I've never looked at research through this lens before so this was a huge learning curve. I think in my experience I've only ever understood research and data collection as quantitative, which is more numbers-based, and qualitative, which is more focused on personal accounts.
For me to better understand the three research ideologies I wanted to summarize them first based on what my understanding was (which could be totally out of left field so please correct me or let me know how you interpret them!)
Postpositive-full of neutrality and reason, doesn't take into account personal values and often generalizes while knowing it can't know everything or be certain of anything. Testing a theory/identifying something is happening.
Constructivist- understands context is important, more concerned about the social aspect of people, gives me "leading with" vibes when it comes to research as both the subject and researchers are seen as co-constructing the research. Building theory as to why something might be happening or how people might be thinking.
Critical-reality is a product of power and social relations, understanding values and political aspects as it relates to knowledge, social justice, and transformative change are at the center. Looking at social phenomena with a view to transforming something for the better.
I also really appreciated the character references as a nerd which made these more understandable.
For me, I think I align between constructivist and critical as my research ideologies. I want to work with the community I'm researching as co-researchers, I don't want anyone to feel like a subject. I also think if we're not doing research to make change and improvements then why are we even doing it? But, reflecting on how I have to collect data and information for grants and reports I don't think it's really any of these. Most data I'm collecting is all about numbers and results, not about people or making change.
Thank you for breaking down the meanings! It was useful to help me also build my understanding, your explanations were simple and made sense.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think using constructivist and critical research theory would impact the way your org collects data? What do you think your org would go about change with data collection?
Thanks for these summaries, Kelly! I like how you broke them down into digestible ways and even made me think about them a bit differently. Although I'm struggling to "pick" a research paradigm, I also resonated with critical theory and constructivism. I never understood the point of theory if there were no practices with actionable steps that followed. Your reflections helped me understand why critical theory makes the most sense to me as it is the research ideology that leads to biggest possibility of using theory to make a change.
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