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3.3 Rationale for Choice of Research Paradigm
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Chapter 3 Research Framework
Weaver and Olson (2006) stated that the practice of situating research within
paradigms, as well as the knowledge resulting from research processes, must be
considered in the light of their ability to advance the social mission of nursing and to
enhance health and well-being.
In the author’s opinion, paradigms may be visualised on a continuum with positivism
on the far right and constructionism on the far left. The continuum moves from an
objective positive epistemology towards a subjective one, and somewhere in the
middle of this continuum lie the practical and dualist views. Similarly, the
continuum moves on the right from an ontological view of a real, ordered and
structured world to a world of multiple realities constructed by humans on the left.
Somewhere in the middle is the ontology that the world is practical and situationally
responsive. This imagery of a continuum is useful for the researcher when
attempting to frame research within a paradigm or understand which paradigm
shapes the research. If the researcher wishes to test hypotheses, conduct surveys,
make correlations or conduct experiments then the paradigm will be positivism,
which believes in a real, ordered and regular world. If the researcher wishes to
understand the lived experience of a phenomenon, then interpretive or pragmatic
paradigms will underpin the research. If the researcher wishes to understand how
participants construct their reality, attach meaning to their world and subsequently
introduce ways that may improve this experience, then constructionist or pragmatic
paradigms will underpin the research.
The aim of this research is to explore autonomy for older people in residential care.
Consideration has been given to the different paradigms in relation to their
ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies, and pragmatism is deemed most
suitable to the proposed study. Pierce (1838-1914) proposed the theory of meaning,
explaining that a word is rather like a tool. You grasp its meaning when you know
how to use it. He gives the example of how to define “hardness” and explains that
you may not know how to define it but you may know in practice what difference it
makes for a substance to be hard, i.e. you know what hardness means. This he
defined as pragmatism. Similarly, for this study the researcher wishes to understand