Question

Research Methodology

Define Post-positivism and explain its concept, critique and reasons why a researcher ought to understand it.

Answer 1

Definition for Post-positivism Research Methodology: Post-positivism is one of the research methodologies. It is also called as postempiricism. It is a research methodology in philosophy and models of scientific inquiry or simply a nature of the inquiry. It is a metatheoretical way how it stands critiquing and amending positivism.

Explanation on its concept:

Post-positivism is a rejection of the central tenets of positivism in wholesale. A post-positivist recognizes the way scientists and we think and work in our everyday lives are not distinctly different. They further state scientific reasoning and common sense reasoning are the same processes with no difference except a difference in the degree. For instance, scientists follow specific procedures assuring observations are verifiable, accurate, and consistent. Whereas in everyday reasoning, we do not always proceed and follow so carefully.

Rejection of positivist ideas leads to an array of alternative approach resulting in post-positivism. One extreme end of post-positivism is 'critical realism' where there is a reality independent if our thinking about it Science can study and recognizes all observation is fallible and has an error, and all theory is revisable. The second extreme end is 'subjectivism' where there is no external reality as it is all in our heads. All observations in post-positivism are theory-laden. Most of the post-positivists are 'constructivists' believe each one of us constructs our own views of the world based on our own perceptions of it.

Critique:

Its critiques on positivism:

It critiques positivism. In fact, a group of critiques and amendments was named postpositivism applying to both, classical and logical forms of positivism. Postpositivism is not a rejection of the scientific method, but a reformation of positivism to meet these critiques. It is a critique of both, the ontological and epistemological foundations of theories of knowledge. There is a post-positivism benefit in critiquing the positivist mainstream in International Relations (IR).

Its critiques or disadvantages:

* No matter how desirable it may be to open IR to methodological pluralism and relativism, the post-positivist scholarship does not offer us any clear criteria to choose among the multiple and competing explanations it produces.
* It may lead to intellectual incoherence in IR instead of invigorating the academic project it just confuses it.

Reasons, why a researcher ought to understand it because the 'postpositivist paradigm' accepts reality, is imperfect and the truth is not absolute but probable. It allows for observations without experimentation or formulation of hypotheses to be tested. It accepts we will not be able to fully understand reality, ever; however, the best that can be done is it can only be approximated. It tends to provide the worldview for a researcher for most research conducted on human behavior typical of educational contexts.

Positivism is not accepted as a valid approach to an inquiry within social science because of the important reason its neglect of context. However, on the other hand, post-positivism paradigm, to some extent, considers context as an important, and, in some cases, a necessary component to social science research.