Paradigms

Paradigms are your friend!

Behind the labels are important distinctions that relate to

    * your purposes in the research

    • the nature of what you wish to study (ontology)

1.   • the kind of knowledge you might be able to obtain (epistemology)
   

2.   • the values that inform your research (axiology)
   

3.    
   

“In education (and most social sciences), ‘paradigm’ has a ... general meaning: studies in the same paradigm may have quite different designs, but share basic assumptions about the nature of research...

it is commonly accepted that much educational research seems to fall into two main clusters of approach, informed by distinct perspectives on the research process. Appreciating the distinction between these two ‘paradigms’ offers a good deal of insight into why many studies are carried out and reported in the way they are, and what kind of lessons the reader should expect to draw from the reports. The model of these two research paradigms presented here is necessarily a simple one, but at an appropriate level for those who are new to reading educational research. I will signify these two clusters as being educational research paradigms 1 and 2...” (Taber, 2013: 44).

One paradigm (ERP 1) is associated with characteristics such as:

positivistic

nomothetic

confirmatory

The other paradigm (ERP2) is associated with characteristics such as:

interpretivist

idiographic

discovery

Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

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