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knowledge (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). The following section will outline a positivist
paradigm.
A positivist is one who applies methods of natural sciences to study reality in the social
world (Bryman & Bell, 2003). A positivist believes that there are relationships
between the variables that could be identified and explained (Hesse-Biber & Leavy,
2006). Researchers following a positivist approach state that the objective and the
unbiased results, producing a healthy study, are established only when the observer
and the observed are distanced from each other. The studies argue that the researcher
has negligible impact on the researched (e.g. Anderson, 2009; Bryman & Bell, 2003;
Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). This approach assumes that the relationship between the
researcher and the researched is unidirectional (Goodson & Phillimore, 2004).
Studies have also been found to criticise the positivistic approach (e.g. Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005). Criticism to positivism is based on the assumption that knowledge is
not “out there waiting to be discovered” but rather it is subjective and produced during
the research process (e.g. Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). Grant and Giddings (2002)
further observe that the researcher and the researched do not always maintain an
objective stance and that the researcher is part of the research process. These theorists
are not concerned with producing replicable results but rather they focus on adding
qualitative knowledge about the topic.
The aim of this study was to measure certain behaviours and does not include
proposals for mediating change on conditions. The conditions will remain the same
after the study. Further, the researcher took an objective stance and was not part of the
research process. From the above discussion, it is evident that the methodology of the
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