Since the beginning of time people used to have various views and standards for the way that everything around them should be. Throughout the history there existed many examples of the expression of ideas contradictory to the norm and all terrible consequences of such actions. Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, made an attempt to describe the possible apprehension to change. It was mainly focused on the scientific world and the historic nature of the educational research. Any research was considered to be grounded upon one or more scientific achievements that had to be certainly acknowledged by some particular scientific community. Kuhn called these unprecedented achievements paradigms and made them responsible for determining the criteria depending on which one would select and define problems for inquiry.
According to Kuhn, paradigm is characterized as a recognized canon of scientific practice, including theory, laws, instrumentation and applications that suggest a model for a peculiar coherent tradition of scientific research (Mill 1907, 49). Paradigm is also known as some complex cluster of independent concepts, problems and entities that is closely connected to corresponding methodological approaches and tools. They considerably assist scientific communities in creating avenues for investigations, articulate questions and select methods with which to explore issues and define areas for relevance (Corlazzoli & White 2013, 19).
There exist a number of different theoretical paradigms in the literature such as constructivist, transformative, interpretivist, positivist, pragmatism, emancipatory, critical and deconstructivist. Many of them appeared during the past century thanks to the remarkable growth in social sciences research with the purpose of helping scientist to better comprehend the research process. In this paper we will try to provide a critical comparison and analysis of two of the key paradigms for monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment, in order to demonstrate an understanding of which paradigms are most appropriate for conducting MEIA in certain development contexts.
The first paradigm that deserves special attention and has to be analysed here in details is surely positivism. With its roots in the Enlightenment, positivistic paradigm is closely related to the scientific method. Many other research paradigms, in fact, had developed in reaction to positivism. The positivistic research paradigm or scientific method can be viewed as a philosophical stance that underlines the enrichment of knowledge through observable and measurable facts (Ife 2013, 83). It is based on completely rationalistic and empiricist philosophy that emerged with Aristotle, Francis Bacon, John Locke, August Comte, and Emmanuel Kant.
Positivism stuck to the idea that the primary purpose of knowledge was simply to depict the phenomena that all human beings experienced every day. In other words, science had just to study what people could observe and measure. Anything else that steps outside these boundaries, would count for positivist as totally impossible. Since some of people’s emotions and thoughts could not be directly observed and measured, a scientific psychology used to exclude such material from its legitimate topics. In order to foretell humans’ future conduct and possible actions, psychology only required to focus on the positive and negative reinforcers of behaviour. Other additional information such as what the person was thinking, tended to be entirely unnecessary because it could not be measured.
Positivistic paradigm actually represents a deterministic philosophy in which causes apparently designate effects or outcomes. The first and foremost peculiarity of the positivism is based on the fact that its adherents do not rely on any subjective experiences. In other words, positivism appears to be a totally epistemological stance in which sensorial information possesses the same value as veracious knowledge.
Auguste Comte, for instance, believed that positivist methods should be widely utilized in sociology in order to clearly explain humans’ complicated behaviour. The philosopher claimed that positivism had not only to limit itself to the natural sciences, but should be widely used in social sciences as well (Mill 1907, 46). This idea though, was later unanimously discarded due to the appearance of other epistemological stances such as constructivism.
Originally positivist views could be related to Descarte. There are though some scientists, who credit these beliefs to Galileo. Speaking about realistic ontology of positivism, it suggests that apart from the human knowers there definitely exist real world objects. That is to say, there is another objective reality too. According to ontological assumptions, the fundamental aim of the positivistic paradigm is the development of laws and principles that predict behaviours and situations.
Epistemological assumptions have mainly to do with everything distant and objective. In this sense, hard facts are actually an inalienable component of knowledge. Moreover, only the utilization of the right and appropriate methods would lead to the discovery of truth. The representational epistemology also presupposes that people are able to learn the objective reality as well as widely use different symbols to minutely describe and explain it (Nkwake 2003, 94). The positivist paradigm is capable of presenting an objective reality by promoting a reality isolated from humans’ knowledge of it. Researchers actively use such information to draw an analogy between an objective reality and their own claims, as well as establish the simple truth.
Taking into consideration the axiology of the positivism, the research here is considered to be value free. Following strict methodological protocol, it will be possible to deprive the research of any subjective bias. As a result, objectivity will also be achieved. As for methodological assumptions, positivist approaches tended to heavily rely on experimental and manipulative methods. One can observe here the application of such scientific methods that are basically grounded on hypothesis building and proof. It usually involves replication, falsification, testing and quantitative methods as basis for any analysis. Finally, it also serves as an assurance that there exists a distance between the subjective biases of the researcher and the objective reality he or she investigates (Esteves, Franks & Vanclay 2012, 37).
As any other question, positivism has plenty of strengths and weaknesses. Speaking about its strengths, theory can be easily generalized at a larger degree and the data for the same issue with various social contexts can be gathered. Thanks to quantitative approach, it is quite possible to make future predictions. Furthermore, with the help of quantitative data that provide objective information, it becomes really easy and comfortable for researchers to make further scientific assumptions. Lately, due to the precision of Parsimony, a large number of people could be examined, simultaneously saving a lot of time (Burell & Morgan 1979, 39).
Some grains of weakness, however, could be found in empiricism and objectivity. The thing is that empiricism and objectivity are not considered to be suitable enough in social phenomenon which tests human behaviour. Besides, in some particular contexts and specific local situations, produced knowledge would probably be too general and abstract for direct utilization. Some scholars also claim that positivism failed to illustrate some flexibility. Since positivists used to measure and calculate everything, they at the same time proved to be rather inflexible. Consequently, perceiving things as they are, positivists developed a tendency to defy unexplained phenomenon (Creswell 1998, 17).
The second paradigm that has to be discussed is constructivism. There is in fact a great difference between the core ideas of positivism and constructivism. Both of these philosophical stances can be seen as epistemologies with slightly different idea of what constitutes as knowledge. Constructivism, in contrast to positivism, considers that reality presents a socially constructed unit. Exactly this special feature illustrates the apparent difference between these two philosophies.
According to constructivism or else social constructivism, there is no such thing as single reality at all. Unlike positivists, who were true adherents of a single truth and reality, constructivists saw the reality as a subjective creation. All human beings had a tendency to create their own views of the world the lived in. Moreover, such views were often based on each individual perception. Thus, different concepts such as culture, race or gender were firmly believed to be absolutely social constructs.
Let’s now try to prove this point of view discussing, for example, the concept of gender. Contrary to sex, it does not belong to the biological difference between males and females and presents a social construction. The similar social construct is also the expectation of masculinity from males (Creswell 1998, 19). Within this framework, constructivism emphasizes the role of reality as a social reality that is rather subjective, as well as constructed with the help of consensus. This actually serves as true evidence that positivism and constructivism used to be two very different epistemological stances.
The central idea of constructivist ontology is different multiple socially constructed and experienced realities. Glaserfeld (2001, 33) stated that constructivism did not deny reality, but it actually denied that people could reasonably know reality outside of their personal perspectives. The epistemology of constructivism was examined by Campbell and Wasco (2000, 776) from the perspective of feminist research methodologies. In this sense, some possible defects were found in the constructivist paradigm. Scientists concluded that if reality was socially constructed, such social factors as culture, gender or economics were completely insignificant “lenses” but served, though, as agents that shaped how individuals understood their world.
Methodological assumptions of constructivism tried to look for the depth of human beings’ meaning. That’s why the best appropriate methodologies tended to be qualitative rather than quantitative. The most popular activities there were the interaction based constructions between investigator and respondent, hermeneutical techniques compared and contrasted in dialectic exchange and consensus and distillation to build on previous knowledge (Clark 2004, 23).
The constructivism theory is strong in the role where learning serves as personal and connected experience, while the learner determines the meaning of a new presented material (Dorning & O’Shaughnessy 2001, 11). One of the biggest disadvantages of constructivism is that it may be very difficult to construct meaning and build an appropriate knowledge structure. In other words, there would exist some kind of confusion and even frustration.
Speaking about the case study community project, there are some ways, these two paradigms can be actively used. Different qualitative methods of positivism and constructivism, for example, could help to provide accurate calculations of those infected with HIV/AIDS and according to these numbers compute the necessary financial aid provision. With exact qualitative data it will be much easier to organize further actions and establish a working relationship with current heath organizations.
In conclusion, in spite of some disadvantages, positivism and constructivism in fact proved to be useful due to its universal application in carrying out various researches not just in one particular situation.
Reference List
Burell, G. & Morgan, G., 1979, Sociological paradigms and organizational analysis, London: Heinemann, pp. 38-46.
Campbell, Rebecca & Wasco, Sharon, 2000, Feminist Approaches to Social Science: Epistemological and Methodological Tenets, American Journal of Community Psychology, pp. 773-791.
Clark, L., 2004, The journey from post-positivist to constructivist methods, New York: Routledge, pp. 19-34.
Corlazzoli, Vanessa & White, Jonathan, 2013, Back to Basics: A Compilation of Best Practices in Design, Monitoring & Evaluation in Fragile and Conflict-affected Environments, Search for Common Ground, pp. 18-25.
Creswell, JW., 1998, Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, pp. 12-21.
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Mill, Stuart, 1907, Auguste Comte and positivism, London: Paul, Trench, Trubner, pp. 45-51.
Nkwake, Apollo, 2003, Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation, Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London, pp. 93-98.
