Interpretivism and Positivism (Ontological and Epistemological Perspectives)

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Interpretivism and positivism are two popular research paradigms. To understand both, it is best to start with understanding what research paradigm means.

What is Research Paradigm and How it is Represented?

A research paradigm is defined as a “set of common beliefs and agreements” shared by researchers regarding “how problems should be understood and addressed” (Kuhn, 1962). Therefore, this is a specific way of perceiving the world (a worldview) that shape how we seek answers to research questions. As Guba (1990) argued, a research paradigm is mainly characterised by its ontological, epistemological and methodological dispositions.

What is Ontology and What is Epistemology? 

Before I begin to explain, let me assure you that these are two of the complex (philosophical) terms/ideas that not just me but many other researchers I know have struggled to grasp during early days of their academic lives. Understanding the two concepts makes it much easier to understand the nature of different research paradigms and their methodological applications. Remember, understanding is the key here, not remembering the definitions. As a PhD student (7 years ago), I tried to understand by reading everything I could find but it only gave me a theoretical level understanding. However, once I began to apply the constructs to everyday life and all sorts of academic/non-academic problems that we come across in mundane life, it helped me to become more comfortable with the two terms and their research implications. I still use this in qualitative research sessions to aid student understanding.

Nevertheless, let us begin with definitions. Ontology is the nature of reality (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988) and the epistemology is the relationship between the researcher and the reality or how this reality is captured or known (Carson et al., 2001). Following is my understanding and interpretation of the two terms.

Ontology is concerned with identifying the overall nature of existence of a particular phenomenon. When we seek answers (reality) to our research questions, we are referring to a particular type of knowledge that exist external to the researcher. It is just the way things are. On the contrary, epistemology is about how we go about uncovering this knowledge (that is external to researcher) and learn about reality. So it is concerned with questions such as how do we know what is true and how do we distinguish true from falls? Therefore, epistemology is internal to the researcher. It is how they see the world around them.

For example, if you were asked whether it will rain tomorrow, there are two obvious responses to this question (YES or NO). Can they be any other responses here? What about the relationship between two constructs (e.g. Price and Demand/Advertising and Market Share). We know that there are at least a finite number of relationships. But what is your response if I say that I have asked my partner to stay home, take care of the kids, and manage household things. Is it right or wrong? How many responses will we get from a classroom of students? Some will say “NO” categorically, whilst some international students might say “YES”. There are also some students that say, “it depends” and continue with follow up questions regard how close our extended families live by, our current financial situation, the sort of job my wife does etc. The response to this question unlike the previous is contextually bound and multiple.

The nature of reality (ontological disposition) that the above two questions refer to is distinct from one another. The first question refers to a reality that is dichotomous. There are similar questions in our everyday life that refers to such realities (right/wrong, true/falls, good/bad, etc.). This dichotomous reality exists independent of who is doing the research and two different researchers, therefore, will be able to arrive at same conclusions. We see a positivistic ontology here. On the contrary, the nature of reality that the second question refers to is contextually bound. There are multiple realities that will result depending on who is doing the research and where/when the research is conducted. Again, some situation/problems we encounter in our everyday lives are quite similar to this and refers to an interpret ontology.

Considering the responses given by us (let us say from a classroom of students) to the second question, some students were categorical “YES” or “NO” responses whilst some were less affirmative and needed to understand the context of which the question was asked. These two types of students represent two epistemological dispositions: one having a positivistic epistemology (YES or No students) and the other having an interpretive/constructivist epistemology. This is how these students perceive the world around them and approach to understand the realities that exist in the outside world.

Of course, there are several research paradigms (ontological, epistemological and methodological traditions/ideologies) that we come across in research but prevalently positivism, interpretivism, and pragmatism have attracted interest and debate. Let’s discuss positivism and interpretivism in detail.

Positivism:  

The positivist ontology believes that the world is external (Carson et al., 1988) and that there is a single objective reality to any research phenomenon or situation regardless of the researcher’s perspective or belief (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). Thus, they take a controlled and structural approach in conducting research by identifying a clear research topic, constructing appropriate hypotheses and by adopting a suitable research methodology (Churchill, 1996; Carson et al., 2001). Positivist researchers remain detached from the participants of the research by creating a distance, which is important in remaining emotionally neutral to make clear distinctions between reason and feeling (Carson et al., 2001). They also maintain a clear distinction between science and personal experience and fact and value judgement. It is also important in positivist research to seek objectivity and use consistently rational and logical approaches to research (Carson et al., 2001). Statistical and mathematical techniques are central to positivist research, which adheres to specifically structured research techniques to uncover single and objective reality (Carson et al., 2001). The goal of positivist researchers is to make time and context free generalizations. They believe this is possible because human actions can be explained as a result of real causes that temporarily precedes their behaviour and the researcher and his research subjects are independent and do not influence each other (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). Accordingly, positivist researchers also attempt to remain detached from the participants of the research by creating distance between themselves and the participants. Especially, this is an important step in remaining emotionally neutral to make clear distinctions between reason and feeling as well as between science and personal experience.  Positivists also claim it is important to clearly distinguish between fact and value judgement. As positivist researchers they seek objectivity and use consistently rational and logical approaches to research (Carson et al. 2001; Hudson and Ozanne 1988).

Interpretivism:

The position of interpretivism in relation to ontology and epistemology is that interpretivists believe the reality is multiple and relative (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). Lincoln and Guba (1985) explain that these multiple realities also depend on other systems for meanings, which make it even more difficult to interpret in terms of fixed realities (Neuman, 2000). The knowledge acquired in this discipline is socially constructed rather than objectively determined (Carson et al., 2001, p.5) and perceived (Hirschman, 1985, Berger and Luckman, 1967, p. 3: in Hudson and Ozanne, 1988).

Interpretivists avoid rigid structural frameworks such as in positivist research and adopt a more personal and flexible research structures (Carson et al., 2001) which are receptive to capturing meanings in human interaction (Black, 2006) and make sense of what is perceived as reality (Carson et al., 2001). They believe the researcher and his informants are interdependent and mutually interactive (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). The interpretivist researcher enters the field with some sort of prior insight of the research context but assumes that this is insufficient in developing a fixed research design due to complex, multiple and unpredictable nature of what is perceived as reality (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). The researcher remains open to new knowledge throughout the study and lets it develop with the help of informants. The use of such an emergent and collaborative approach is consistent with the interpretivist belief that humans have the ability to adapt, and that no one can gain prior knowledge of time and context bound social realities (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988).

Therefore, the goal of interpretivist research is to understand and interpret the meanings in human behaviour rather than to generalize and predict causes and effects (Neuman, 2000; Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). For an interpretivist researcher it is important to understand motives, meanings, reasons and other subjective experiences which are time and context bound (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988; Neuman, 2000).

The following table summarizes the differences between the two research paradigms:

Ontology and epistemological differences of positivism and interpretivism 

(Adopted from Carson et al. 2001, p. 6) 

 

Ontology	Positivist	Interpretivist
Nature of ‘being’/ nature of the world   Reality	Have direct access to real world     Single external reality	No direct access to real world     No single external reality
Epistemology
‘Grounds’ of knowledge/ relationship between reality and research	Possible to obtain hard, secure objective knowledge   Research focus on generalization and abstraction   Thought governed by hypotheses and stated theories	Understood through ‘perceived’ knowledge   Research focuses on the specific and concrete   Seeking to understand specific context
Methodology
Focus of research     Role of the researcher                                   Techniques used by researcher	Concentrates on description and explanation   Detached, external observer     Clear distinction between reason and feeling   Aim to discover external reality rather than creating the object of study   Strive to use rational, consistent, verbal, logical approach   Seek to maintain clear distinction between facts and value judgments   Distinction between science and personal experience   Formalized statistical and mathematical methods predominant	Concentrates on understanding and interpretation   Researchers want to experience what they are studying   Allow feeling and reason to govern actions   Partially create what is studied, the meaning of phenomena   Use of pre-understanding is important   Distinction between facts and value judgments less clear   Accept influence from both science and personal experience   Primarily non-quantitative

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References:

• Berger, P. L., and Luckman, T. (1967). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in Sociology of Knowledge, New York: Irvington Publishers.
• Black, I. (2006). The presentation of interpretivist research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 9(4), 319–324.
• Carson, D., Gilmore, A., Perry, C., and Gronhaug, K. (2001). Qualitative Marketing Research. London: Sage.
• Churchill, G. A. (1996). Basic Marketing Research (3^rd Ed.), Fort Worth, TX: The Dryden Press.
• Guba, E. G. (Ed.). (1990). The paradigm dialog. Sage publications.
• Hirschman, E. C. (1985). Primitive Aspects of Consumption in Modern American Society. Journal of Consumer Research, 12, 237-249.
• Hudson, L., and Ozanne, J. (1988). Alternative Ways of Seeking Knowledge in Consumer Research. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(4), 508–521.
• Hunt, S. D. (1983). Marketing Theory. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin
• Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Vol.
• Lincoln, Y., and Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. London: Sage.
• Neuman, L. W. (2000). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4^th Ed.), USA: Allyn and Bacon.

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Dr Prabash Edirisingha

Newcastle Business School

Northumbria University, UK

prabash.edirisingha@northumbria.ac.uk