Australian Educational Researcher Vol. 16, No.

3 1989

A L T E R N A T I V E P A R A D I G M S IN
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Philip C. C a n d y

Introduction

In one form or another, doing research seems to be as much a natural human func-
tion as breathing. Cohen and Manion (1985) place research along with experience
and reasoning as a principal way in which people attempt to understand their
environments. Emery (1986) in the introduction to a set of papers on qualitative
research writes:

research ... is an ancient and ubiquitous human activity. Curiosity

about others and the worlds in which they live has always been dis-
played through conversation, asking questions, working together to see
what happens after different kinds of actions are performed, talking or
gossiping about others to tease out intentions and other reasons for
behaviour, clarifying and understanding circumstances; all are funda-
mental research functions (p. i).

It is upon such slender foundations that the whole massive superstructure of

'research' as a formalised, specialised and, commonly, as an institutionalised process
is based. It is beyond the scope of this paper to attempt to survey the vast and
complex topic of social and behavioural research, or even the narrower but still
overwhelming field of educational research. However, it is true that research is far
from a unified and monolithic enterprise, and that there are important divisions
within the research community which affect such vital areas as what is considered
worth knowing, how research ought to be conducted, and what is to count as
evidence in supporting knowledge claims.

Educational Research: Three Different Paradigms

Until comparatively recently, the argument about alternative approaches to educa-

tional research was commonly presented as a simple dichotomy, with pairs of terms
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being applied to the respective paradigms: rationalistic vs naturalistic; positivistic

vs interpretive; rigorous vs intuitive; objective vs subjective and even 'hard' vs
'soft'.
On one side of the debate are those who believe that educational research should
be based on the aims and methods of established science. Educational phenomena are
assumed to be governed by the same sort of regularities and law-like relationships
which characterise the so-called 'hard' or 'naaual' sciences.
On the other side of the debate there are those researchers, notably anthropolo-
gists and sociologists, but also including some psychologists and others, who have
become increasingly disenchanted with this empirical-analytical approach, and instead
have sought to explain how people attribute meaning to their circumstances, and
how they develop and make use of rules which govern their behaviour. This second
major approach to the study of educational phenomena is called the interpretive or
hermeneutic (Bauman, 1978).
In recent years, however, this rather simplistic formulation has been disturbed:
firstly, by the recognition that there are major differences within paradigms, and
secondly, by the emergence of a third broad approach, namely that of critical science.
Within the interpretive approach, a sort of fracture or schism has emerged. Critics
have argued that a knowledge of the meanings which individual actors bring to bear
does not go far enough; that human beings do not live in worlds entirely of their
own devising, and that people generally are subject to influences and pressures that
shape their attitudes and perceptions and yet of which they are often unaware. In
short, they advocate approaches to research which explore how social relations have
developed historically, and how individual people's interpretations may be distorted
by ideological convictions. This third major paradigm is commonly referred to as
critical (Sullivan, 1984).
It appears, then, that educational research has been influenced by three different
intellectual traditions which, for the present purpose, will be referred to as positivis-
tic, interpretive and critical. In the sections which follow, each of these will be
briefly explored, before moving on to a more detailed consideration of how they are
interrelated.

Positivism

Positivism is not a systematically formulated doctrine, but rather a general philo-

sophical outlook which stresses the power of 'positive' knowledge to solve major
practical problems. Although its origins can be traced back to classical antiquity, it
emerged in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century as a potent intellectual force in
Western thought. The term itself is associated with the French philosopher Comte,
who eschewed theological and metaphysical claims to knowledge, arguing instead
that only sensorily apprehended experience could form the basis of valid knowledge
and that, accordingly, knowledge could be advanced only by means of observation
and experiment (Cohen and Manion, 1985: 12). When first coined, the term
k
'positivism' itself had quite positive connotations, being associated with ideas of
 Alternative Paradigms 3

scientific progress and liberation from mentalism. Today, it is a derogatory epithet,

used as a weapon of attack and as a term of derision. There are many versions of
positivism, however most share some common features. These include: (1) the
belief that theory is universal and that law-like generalisations are not bound to
specific contexts or circumstances; (2) the commitment to an objective or dispas-
sionate pursuit of 'scientific truth'; (3) a belief in determinism, or the assumption
that events have causes which are distinct and analytically separable from them; (4)
the view that variables can be identified and defined and that knowledge can be
formalised; and (5) a conviction that relationships between and among variables can
be expressed in mathematically precise ways in the development and testing of
theoretical propositions.
From a set of assumptions such as these flows the implementation of the
'scientific method,' including the specification of hypotheses at the start of research,
the attempt to remain objective and detached from the area of study, the search for
invariant causal relationships, and the attempt to reduce findings to quantified forms.
Lying behind many of these practices is the notion that theory, conceived as a body
of scientific knowledge, can be used to predict and hence to control outcomes.
There can be little doubt that, at least until recently, the assumptions of
positivism, and the practices of the empirical-analytical approach, ha~,e dominated
psychological research. Rist (1977) comments that "quantitative research is the
dominant methodology in educational research. It is more widely published, taught,
accepted, and rewarded in educational research circles than any other approach" (p.42).
This same dominance seems to have extended also to adult education research where,
according to Jennings (1985), "almost all research methodology ... has been imbued
with the values associated with the empirical model .... The dominance that this
model has assumed may reflect the concern of researchers in this relatively new field
to gain 'respectability' through the empirical tradition" (p. 4). Despite its domi-
nance, however, it has become increasingly apparent that "no one methodology can
answer all questions and provide insights on all issues" (Rist, 1977: 42). This is ~
particularly true of certain educational phenomena, such as 'self-direction' in learning,
which are simply not amenable to research in this tradition.

Interpretive Approaches

The positivist paradigm has been subjected to severe critical scrutiny and debate. In
its place, many theorists have advocated a new epistemological framework, one
which aims to produce 'interpretive' accounts of phenomena, rather than law-like
generalisations. Like the positivists, who cover a range of different positions and
perspectives, opponents of positivism also subscribe to a variety of schools of
thought. Nonetheless, they are united in their rejection of the belief that human
behaviour is governed by general laws. Instead, they argue that the social world can
only be understood from the standpoint of the individual actors. Carr and Kemmis
(1983: 88) express it thus:
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... [human] actions cannot be observed in the same way as natural

objects. They can only be interpreted by reference to the actor's
motives, intentions or purposes in performing the action. To identify
these motives and intentions correctly is to grasp the 'subjective
meaning' the action has to the actor.

According to interpretive theorists, human interactions are not governed by

inviolable laws so much as by agreed rules which are consensually validated by
people - a simple example might be the custom of shaking hands as a form of
greeting. Many such rule-governed practices are symbolic, and thus interpretive
approaches are sometimes referred to as 'symbolic'. According to Popkewitz (1984:
41):

at one layer, the purpose of a symbolic and an empirical-analytic (or

positivistic) science is the same: to develop theories about social
affairs. The notion of theory, however, shifts from a search for law-
like regularities about the nature of social behavior to the identifica-
tion of social rules that underlie and govern the use of social 'facts'.

Central to the work of interpretive or symbolic theorists are the concepts of

intersubjectivity, motive and reason. Intersubjectivity refers to the consensual
norms which define what is real or valid in any social situation; motives are the
events or circumstances which cause other events or circumstances (that is, 'because
of'); reasons are the as-yet-unfulfilled expectations which influence behaviour
prospectively (that is, 'in order to').
Positivistic research has tended to focus almost exclusively on 'because of' type
motives, ignoring the intentions, values, attitudes and beliefs which influence people
to behave 'in order to' achieve some desired state of affairs.
Assumptions commonly shared by interpretive theorists include: (1) the belief
that any event or action is explicable in terms of multiple interacting factors, events
and processes, and that 'causes' and 'effects' are mutually interdependent; (2) an
acceptance of the extreme difficulty in attaining complete objectivity, especially in
observing human subjects who construe, or make sense of, events based on their
individual systems of meaning; (3) the view that the aim of inquiry is to develop an
understanding of individual cases, rather than universal laws or generalisations; (4)
the assumption that the world is made up of tangible and intangible multifaceted
realities, and that these are best studied as a unified whole, rather than being
fragmented into dependent and independent variables (in other words, context makesa
difference); and (5) a recognition that inquiry is always value-laden, and that such
values inevitably influence the framing, bounding and focussing of research
problems.
The interpretive paradigm has given rise to certain specific approaches to
research, including phenomenology, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism.
Other methodologies, such as fieldwork, case-study and participant observation are
also commonly associated with the interpretive paradigm although, as Jennings
 Alternative Paradigms 5

(1986) points out, there is a good deal of looseness in the application of such terms,
and in any case such methods are not necessarily tied to any one particular paradigm
(p. 14).
Central to the interpretive methodologies is the need for interpretive accounts to
be 'coherent' (that is, to comprehend and account for insights and evidence within a
consistent framework). Interpretive accounts must also make sense to the actors
whose behaviour is being studied; in other words they must pass the test of partici-
pant confirmation (Carr and Kemmis, 1983: 91). This means that interpretive
accounts in research do not seek to reinterpret the actions and experiences of the
actors, but rather to give a deeper, more extensive and more systematic representation
of events from the point of view of the actors involved.

Critical Approaches

By taking account of the perspectives of the individuals who are the subjects of
research, the interpretive approaches seem to be grounded in people's practical
realities, and moreover they resonate with the dominant humanistic and liberal value
of respect for the person (Lukes, 1973). However, despite these strengths, interpre-
tive approaches to research have not escaped criticism, either from positivists or
from opponents of positivism. Not unexpectedly, those imbued with a positivistic
outlook have criticised interpretive approaches as representing a return to mentalism
and highly subjective and 'pre-scientific' accounts of phenomena. They also object
to "the inability of the interpretive approach to produce valid knowledge in the form
of wide-ranging generalisations or to provide 'objective' standards of verifying or
refuting theoretical accounts" (Carr and Kemmis, 1983: 94).
Perhaps more seriously, interpretive approaches to social research have been
criticised from within, because they do not go far enough. It has been pointed out
that, "like the empirical sciences, the interpretive tradition seeks objectivity and
value-free inquiry into the human realm of intersubjective meaning" and that in
doing so, "many interpretive studies are covert forms of positivism" (Jennings,
1985: 5). In the view of such critics, the fear that the respondent may become
contaminated by the subjectivity of the researcher threatens to reduce the researcher to
a passive role, and the subject of the research again becomes an 'object' of research;
ironically one of the main criticisms aimed at positivism.
A second major critique is that merely describing a situation from the perspective
of the participants, no matter how skilfully and systematically, ignores the fact that
there are certain external features of social reality which are very influential in
shaping that reality. In particular, individuals are often caught up in "crucial
problems of social conflict and social change" (Carr and Kemmis, 1983: 94) of
which they may be unaware. In discussing the epistemology of oral history for
instance, Murphy (1986: 167) makes a similar point when he writes:

just as there is a difference between using language and enquiring into

its use, so the actors themselves need not have consciousness of the
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rules in order to follow them properly; and it is not they whom the
interpreter would wish to interrogate in his research for the consistent
formulation of the rules. Consequently, the ideological and cultural
parameters of social action are not necessarily those which people
articulate, and may lie below the surface of verbal communication.

What is required is a broader and more inclusive perspective than any one
participant, or group of participants, may be able to bring to bear. As Rex (1974)
puts it:

whilst patterns of social reactions and institutions may be the product

of the actors' definitions of the situations, there is also the possibility
that those actors might be falsely conscious .... [Researchers] have an
obligation to seek an objective [sic] perspective which is not
necessarily that of the participating actors at all .... We need not be
confined purely and simply to that social reality which is made
available to us by participant actors themselves.

Those who favour critical approaches argue that, by emphasising the subjective
meanings of social action, interpretive researchers often neglect the relationships
between individuals' interpretations and actions and external factors; ignoring the
fact that social reality is both shaped by, and shapes, the interpretations and percep-
tions of individuals. Critical researchers maintain that research can legitimately look
beyond the perceptions which individuals have, to the factors (often ideological)
which influence such perceptions, for "the very process whereby one interprets and
defines a situation is itself a product of the circumstances in which one is placed"
(Cohen and Manion, 1985: 38).
Cohen and Manion (1985) go on to state that one important factor in such
circumstances is the power of others to impose their definitions of situations or view
of reality upon others. Thus, as Carr and Kemmis (1983) point out, social conflicts
may arise in two distinct ways. On the one hand, conflict may occur simply because
different social groups have conflicting interpretations of reality. On the other hand,
there may be contradictions in the reality itself, yet the perspective of one group is
taken to be more 'real' or more acceptable than that of the other.
When a person or group of people uncritically accepts someone else's definition
of a situation (even if it conflicts with their own experience), they are often said to
be falsely conscious, and the concern with disclosing 'false consciousness' and
identifying contradictions in people's lives explicitly acknowledges the political and
value-laden nature of research. Whereas interpretive approaches may be inclined
towards revealing misconceptions and confusion, while leaving situations
unchanged, "the function of critical theory is to understand the relations among
value, interest, and action and, to paraphrase Marx, to change the world, not to
describe it" (Popkewitz, 1984: 45).
The label 'critical theory' has been applied to a range of phenomena (Carr and
Kemmis, 1983: 129) and it is apparent that, like both positivism and the interpretive
 Alternative Paradigms 7

approaches to research, critical theory is not, and never was, a "fully articulated
philosophy shared unproblematically" (Giroux, 1983: 7). Partly because of this, and
partly because of the inherent complexity of the ideas themselves, it is difficult to
find in any one place a succinct statement of the convictions underlying research
within this paradigm. However, most researchers subscribing to a critical approach
would assent to some or all of the following guiding assumptions: (1) much human
action is outside the conscious control of personal agency, and is embedded in social
conditions beyond the consciousness of the actors involved; (2) any interpretive
explanation makes sense against a background of social rules, practices and beliefs,
and there is thus a 'logic of the situation' which differs from the 'logic of causes'; (3)
unless research is restricted to merely record;.~Jg actors' interpretations and
understandings, it inevitably involves the reformulating or 'resymbolising' of events
or expressions which is an act of construction rather than of discovery; (4)
researchers make use of expert knowledge that potentially sets them apart from the
subjects being researched and which gives them access to a specialised language of
interpretation not accessible to the people being studied; and (5) intentional agency
may be frustrated by social rules, by constitutive meanings of the social order and by
"the habitual sediment of the past", and the core project of uncovering such
constraints through research is one of human liberation and emancipation.
In its commitment to social change (and indeed to political reform) the critical
approach abandons any pretence at neutrality, and recognises that "questions of
ethics, morality and politics are interrelated with science to orient individuals to what
is fight and just in a given situation" (Popkewitz, 1984: 46). The critical approach
seeks explicitly to identify and criticise disjunctions, incongruities and contradictions
in people's life experience. It focuses on critical self-reflection, coupled with action
for change. Such action, however, is not imposed, but is characterised by prudent
decision-making and free commitment on the part of those being researched (often
called co-researchers because of the nature of the relationship they enjoy with
researchers [Groundwater-Smith, 1986]). The dialectical interaction of reflection
combined with action is captured in the notion of praxis. The critical approaches
have become identified with sociological perspectives in research, and in many
respects may be said to 'go beyond' or to subsume interpretive approaches, especially
those based on individual psychology. Critical approaches are more overtly political
than either the positivistic or interpretive approaches, and are directed towards
personal or social transformation rather than scientific 'description'.

Relationships Among Paradigms

In discussing these three paradigms, it has been made to seem that each is a neatly
articulated, water-tight compartment, with clear boundaries which distinguish it from
the others. In fact, the three paradigms do not exist in nature, they are themselves
theoretical artifacts, or constructs: an invention of the theorists who have studied
social science research. Moreover, they are not discrete entities,' but represent
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clusters of assumptions and broad orientations, each one of which encompasses a

wide range of approaches.
In her paper "On the Interpretation of Classroom Observations", McCutcheon
(1981) suggests that these three approaches to inquiry might bedepicted as forming a
triangle:

Figure 1" Approaches to Inquiry

positivistic

interpretive critical

Each axis reflects a shared feature which distinguishes those two paradigms from
the third. For instance, the interpretive and critical paradigms are united by their
rejection of positivistic accounts of knowledge, and by their concern with the
perspective of the actors involved. On the other hand, positivistic and interpretive
approaches often have in common their attempt to be 'objective' about the elicitation
and portrayal of data, yet this is regarded as an unattainable goal by proponents of
critical theory. Finally, critical theory and positivism may share an acknowledge-
ment of wider social and cultural influences, which may be neglected by interpretive
theorists who tend to "weight agents with more agency than they really have at their
disposal" (Sullivan, 1984: 124).
Thus it can be seen that each paradigm has certain features in common with the
others and, at the same time, differs in important respects from the others. Few
pieces of research are ever 'pure' examples of any one paradigm, fitting unequivocally
into one category to the exclusion of the others. Rather,

we can place work along any axis, and indeed within the triangle, by
the degree to which it evidences the assumptions and principles under-
lying each of the three or blends them together. Distinctions can be
made among them by the methods each employs, tlie questions to be
addressed, and the assumptions regarding issueS such as generalizabil-
ity and objectivity/subjectivity (McCutcheon, 1981: 5).

Because these categories are to an extent artificial, the decision to classify a

particular piece of research, or researcher, as predominantly representing one rather
than another paradigm might well be contested by the researcher involved. This is
not to say, however, that the decision to classify research in one way or another is
entirely arbitrary. Although research projects rarely proclaim the paradigm from
 Alternative Paradigms 9

which they derive, it is nevertheless possible to discern from the overall approach
and the dominant 'tone,' some of the ideological biases and assumptions implicit in
the research. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the researcher's preference for
validity rather than reliability, or vice versa. Ideally, all three approaches would
strive for high validity and high reliability. In practice, however, the positivistic
approaches tend to emphasise reliability (replicability and consistency of findings)
while the interpretive approaches are centrally concerned with questions of validity
(closeness to the data, description of phenomena from the perspective of the actors,
and valid, empathetic representation of what is going on). The almost inevitable
trade-off between validity and reliability, especially in qualitative research, is
discussed by Sullivan (1984), who distinguishes distance from relation. He writes
(p. 114):

What must be involved in interpretive explanation is a dialectic of

distance and relation with the phenomena studied. When the dialectic
is collapsed on the side of distance (that is, expert viewpoint), there is
the possibility of a total alienation from what is studied. At the other
extreme, when the dialectic collapses on the side of relation, there is
such a total immersion (if that is possible) that the interpreting
observer has difficulty in separating the forest from the trees.

According to Sullivan (1984), amongst others, it is only the critical paradigm

which manages adequately to maintain the delicate balance between distance and
relation. This contention is hotly debated by advocates of the various approaches,
but as Rist (1977: 45) writes, "this should immediately make apparent how, in the
debates over the relative merits of the paradigms, each finds fault in the other for an
absence of its own strength".

Choosing an Approach

It is this fundamental, and irreconcilable difference in emphasis which leads Rist to

claim that a 'grand synthesis' of paradigms would be difficult, if not impossible, to
achieve. Such incommensurability had been foreseen years earlier by Kuhn (1970),
who wrote (pp. 109-110):

To the extent ... that two scientific schools disagree about what is a
problem and what is a solution, they will inevitably talk through each
other when debating the relative merits of their respective paradigms.
In the partially circular arguments that regularly result, each paradigm
will be shown to satisfy more or less the criteria that it dictates for
itself and to fall short of a few of those dictated by its opponent ....
Since no paradigm ever solves all the problems it defines, and since no
two paradigms leave all the same problems unsolved, paradigm debates
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always involve the question: Which problems is it more significant

to have solved?

It appears, then, that the selection of any one paradigm must be based on its
'goodness of fit' or appropriateness to the subject of the inquiry, and moreover that
any paradigm will have some 'blind spots' which could well be addressed by another
approach. The question; "Which problems is it more significant to have solved?"
must therefore act as a guide to the choice of research approach.

References

Bauman, Z. (1978), Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to

Understanding, London, Hutchinson University Library.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1983), Becoming Critical: Knowing Through Action
Research, Highton, Victoria, Deakin University Press.
Cohen, L. and Manion, L. (1985), Research Methods in Education, (2nd ed.),
London, Croom Helm.
Emery, M. (1986), "Introduction", in M. Emery (ed.), Qualitative Research: Papers
from a Symposium, May 22-23, 1986, Canberra, Australian Association for
Adult Education.
Giroux, H. A. (1983), Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the
Opposition, Hadley, MA, Bergin and Garvey.
Groundwater-Smith, S. (1986), "The Concept of Collaborative Research: A Means
of Breaking Down Divisions between Researchers and Researched", in M. Emery
(ed.), Qualitative Research: Papers from a Symposium, May 22-23, 1986,
Canberra, Australian Association for Adult Education.
Jennings, L. E. (1985), "Paradigmatic Choices in Adult Education: From the
Empirical to the Critical", Australian Journal of Adult Education, 25(2), pp. 3-7.
Jennings, L. E. (1986), "Issues for Consideration by Case Study Workers", in M.
Emery (ed.), Qualitative Research: Papers from a Symposium, May 22-23,
1986, Canberra, Australian Association for Adult Education.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (2nd ed.), Chicago, IL,
The University of Chicago Press.
Lukes, S. (1973), Individualism, Oxford, Basil Blackwell.
McCutcheon, G. (1981), "On the Interpretation of Classroom Observation",
Educational Researcher, 19(5), pp. 5-10.
Murphy, J. (1986), "The Voice of Memory: History, Autobiography and Oral
Memory", Historical Studies, 22(87), pp. 157-175.
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Social Functions of the Intellectual, London, The Falmer Press.
Rex, J. (ed.) (1974),Approaches to Sociology: An Introduction to Major Trends in
British Sociology, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
 Alternative Paradigms 11

Rist, R. C. (1977), "On the Relations Among Educational Research Paradigms:

From Disdain to Detente", Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 8(2), pp. 42-
49.
Sullivan, E. V. (1984), A Critical Psychology: Interpretation of the Personal
World, New York, Plenum.