https://educationalresearchtechniques.

com/2015/11/13/philosophical-foundations-of-
research-epistemology/

Philosophical Foundations of
Research: Epistemology
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge. It deals with
questions as is their truth and or absolute truth, is there one way or
many ways to see something. In research, epistemology manifest itself
in several views. The two extremes are positivism and interpretivism.
Positivism
Positivism asserts that all truth can be verified and proven scientifically
and can be measured and or observed. This position discounts
religious revelation as a source of knowledge as this cannot be verified
scientifically. The position of positivist is also derived from realism in
that there is an external world out there that needs to be studied.

For researchers, positivism is the foundation of quantitative research.

Quantitative researchers try to be objective in their research, they try to
avoid coming into contact with whatever they are studying as they do
not want to disturb the environment. One of the primary goals is to
make generalizations that are applicable in all instances.

For quantitative researchers, they normally have a desire to test a

theory. In other words, the develop one example of what they believe
is a truth about a phenomenon (a theory) and they test the accuracy of
this theory with statistical data. The data determines the accuracy of
the theory and the changes that need to be made.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people were looking for
alternative ways to approach research. One new approach was
interpretivism.

Interpretivism

Interpretivism is the complete opposite of positivism in many ways.

Interpretivism asserts that there is no absolute truth but relative truth
based on context. There is no single reality but multiple realities that
need to be explored and understood.
For interprets, there is a fluidity in their methods of data collection and
analysis. These two steps are often iterative in the same design.
Furthermore, interprets see themselves not as outside the reality but a
player within it. Thus, they often will share not only what the data says
but their own view and stance about it.

Qualitative researchers are interpreting. They spend time in the field

getting close to their participants through interviews and observations.
They then interpret the meaning of these communications to explain a
local context specific reality.

While quantitative researchers test theories, qualitative researchers

build theories. xFor qualitative researchers, they gather data and
interpret the data by developing a theory that explains the local reality
of the context. Since the sampling is normally small in qualitative
studies, the theories do not often apply to many.

Conclusion

There is little purpose in debating which view is superior. Both

positivism and interpretivism have their place in research. What
matters more is to understand your position and preference and to be
able to articulate in a reasonable manner. It is often not what a person
does and believes that is important as why they believe or do what
they do.