledge would be the empirical evidence that a tested proposition yielded. For the logical positivist, propositions that could not be tested were relegated to the metaphysical realm, which modern interpretation literally means beyond the physical and typically refers to theology and other such subjective beliefs. On a side note, it is of interest to indicate that the term metaphysical as first used by the ancient Greeks was meant “after” physical referring to works that came after the eight volumes named “Physics” by Aristotle. This is an important distinction because it calls to light the inaccurate use of the term metaphysics in modern (i.e., the last three hundred years from the seeds of enlightenment and beyond) as insult to anything that cannot be verified through scientific observation.

For a constructivist, the distinction between meaning and truth is not-existent under the premise that true meaning is what each individual constructs in their own mind and is thus referential. Thus if one wants to gain an understanding of meaning and truth on a large scale beyond the individual, one must look to social processes and systems of belief and how they developed.

Assumptions of Qualitative Research

Ontological: This is a philosophical assumption about the nature of reality. It addresses the question: when is something real? The answer provided is that something is real when it is constructed in the minds of the actors involved in the situation. Thus, reality is not "out there," apart from the minds of actors.

Epistemological: It addresses the relationship between the researcher and that being studied as interrelated, not independent. Rather than "distance," as I call it, a "closeness" follows between the researcher and that being researched. This closeness, for example, is manifest through time in the field, collaboration, and the inpact that that being researched has on the researcher.

Axiological: This qualitative assumption holds that all research is valud laden and includes the value systems of the inquirer, the theory, the paradigm used, and the social and cultural norms for either the inquirer or the respondents. Accordingly, the researcher admits and discusses these values in his or her research.

Rhetorical: This assumption means that the qualitative investigator uses terms and a narrative unique to the qualitative approach. The narrative is personal and literary. For example, the researcher might use the first-person pronoun "I" instead of impersonal third-person voice.

Methodological: This assumption holds that a qualitative researcher conceptualizes the research process in a certain way. For example, a qualitative inquirer relies on views of the participants, and discusses their views within the context in which they offur, to inductively develp ideas in a study from particulars to abstractions.

Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Naturalistic Inquiry

Axiom 1: The nature of reality (ontology)

There are multiple constructed realities that can be studied only holistically; inquiry into these multiple realities will enevitably diverge (each inquiry raises more questions than it answers) so that the prediction and control are unlikely outcomes although some level of understanding can be achieved.

Axiom 2: The relationship of knower to known (epistemology)

The inquirer and the "object" of inquiry interact to influence on another; knower and known are insparable

Axiom 5: The role of values in inquiry (axiology)

Inquiry is bound in five ways: 1) inquirers values (expressed in the choice of a problem, etc.), 2) the choice of paradigm that guides investigation; 3) choice of substantive theory; 4) values of the context; 5) with respect to 1-4, values are either value-resonant or value-dissonant. Values must be resonant to produce meaningful results (situated in context and in agreement of participants).

Positivist assumptions:

1)single, tangeble reality

2)knower and known are separated

3)time and place are independent

4)linear causality

5)value free (value-neutral)

Exogeneous: all aspects are researcher determined

Endogeneous: participants have equal rights

Etic: research with an outside perspective (objective)

Emic: inside perspective (subjective)