Paradigms
A paradigm represents a world view that defines, for its holder, the nature of the world, the person's place in it, and the range of possible relationships to that world and its parts, very much as cosmologies or theologies do. Paradigms offer a set of basic beliefs that deal with ultimate or first principles.
Kuhn saw paradigms as "A constellation of achievements – concepts, values, techniques, etc. – shared by a scientific community and used by that community to define legitimate problems and solutions."
Applied to research, paradigms provide the basic system or world view that guides the investigator, not only in the choices of method but in the way in which the question is posed (i.e., ontologically or epistemologically: see below). Paradigms set boundaries around our search for answers. For example, Western psychiatry would not explain a paranoia in terms of demonic possession. Paradigms propose what is important to ask about and so guide the agenda for research.
Links: Summary of
Kuhn's life;
summary of "Structure
of Scientific Revolutions"
Principles of research
in population health
Some related terms:
Ontology concerns the essence of things in the abstract, the nature of reality and how the researcher perceives it. (Onto- derives from the Greek verb eimi, to be). Nominalism or realism are examples; nominalism assumes that the social world outside individual cognition comprises only names, concepts and labels which are used to structure reality. By contrast, realism holds that there is a real world made up of tangible and relatively immutable structures.
Epistemology considers the relationships between the researcher and the topic being researched; what we consider to represent knowledge. Positivism is an example; positivism searches for regularities and causal relationships that predict and explain what happens in the world.
Axiology refers to the role of values in the research process.
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