1. CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION TO THE STUDY
3.2. RESEARCH PARADIGM
The paradigm concept can be traced to Kuhn (1962), and it denotes an accepted pattern as an object for further discussion and specification under new or more rigorous settings (Kuhn, 1970). Put more simply, a research paradigm is “an approach to thinking about and doing research” (Johnson & Christensen, 2014:79). It is a set of beliefs about fundamental areas of reality which results in a specific world-view and it deals with key beliefs taken on faith such as assumptions about the nature of reality
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(epistemology) and methodologies (Maree, 2016). Ontology denotes logical beliefs about the nature of reality, or the nature and existence of social reality, whereas epistemology deals with what constitute knowledge and the ways it can be known (Ngulube, 2015). Likewise, Creswell (2009:6) states that “the type of beliefs held by individual researchers will often lead to embracing a quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods approach.” Consequently, the researcher’s worldview shapes the decisions made about research at every stage of the project, from the types of research questions to be addressed, through the methodologies and methods chosen to gather data, as well as the presentation of results (Given, 2016). The four worldviews that are widely discussed in the literature: postpositivism, constructivism, transformative, and pragmatism
3.2.1. Positivist paradigm
Positivism, “based on the works of French philosopher Auguste Comte, was the leading scientific paradigm until the mid-20th century and it posits that science or knowledge creation should be limited to what can be observed and measured”
(Bhattacherjee, 2012:18). The positivist paradigm generates objective knowledge that is ‘out there’ and considers human behaviour as passive, regulated and influenced by its surroundings (Ngulube, 2015). This paradigm is mostly associated with the quantitative approach which is discussed under section 3.3. However, due to the strict nature of positivism, the current study does not adopt this approach to achieve its objectives.
3.2.2. Post-positivist (postmodern) paradigm
Post-positivism (or postmodernism) arose out of discontentment with the strict nature of positivism. Post-positivism considers reality “as probabilistic, not certain and that one can make logical inferences about a reality by considering scientific observations with philosophical reasoning” (Bhattacherjee, 2012:18). Bryman (2012:382-383) points out that postmodernism “is not easy to pin down because, on the one hand, it attempts to understand the nature of modern society and culture, and on the other, it represents a way of thinking about and representing the nature of the social sciences and their claims to knowledge”. Simply put, post-positivists are deeply untrusting of assumptions that infer a possible arrival at a definitive version of a given reality (Bryman, 2012). Post-positivism suggests that “it is not possible to be certain of truth although rejecting false beliefs can be possible” (Bhattacherjee, 2012:8). Though the
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paradigm is less rigid than positivism, the study did not make use of it due to the same reasons highlighted in section 3.2.1. The postmodern worldview can still be mostly linked with the quantitative approach.
3.2.3. Interpretivist paradigm
Theoretically, the interpretive paradigm lets researchers to observe phenomena through a number of perceptions and experiences to get ‘insight’ and ‘in-depth’
information or truth (Thanh & Thanh, 2015). This stance is concerned with making sense of meaning and purpose that observers attribute to their subjective actions (Bhattacherjee, 2012). Thus, it generates personal knowledge by emphasising empathic understanding of institutions and human actions rather than with the effects that are thought to act on it (Bryman, 2012). Furthermore, Bhattacherjee (2012:103) outlines that because interpretivists consider reality as being entrenched within and not possible to abstract from their social settings, they ‘interpret’ knowledge through
‘sense-making’ instead of hypothesis testing means. Interpretivism allows the researcher to view the world through multiple perceptions and experiences of participants to get ‘insight’ and ‘in-depth’ information or truth (Thanh & Thanh, 2015).
Furthermore, though the paradigm affords the researcher multiple views to pursue knowledge creation, it was not adopted for this study because it did not allow the researcher the platform to use what is justified and works best in a particular situation.
3.2.4. Pragmatic paradigm
This study adopted a pragmatic view to the problem under inquiry to investigate electronic records management in the Limpopo Province police stations. According to Creswell (2009:10), pragmatism as a worldview or paradigm “is not committed to any one system of philosophy and reality, but arises out of actions, situations, and consequen[c]es rather than antecedent conditions.” Pragmatism holds a belief that the design of research should be planned and implemented looking at what will best enable the researcher to answer the research questions; resulting in knowledge that is pragmatic. The pragmatic approach “makes use of abductive reasoning that moves back and forth between induction and deduction first converting observations into theories and then assessing those theories through action” (Morgan, 2007:71).
Johnson and Christensen (2014:80) further posit that pragmatism is “a philosophical stance that subscribes to a belief that what is ultimately important and justified or
“valid” is what works in particular situations in practice and what promotes social
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justice.” It is a problem-centred, pluralistic and practice oriented worldview that accommodates a number of methods, worldviews and assumptions, including different data collection and analysis techniques (Creswell, 2009). Because of its pluralistic nature, pragmatism readily accommodates the quantitative and qualitative research approaches.