The research paradigms they have varied throughout history. A paradigm is a set of attitudes, beliefs, ways of seeing reality with which researchers decide to approach the study of what surrounds them. Therefore, it is a role model.
These paradigms guide professionals and dictate what kind of problems to deal with. Examples of research paradigms are positivism, the interpretive paradigm, sociocritical, constructivism, or historical materialism.
The paradigms have changed according to the transformations that society has undergone. The nature of the disciplines (exact sciences vs. social sciences, for example) forced us to look for other ways to access knowledge and to interpret the results of research.
A paradigm shift entails a whole transformation in the vision of the world, in the cosmology of a culture, in the tacit agreements to which the various scientific communities have reached, and responds to a great extent to the new needs of a society..
| Positivism | Postpositivism | Sociocritical | | Historical materialism | |
| Basis | Scientific knowledge is the only true. | The theories, hypotheses, past and values of the researcher can influence what is observed. | Critical self-reflection. Knowledge comes from communities. | Reality is built by whoever observes it. | History is the result of material rather than ideal conditions. The changes are produced by the modes of production and the class struggle. |
| Characteristics | Knowledge is empirical, scientific, objective. Look for the causes. | Multimethodic, subjective character of knowledge, inductive, reality is interpreted. | Reality is built and shared, shared values, empowered individuals. | Active subject, non-objective reality. | The economy is the basis of social history, the means of production determine the structure. |
| Methods | Hypothetical-deductive method. | Hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethnographic method, discourse analysis, action research. | Action research, collaborative research and participant research. | Inductive method, deductive method. | Dialectical-critical method. |
| Techniques | Standardized tests, questionnaires, inventories, checklists, etc.. | Interviews, written personal experiences, life stories, among others. | Participatory diagnostics. | Practices that promote collaborative environments. | Statistics, data from institutions, documents, etc.. |
Positivism was born with Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and his book Discourse on the positivist spirit (1849), who establishes the first great paradigm in research.
Positivism is based on the measurement of reality and began in natural or physical investigations, later leading to social investigations.
Positivism affirms that all knowledge arises from experience, and that there is no a priori knowledge.
It affirms that everything can be demonstrated by means of the scientific method. Seeks the systematization of knowledge, the verifiable, the measurable and replicable.
It maintains that the scientific method is applicable to any discipline, both scientific and social.
It states that the interpretations are not important, but the documented evidence. That is, it leaves aside everything that cannot be objectively supported.
Formulate generalizations and want to find the causes of phenomena.
The method on which positivism is based is hypothetical-deductive: particular cases are subordinated in search of general laws. The scientific method is applied, but since social reality is the object of study, statistics are used, obtained through observation.
This leads to a methodological reductionism in social research, since the method is not adapted to the object of study, but it is this that must be adapted to the method. It must start from a significant sample to achieve generalizability of the results.
The positivist paradigm uses techniques to collect data: questionnaires, checklists, inventories, standardized tests (to measure different parameters, for example, job satisfaction, stress levels, personality types, etc.).
Behaviors are observed through registration cards, systematic annotation of behaviors, observable situations (with categories or subcategories). Statistics analysis.
It is also called the postpositivist paradigm or qualitative paradigm. It is born as an alternative to positivism, since it understands that there are problems and situations that cannot be satisfactorily explained from the positivist perspective, especially cultural phenomena.
It is characteristic of disciplines such as anthropology and various other social sciences. Its objective is to understand social processes by interpreting meanings, thoughts and actions. Nor does it seek generalizations but rather to understand the phenomena.
It affirms that human beings do not "discover" knowledge, rather they "construct" it, since they conceptualize, make models and schemes to give meaning to the experience, and verify and modify knowledge if new experiences arise..
In this way, we all learn through the interrelation with the physical, social and cultural reality that surrounds us..
Use various methods to obtain data and information.
It considers that the study subjects bring their beliefs, values, intentions or motivations to the investigation. The investigator must take these factors into account.
In accordance with the previous point, the researcher must interpret the different contexts of the people studied.
For the interpretive paradigm, reality is dynamic, holistic and multiple. There is not just one, there are many realities, and all of them must be taken into account to elaborate a possible explanation.
It starts from the general towards the particular, since its objective is to describe and understand what is unique.
The interpretive paradigm uses various methods to approach an investigation. Among them are the hermeneutical method (which interprets knowledge); the phenomenological, the ethnographic, action research, discourse analysis.
It is based on interviews, on life stories, on recordings of conversations, writing of personal experiences. Interviews may not be structured, participants are observed, and social relationship diagrams are drawn.
It emerged in the 1920s as a response to positivism and the interpretive current, at the Frankfurt School (a philosophical school of social research). It starts from the notion that science is not neutral; for this reason, the ideology is explicit.
It promotes critical self-reflection and maintains that knowledge arises from within the communities themselves, from their specific problems and situations. Critical theory is the dialectical result of empiricism and interpretation.
Reality is a notion constructed and shared by the study subjects and the researcher. It has a divergent character.
As it promotes social transformation from within (identifying the potentials for change), subjects feel empowered and capable of changing their problems.
As well as reality, values are identified and shared among all.
The methods used are action research, collaborative research, and participatory research. Observation, dialogue and the active participation of those who participate are needed in all of them..
The socio-critical paradigm is based on participatory diagnoses, where group members establish the problems and solutions
The usual techniques are participatory diagnoses, where the subjects identify the problems of the community and propose possible solutions. Several sessions and meetings are usually required.
This paradigm is part of the philosophical current of the constructivist theory of knowledge, which emerged in the mid-20th century and defended by various professionals (linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, psychiatrists, sociologists, psychologists), which proposes that the reality is to some extent "constructed", "invented" by the observer.
In these terms, reality can never be understood in its entire dimension, because when data is obtained, even if objective, it is always ordered according to mental or theoretical maps..
Reality is built with the perceptions of each researcher, in addition to empirical data. The result will always be an approximation to reality, not an absolute truth.
Jean Piaget called this genetic epistemology, and affirms that a person can develop their intelligence throughout life, thanks to the cognitive development that they can achieve and the interaction with the environment.
It is not only important the information that the subject brings and that provided by the medium or the context. The knowledge process is built by the subject when interacting in the social and physical environment. In this way, a reciprocal interaction is established between the two..
It is one of the most powerful educational paradigms. It encourages dialogue in the classroom, between the students and the teacher. Promotes curiosity and stimulates student initiative and autonomy.
For the constructivist paradigm, reality is never objective and therefore does not exist.
The methods used can be inductive or deductive, since what is important is what the subject learns through his experience, observation and own values, which can be transformed as the research progresses.
They are designed to generate reflection of the experience.
In the classroom, teachers and teachers promote a collaborative environment for students to build their knowledge through social negotiation, not competition.
Practices led by facilitators are recommended to guide and orient the “discoveries” built by the students..
Historical materialism is a materialist conception of history, where changes are produced not by ideas but by the modes of production of a society and by the class struggle.
Although the concept comes from Marx and Engels, the term was coined by the Russian Marxist theorist Georgy Plekhanov. The modes of production condition social, political and spiritual transformations. In the latter sense, he opposes the Hegelian idea that history is determined by the spirit.
It is the most important thing for this paradigm, it affirms that the values, culture and ideology of a society are determined by the production model that it applies. The economy is the basis of social history.
The only force capable of producing historical transformations is the force of production, the means of production (in the hands of the state). These transformations do not depend on individual determination.
The structure is made up of the means of production, the productive forces and the relationships between them..
The superstructure refers to the institutions that make up a society: the state, ideology, religion, laws, etc..
It uses the dialectical-critical method, a rational process to understand reality. Empirical observation is essential.
Use documents and primary sources, statistics, figures generated by institutions (such as ministries of health, etc.) to initiate investigations. It is never based on assumptions or speculation.
There are other paradigms that have influenced the ways of investigating. We talk about structuralism or deconstructionism, which we will briefly explain.
Structuralism became a social science approach to analyze not just language but society and culture. It emerged in the middle of the 20th century.
Structuralism views each specific field as a complex system of various parts that are linked together (in philosophy, the study of the relationships between the parts, and of these with the whole, is called mereology).
In other words, it detects and searches for the structures through which meaning is produced in a culture. For this you can use research on how to cook at a certain time, on games, or marriage rituals, etc..
It could be said that the initiator of this trend was the French ethnographer Claude Lévi-Strauss, who analyzed cultural phenomena such as kinship systems or mythology in the 1940s..
The most important structuralists have been Jacques Lacan from psychoanalysis, Louis Althusser from Marxist philosophy and Michel Foucault from psychology, sociology and history.
It is a term coined by the French poststructuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida, who interprets the word destruktion by Martin Heidegger on Being and Time as "deconstruction" rather than "destruction".
This current refers to the fact that cultural symbols depend on the context of a society, the time in which they are manifested, attitudes and other multiple factors, and that studying each one is how a complete cultural and social understanding can be reached..
It is not destroying the meaning, it is deconstructing it, that is, “taking it apart” into its parts to understand the inner workings..
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