CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
4.2 Research Paradigm
A paradigm influences how one sees the world; it defines one’s perspective, and shapes one’s understands of how things are connected (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007). The paradigm, ‘generates new concepts and stresses constructing theoretical interpretations’ (Neuman, 2006), thus the researcher does not only focus on a specific question but considers the theoretical paradigm in an intrusive and open-minded way. Student academic support has been shown through the literature as a complex field of engagement, suggesting that there are multiple perspectives that could come to bear on this phenomenon. Hence, selecting a world view regarding this phenomenon is crucial to establishing coherence in the approach to researching the phenomenon of student academic support.
The appropriate paradigm selected, will play a vital role in understanding ‘at risk’ students’ beliefs and how they relate to the university environment from a focused perspective. On the interpretive paradigm, Abes (2009) claims that researchers involved in qualitative research, consider that persons knowingly make their own understanding of the world through experience. I therefore justify making the choice of a paradigmatic position in this study by way of considering it as an angle from where one sees the world, but positioned in theories. In this study the exploration of students ‘at risk’ phenomenon is done through an interpretivist paradigm. The choice of interpretivist paradigm is relevant to the study because it enabled an in-depth probing during interviews so as to get deeper insight into the phenomenon under study and other hidden issues related to challenges experienced by ‘at risk’ students and their experiences of academic support intervention programmes.
4.2.1 Interpretive paradigm
According to Terre Blanche and Kelly (2004), interpretive methods try to describe and interpret people’s feelings and experiences in human terms rather than quantification and measurement. In this study I had attempted to describe the “at-risk” students’ experiences with a view to interpreting meanings that these
participants had given to their experiences. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) suggest that whilst working from the interpretive paradigm, certain demands on the researcher are made. These demands include; “the questions the researcher asks and the interpretations he or she brings to them” (p. 22). In this research study, the research questions and analysis of data elicited from the research questions are guided by the interpretivist approach.
Gerdes and Mallinckrodt (1994) maintain that “the degree to which a given account of the world or self is sustained across time is not dependent on the objective validity of the account but on the vicissitudes of the social process” (p.49). Therefore, for the interpretivist researcher, the process of social interchange in generating knowledge takes on a significant consideration in research with regards to concepts used (Flick, Kardoff, & Steinke, 2004). The implication of this for this research study for the researcher is for the researcher, understanding and negotiating, all through the process of the research, certain awareness that research is an interactive process shaped by the researcher’s own personal bearing. Therefore in this study, I am guided by a clear understanding of the fact that, the possibilities of the societal procedures involved in the research process influence what survives as a valid account (Flick et.al. 2004). Being a practitioner researcher of aspects of my own work and practice, the recognition of this and its impact in the negotiation of my being in the research process was of valuable importance in the conduct of this study.
Therefore, in this research, the interpretivist paradigm will enable a process whereby I relied on the research
“participants’ view of the situation (or phenomenon) being studied” (Creswell, 2003, p.8) while taking into cognition my own influences in terms of experiences and background as impacting on the research. However, as Pan and Tan (2011) argued that our bias and prejudices influence us to see things in certain ways and not others, it is significant to note that in the interpretivist paradigm, the researcher being part of the research process is not thus perceived as being entirely objective (Carcary, 2009).
Interpretivism as Klein and Myers (1999) explains illuminates everyday life experiences of the subject, and in a holistic perspective, it considers various variables including the context of study. Carcary (2009) contended that people cannot be assumed separate from the setting of their ongoing interactions with other people or separate from their interconnectedness with the world. In the interpretivist approach, context is therefore regarded as critical. Hence the interpretivist approach aims to grasp the diversity of subjects’ experiences (Kvale, 1996) within their context from their point of view. In this research, in concurrence with the interpretivist paradigm, qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews and participant observation are used to understand and interpret meanings, actions and situations
Furthermore, an interpretive paradigm seeks to produce descriptive analysis that emphasises deep, interpretive understanding of a social phenomenon – it does not concern itself with a search for broadly applicable laws and
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rules (Cohen et al., 2000). I believe that the reality to be studied consists of people’s subjective experiences of the external world; this study will thus focus on inter-subjective experiences using an interactional epistemological stance towards reality, and will rely on methodologies such as in-depth individual interviews, focus group and document analysis.
Yom (2014) breakdown three paradigms into three aspects: First of all the majority of paradigms have Ontology: the idea about how we interpret “nature and ourselves as human beings”. Secondly, each paradigm consists of Epistemology: the idea of knowing and this different kind of knowledge is more suitable for diverse kinds of things or beings. It also indicates that knowledge a simple consideration of realism or a by-product of research methods. Thirdly, Axiology: the idea of giving reasons about the importance of what we study and the ultimate gain out of this effort for ourselves and our subject of learning.
4.2.2 Comparison between research paradigms: Basic beliefs associated with the major paradigms Basic beliefs Positivist/Post
positivist
Interpretive Critical theory Ontology (nature
of reality)
One reality: knowable within probability
Multiple, socially - constructed realities
Multiple realities shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, gender, and disability values
Epistemology
(nature of
knowledge;
relation between the knower and would be known)
Objectivity is important : researcher manipulates and observes in a dispassionate,
objective manner
Interactive link between
researcher and
participants; values are made explicit: created findings
Interactive link between researcher and participants; knowledge is socially and historically situated
Methodology (approach to systematic
inquiry)
Quantitative (primarily);
interventionist;
decontextualised
Qualitative (primarily) hermeneutical; dialectical;
contextual factors are described
More emphasis on qualitative (dialogic) but qualitative design could be used : contextual and historical factors are described especially as they relate to oppression
Table 2: Source: Adapted from Guba and Lincoln (1994)
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