Question

brief description of your topic of research interest. Next, state the philosophical orientation that reflects your worldview and explain the epistemological and ontological assumptions of this orientation. Then, explain how these assumptions lend themselves to one or more research approaches.

Answer 1

Interested research topic: Infectious diseases

Infectious diseases have always been an interesting topic of study for me. I enjoy learning about the medical side of it as in how organisms living on or in our bodies cause these conditions. For this course, I would like to explore an infectious disease that afflicts the population in this country. United States has an excellent healthcare system, one of the most expensive in the world, and has systems in place to address and control infectious diseases in the nation. However, it is one of the industrious countries in the world with the highest rate of HIV (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016). HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a complex disease which weakens infected person’s immune system by destroying important cells that create human immune system and fight disease and infections. Currently, there is no effective cure for this disease and that’s why it continues to be a major global public health issue and has reached epidemic level in the U.S.(Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016).As Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2015) reported, an estimated 1.2 million people are living in the United States who are infected with HIV (2015). Moreover, it reported that nearly one in eight of those individuals are not aware that they are infected (CDC, 2015). These undiagnosed cases of HIV can lead to more cases of new HIV infections. As CDC reported that there are approximately 50,000 new HIV cases in U.S. annually (2015). However, this number has come down from 130,000 since the beginning of epidemic in the U.S., but this is still high number.

As Dr. Patton (Laureate Education (Producer), 2016a) explained epistemology is the study of knowledge and inquiring about how we know what we know, whereas, ontology is study of being, existence and the nature of reality. In other words, epistemological assumption investigates what distinguishes justified belief from opinion by being part of it (Babbie, 2017; Laureate Education (Producer), 2016a). Whereas, ontological assumption asks the question what it is that we are studying and trying to find out and if it even exists (Laureate Education (Producer), 2016a). Dr. Patton further elaborated on these assumptions by using an example of a table. Epistemological assumption asks how do we know there is a table or it is a table, whereas, ontological assumption asks how we know if a table exists. That’s why I think these two assumptions are closely related. As Tuli (2010) explains, both of these assumptions lend themselves to any research approach because the framework for any research includes beliefs about the nature of reality or ontological assumption and the theory of knowledge that informs the research or epistemological assumption.

References:

Babbie, E. (2017). Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2015). Today’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Retrieved August 30, 2016, from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/factsheets/todaysepidemic-508.pdf

Kaiser Family Foundation. (2016). The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. Retrieved August 29, 2016, from: http://kff.org/hivaids/fact-sheet/the-hivaids-epidemic-in-the-united-states/

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016a). Introduction to research design [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Tuli, F. (2010). The Basis of Distinction Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Social Science: Reflection on Ontological, Epistemological and Methodological Perspective. Thiop. J. Educ. & Sc., 6(1), 97-108.