Four Research Paradigms

Evidenced by U.S. elementary and secondary school curricula, students are introduced to the scientific method – the way in which we ask and answer questions about the world around us. Through the scientific method, one must develop a hypothesis, conduct experiments, make observations, and repeat as necessary until a legitimate statement is reached. As a child, I considered myself a future scientist. I was invigorated by the rather immediate and concrete findings of hands-on experiments, but had little patience for tasks that did not allow me to physically engage with my work. Years later, I have come to appreciate the importance social science plays in understanding and advancing some of the most critical issues of our time – social mobility, …show more content…
Sipe and Constable (1996), provide easy to digest comparisons of the four research paradigms, or epistemologies, transforming complex concepts into terms palatable to the novice scholar. When used together, the literature allowed me to develop a confident grasp of each epistemology and discover my appeal and bias towards them. The “Four Corners” class exercise, allowed me to relate my theoretical beliefs to varying epistemological themes. In doing so, I realized my beliefs were largely disbursed evenly between three of the four epistemologies, yet I have approached research from a single perspective. This exercise affirmed the complexity of my views and explained the difficulties I sometimes face when considering social and political issues as well as the scope in developing new projects and evaluating work …show more content…
For example, there are many ways to examine the matriculation of top ten percent students to a specific institution that guarantees admission. One may look at the group homogenously. The collection of this data provides accurate information about matriculated class – the percent that enrolled based on automatic admission. However, we may choose to go further and examine sub-groups within the same data collection. The possible identifiers of the sub-groups are endless, be it school districts, individual schools, income brackets, first-generation status, or race and ethnicity, to name a few. This collection of information provides a better understanding of how different populations experience the same thing – in this case, how populations with the same class rank disparately matriculate to an institution. Knowing the data, and understanding that not all experiences are the same, provides the opportunity to take this process even further. If we choose, we may engage in discovering the mechanisms that create egregious disparities among subgroups, develop potential interventions to level the playing field for the marginalized groups, and use our findings to challenge the system responsible for the disparities. Sipe and Constable (1996), present two characterizations of positivism, interpretivism and