A paradigm is a way of thinking about and conducting research. According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007), it is a system of ideas or a systematic set of beliefs together with their accompanying methods that members of the scientific community share. A research paradigm is based on the assumptions, concepts, values, and practices held by a community of researchers (Bless, Higson-Smith and Kagee 2007; Mertens 2010). These concepts guide the researcher as to what literature will be reviewed, methodologies to follow, limitations and cautions to observe when interpreting the results, and the ethical issues to consider during the entire study (Bless, Higson-Smith and Kagee 2007; Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007). A paradigm determines the type of legitimate questions that can be asked and in what context they will be interpreted.
The use of a paradigm in a mixed methods study has roused varied reactions among scholars. McChesney and Aldridge (2019) outline several paradigm stances relating to mixed methods, namely, the pragmatic stance, the dual or dialectical stance, and the single paradigm stance. The argument is that there are philosophical differences between quantitative and qualitative research. Furthermore, each of the two is situated within a particular paradigm. There may, therefore, be problems of incompatibility and justifying the choice and use of a specific paradigm in a mixed methods approach may be a daunting task.
A dual or dialectical thesis accommodates more than one paradigm tradition and mental model, with more than one methodology and type of method. McChesney and Aldridge (2019:11) observe that “it is possible to combine two (or even more) worldviews or paradigms within a single research project and that doing so may generate more comprehensive, insightful, and logical results than either paradigm could obtain alone”. Studies using such a dialectical stance might include some research questions situated in each paradigm (for example, post-positivist and constructivist), thus reflecting the two different worldviews. However, there is still contestation on whether mixed methods research involving more than one paradigm is possible. Teddlie and Tashakkori (2009) argue that the idea of using a single, holistic paradigm for a mixed methods study seems to be the only thoughtful way of resolving methodological and paradigmatic issues. There have been arguments about the incompatibility or incommensurability of different paradigms. McChesney and Aldridge (2019) warn that mixed methods researchers wishing to use a dual-paradigm approach must carefully consider how the different paradigms they intend to use can be interrelated and how the research methods will preserve genuine multiplicity. The dual/dialectical stance, which revealed the incompatibility argument, has given rise to the pragmatic paradigm (McChesney and Aldridge 2019). The pragmatists hold that paradigms may be important for methodology but
84 should not be used to inform research processes. This stance ignores paradigm-related questions by focusing on
“what works”.
Single paradigm research holds that quantitative and qualitative approaches can be put under one paradigm.
McChesney and Aldridge (2019:229) argue that “the single paradigm stance offers space for more varied and purposeful selection and integration of paradigms and methods in order to suit the aims of particular studies”. As a result of the need to look for a paradigm that supports their methodological orientation, mixed methods scholars proposed pragmatism. However, Teddlie and Tashakkori (2009:99) point out that pragmatism is inadequate because it does not specify “which values” or “whose values”. The current study located itself under the single paradigm thesis. To date, a large proportion of mixed methods research has been conducted with an overarching positivist or post-positivist stance (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009).
According to Mertens (2010), the main research paradigms are positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, transformativism, and pragmatism. The major difference between paradigms lies in the nature of ethical behaviour (axiology), nature of reality (ontology), nature of knowledge (epistemology), and the approach to systematic inquiry (methodology) (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007; Mertens 2010; Creswell 2013). In other words, the difference is apparent in the relationship between the positions of the researcher and the subject, the concepts and research, research focus, scope and findings, and nature of data (Babbie 2013).
4.1.1 Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical movement in the USA. The philosophy was articulated first by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James and was later developed by John Dewey (Hartas 2015). Pragmatism seeks to debunk concepts such as “truth”. In this regard, Hartas (2015:41) posits that in pragmatism, “truth is not absolute but relative to time, place and purpose of an inquiry and verifiable as discoveries are made”. As such, Kaushik and Walsh (2019) point out that pragmatism holds that “there are singular and multiple realities that are open to empirical inquiry and pragmatism orients itself toward solving practical problems in the ‘real world’”. As a result, it allows the research to be free of mental and practical restrictions imposed by other paradigms. Pragmatism is the philosophical partner of mixed methods because it does not accept the either/or choice from the constructivism or positivism debate (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009). The lack of acceptance of constructivism-positivism is one of its characteristics. The prominent feature of pragmatism is the search for practical answers to questions that interest the researcher.
85 Pragmatists thus attach importance to the practical use of knowledge. Knowledge is seen as an instrument that guides action and facilitates the adaptation of reality. This is further reiterated by Yvonne (2010:11), who contends that pragmatism holds an “antirepresentational view of knowledge arguing that research should no longer aim to most accurately represent reality, to provide an accurate account of how things are in themselves but to be useful, to aim at utility for us”. In this paradigm, knowledge is viewed as theory and value-laden, and it can influence human values. Knowledge and ideas are seen as artefacts or activities that function as a platform for action and organisation of human behaviour (Hartas 2015).
Methodologically, pragmatism believes that one can use quantitative methods to measure some aspects of the phenomenon in question and qualitative methods for others. Pragmatists suggest that what works to answer research questions is the most helpful approach to investigation, be it a combination of experiments, case studies, surveys, or whatever, as such combinations enhance quality (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009; Creswell and Plano Clark 2018). A pragmatic approach allows researchers to be flexible enough to adopt the most practical approach to address research questions, by allowing this flexibility, there will be singular and multiple realities derived from the quantitative and qualitative research (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2018).
The role of values in pragmatism is essential in interpreting the results. The researchers decide what they want to study based on what is vital within their personal value systems. The topic is explored in a way congruent with the value system of the researcher, including units, analysis and variables that they feel are likely to yield new responses. Teddlie and Tashakkori (2009:90) argue that “values and visions of human action and interaction precede a search for descriptions, theories explanations and narratives.” Pragmatists believe that values play a significant role in conducting research.
Pragmatism was not used in this study because Hartas (2015) criticised the paradigm for being vague and methodologically unsatisfactory.
4.1.2 Constructivism
Constructivism has its roots in the philosophical traditions of hermeneutics and phenomenology. The German sociologist Max Weber is generally credited with being the central influence (Mertens 2010). Many labels have been used for this paradigm, such as “interpretive” and “naturalistic”. This paradigm takes the label
“constructivism” because it reflects one of its tenets, that is, reality is socially constructed (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007; Mertens 2010). Therefore, constructivism considers the cultural and social context that surrounds
86 people’s lives. As such, McChesney and Aldridge (2019) postulate that interpretive research aims to understand the complex world of lived experience from those who live it.
The paradigm is useful for understanding society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding.
Constructivists believe that reality is interpreted through human activity and that knowledge is a human product that is socially and culturally constructed. They appreciate that people make subjective meanings of their experiences as they interact with each other and the immediate environment. Hartas (2015:44) argues that in
“becoming actively involved in meaning-making we assume the responsibility, whereas the acceptance of an objective-based on universal laws, removes responsibility from individuals.”
Interpretivism (or constructivism) argues that value-free data cannot be obtained, since the enquirers use their pre-conceptions to guide the process of enquiry. Furthermore, the researcher interacts with the human subjects of the enquiry, changing the perceptions of both parties (Kivunja and Kuyini 2017). Chowdhury (2014) explains that interpretivist researchers look for the presence or absence of a causal relationship, the specific ways in which it is manifested, and the context in which it occurs. Thus, these researchers go beyond what has occurred to see how it has occurred.
It is believed that while external reality exists it cannot be objectively captured in research. Therefore, the knowledge that emanates from interpretivism is linked to participants and the context of the study. McChesney and Aldridge (2019) thus argue that the findings from interpretivist research cannot be universally applicable theories or laws but they provide rich contextual, situated understanding.
The constructivist paradigm on its own cannot be applied to this study because it relies on qualitative data collection strategies, and its ontology is more qualitative. A quantitative approach dominates this study; therefore, the paradigm’s application to the study is not relevant. Moreover, Mertens (2010) argues that knowledge produced in using this paradigm might not be generalised to other settings, it is difficult to make quantitative decisions, and the researcher’s biases more easily influence results. Therefore, it would have been challenging to employ the paradigm for the current study, which has questions the answers to which need to be quantified.
87 4.1.3 Transformative/Critical theory
The philosophical basis for this paradigm is quite diverse, as it reflects multiple positions. Despite its diversity, the transformative paradigm directly and explicitly addresses the politics in research by confronting social oppression at whatever level it occurs (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009, Mertens 2010). It includes critical theorists, participatory action researchers, feminists, racial and ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities.
There are basic characteristics that make transformativism different from both post-positivism and constructivism.
The transformative paradigm is different from other paradigms because it focuses on seeking human emancipation or liberating human beings from the condition that enslaves them. It is characterised by placing the main focus on the lives and experiences of marginalised groups. The broad and shared understanding of the tranformists is the improvement of lives and relationships between women and men – economically, socially, culturally, and personally. The researcher consciously analyses asymmetric power relationships and identifies factors that work against emancipation in society (Hartas, 2015). Transformative paradigm behaviour results from illegitimate, dominant, and repressive factors. Therefore, the transformative paradigm seeks to determine the illegitimate interests at work in a particular situation and interrogate the legitimacy of those interests (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007).
In this paradigm, objectivity means providing balanced views in a way that bias is not interjected because of a lack of understanding of critical viewpoints. There is also an emphasis on the researcher’s presence in communities to obtain participants’ subjective experiences. For transformativists, values are important as they guide the research function to enhance social justice rather than individual researcher interest. Transformative scholars also emphasise idiographic statements. The researchers attempt to link results from a specific study to broader social justice issues.
Although this paradigm emphasises qualitative methods, quantitative methods can be used, especially related to oppression. Hartas (2015) observes that transformativists challenge a single unifying theory of science and accept diversity by employing many theorists that capture different historical and political situations. The transformative paradigm did not apply to the current study because its ontology focused on human emancipation. The current study sought to investigate the social realities that parastatals face in the management of electronic records.
4.1.4 Positivism
88 Positivism assumes a straightforward relationship between the world and our perception of it. It separates the practice of observation from the observed and requires the demonstration of reality through an objective collection of data. Underlying assumptions of positivism include the belief that the social world can be studied in the same way as the natural world, and that there is a method for exploring the social world which is value-free (Fox 2008).
Positivism emphasises that valid knowledge is obtained through the established scientific method. Positivists, therefore, hold that what cannot be observed cannot be said to exist, so scientific inquiry should be limited to the study of observable behaviour. While the focus on empirical, objective data is indeed appealing, it falls short when applied to human behaviour (feelings, thinking). As such, it can be argued that positivism has a narrow view and is limited (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007; Mertens 2010).
According to Fox (2008), positivism has been applied where observation is used to generate theories and models that can be generalised. It has been criticised for ruling out various sources of understanding of the world, including those emanating from human experiences. It ignores the context and attempts to establish generalities.
Chilisa and Preece (2005) contend that setting is an important component of research and cannot be discounted and that claims of knowledge require full contextualisation. In understanding records, it is essential to understand the influences on how they are created and captured. Positivism for the current study thus fell short in this regard.
Gamlen and McIntyre (2018) dismiss claims that positivism is synonymous with quantitative methods. The authors argue that positivists may rely on qualitative data. What defines positivism is not the form of observational data it depends on but rather its claim that the foundation of all knowledge is observation instead of inference.
The paradigm could not be used in the current study because of its focus on the quantitative.
4.1.5 Post-positivism
The post-positivist worldview underpinned this study. Panhwar, Ansari and Shah Panhwar (2017:253) state that post-positivism is “a certain pluralism which balances both positivism and interpretive approaches”. The post- positivist view of records embraces the record as a socially constructed and maintained entity (Trace 2002).
Therefore, its application to the current study is appropriate for interpreting the social factors that influence organisational records creation and records keeping. Post-positivism emerged as a critique of positivism. Post- positivism claims that social realities need to be understood from the subject’s perspective rather than that of the observer, and in totality rather than in isolation. Post-positivists are frequently interested in uncovering meaning from people about their multiple interpretations of reality; this differs from constructivism which settles for a single reality and subjective beliefs (Babbie 2013). The post-positivism paradigm allows the use of natural settings and contextual data and enables solutions to significant problems (Henderson 2011). Post-positivism
89 emphasises explanations for patterns of behaviour. Unlike positivists who maintain that the role of science is to observe regular physical and social behaviour patterns and not to establish why such patterns occur, post- positivists counter-argue that a previous reliable pattern may be coincidental, therefore vulnerable to change.
Post-positivists believe that no matter what paradigm researchers use, ethics (there should be respect for privacy, informed consent, minimum harm and equal opportunity) should be integral to the planning and implementation processes. While positivists believe that the researcher and participants are independent and that they would not influence each other, post-positivists believe that the researcher’s hypothesis, theory, and background knowledge can strongly influence the study’s outcomes (Mertens 2010). Researchers should try to remain neutral to protect other people’s values and reduce biases.
Post-positivism holds that external reality does exist but can only be known probabilistically because of the limitation of human consciousness. Researchers can discover reality within a certain realm of probability (Babbie 2013). Post-positivism is pluralistic, as it balances both positivist and interpretivist approaches. Panhwar, Ansari and Shah Panhwar (2017:54) contend that “It is a flexible perspective which allows the researcher to use multiple methods to carry out the research according to the nature of the research questions”. Therefore, to learn about these multiple perspectives in the current study, there was a need to quantify and get narratives around records management and information culture. As such, Perlesz and Lindsay (2003) posit that post-positivism is a useful paradigm for researchers interested in some aspects of positivism, such as quantification, yet also wishing to incorporate the interpretive aspects of the data.
The use of post-positivism in mixed methods is based on the view that research strategies should be driven not by a commitment to one epistemological doctrine, but by pragmatic concerns about effectiveness in generating knowledge or solving problems (Gamlen and McIntyre 2018). This is further buttressed by Mertens (2010:78), who maintains that an “epistemological position only determines how methods can be used, it does not prevent the use of particular methods.” There have been debates regarding which paradigm is suitable for mixed methods.
Pragmatism has been the preferred paradigm for mixed methods and has been identified as the most relevant because the researcher seeks to tap on the ability to combine the use of numeric and narrative data (Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2005; Morgan 2014). It has been argued by Gamlen and McIntyre (2018) that mixed methods research designs are well suited to projects informed by the post-positivist worldview because of the post-positivists’
emphasis on explanation. Post-positivists call for descriptions of general patterns of social action made possible by quantitative methods and make sense of what such actions mean to the social actors involved.
90 The post-positivism research paradigm allows the application of appropriate methods of data collection and analysis (Ryan 2006). Many scholars equate it with mixed methods (Ryan 2006; Henderson 2011; Creswell and Clark 2018). Although the current study had a quantitative slant thus falling within the positivist paradigm it was post-positivist in terms of its attempt to determine meaning constructed around electronic records and information culture. The post-positivist worldview is thus compatible with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. It prioritises quantitative data and strengthens its findings with the help of qualitative data. Although qualitative methods can be used within this paradigm, quantitative methods tend to be predominant in post-positivist research. This paradigm employs experimental, quasi-experimental, correlation, causal-comparative and quantitative randomised control trial methods (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007; Mertens 2010).
Post-positivism has been used in mixed methods research by other authors such as Lewellen (2015) whose study examined the impact of the perceived value of records in an electronic records keeping system. Lewellen’s (2015) study is similar to the current study in its use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Both studies employed mixed methods and a post-positivism paradigm. Furthermore, in terms of content, each study attempted to understand the values ascribed to records. However, the studies differ in terms of statistical methods employed, in that Lewellen’s (2015) study relied heavily on factor analysis whereas the current study relied on multiple hierarchical regression. The theoretical leaning of the two studies also differed. In the current study, the researcher used post-positivism because it had aspects of positivism leaning towards quantitative methods and the interpretive model which leant towards qualitative methods. The researcher sought quantification and desired to incorporate interpretive concerns, and post-positivism afforded him such an opportunity.