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Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative research methods
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I did not find myself strongly sided with any of the four paradigms. I felt that findings from any of the paradigms could provide beneficial information in different areas of education research. Constructivist researchers focus on understanding the people and the world they are studying; transformative researchers focus their work on people facing social oppression; while pragmatic researchers use both quantitative and qualitative methods to research the questions they want answered.
If I had to select a paradigm I felt most aligned with, I feel that I lean more towards postpositivist. The first reason is the rigorous research design including randomized control trials result in greater efficacy in the research. The second reason was that the
Research philosophies is a framework by which the research problem should be fundamentally approached, there are four major research philosophies positivism, interpretivism/constructivism, realism and pragmatism (Davies, 2007). Positivism is a philosophical trend in the methodology of science, defining the only source of true, actual knowledge of empirical research and denies cognitive value of philosophical inquiry. According to the positivist philosophy, methodology is not related to the essence of knowledge about the real world, but rather has to do with the operations by which knowledge is constructed. The essential reasoning behind positivism is that, all truthful learning depends on the positive data assembled from noticeable experience, and that any thought past this domain of self evident actuality is powerful. Just explanatory proclamations are permitted to be known as valid, through reason alone (Davies 2007).
While discontent increased during the 1900s three major philosophies were established. The three major philosophies that were established were socialism, communism, and fascism. Socialism was never officially promoted, but the Bolsheviks, the elite group when Lenin was in power in Russia, thought socialism could be achieved by moderate reforms such as higher wages, increased suffrage, and social welfare. Communism was promoted by Lenin, his successor, and Stalin. Lenin developed the New Economic Policy, or NEP. Lenin just saw the New Economic Policy as a temporary retreat from communism. His successor put the Soviet Union back on the road to “pure” communism. Stalin developed Five-Year Plans while the Soviet Union developed a command economy, where the government made all basic economic decisions. A command economy is communist. Fascism was promoted by Mussolini and Hitler. In 1919 Mussolini organized discontent Italians into the Fascist Party. Mussolini quickly gained power, by 1925 he had taken the title II Duce, “The Leader.” Mussolini preserved capitalism and created his “corporate state,” where representatives of business, labor, government, and the Fascist party controlled industry, agriculture, and trade. Hitler made Germany become Europe’s second fascist state. Mussolini and Hitler were allies. Stalin relied on Lenin to further implement communism and the Soviet Union because they both shared the same goal, to generate worldwide revolution that Marx had predicted and Hitler relied on Mussolini to further implement fascism by copying Mussolini’s idea of preserving capitalism.
In social science, there are several paradigms, each with its own unique ontological and epistemological perspective. Examples of paradigms include positivism which focuses on objectivity, know ability, and deductive logic. Its assumption is that society can and should be studied empirically and scientifically (Ritzer, 2004). Critical paradigm’s main emphasis is on power, inequality, and social change. It is of the assumption that social science can never be truly value-free and should be conducted with the express goal of social change in mind (Calhoun, 2007). Social constructionism paradigm’ s main emphasis is that truth as varying, socially constructed, and ever-changing and is of the assumption that reality is created collectively and that social context and interaction frame our realities (Berger, 1966).
While reading the Windschitl & Hirsch articles, I felt both informed and interested on the different positions on the main question. The main question asks about if schools should have their own educational constructivist approach. The article written by Windschitl agrees having an educational constructivist approach, while Hirsch on the other hand disagrees. Each other others did a wonderful job on elaborating their positions on the point, and provided excellent examples, and great detail. Each of these articles exhibited both similarities and differences regarding the main question.
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
The concept describes that our knowledge is something to be constructed internally rather than reflected from external realities. After the initial proposition of constructivism there came about the idea that “a reasonable conclusion is that at least three levels of constructivist advocacy appear frequently in contemporary educational literature”, according to Null 2004. Those three levels include epistemological constructivism, which focuses on issues like race, gender, and class and how issues like these need to be fixed. Next is instructional constructivism, which focuses on individual learning in the classroom. The last is prescriptive constructivism, which focuses on the relationship between teacher and student and proposes that teachers instruct with their students rather than at their students. No matter what level it is being taught, the basis of constructivism is to move away from the traditional practice of teaching the classroom through lecture primarily, and to adopt teaching the classroom through
A paradigm shift is defined as a time when the usual and accepted way of doing or thinking about something changes completely. Today, most lessons are taught through experience and hands on learning, a drastic shift from the early 1900’s. Many believe in the 21st century that the classroom is not just divided between the teacher and students, but that everyone has the ability to bring new insights to lessons and that everyone in the classroom is learning from each other. In the early 1900’s, education focused on exchanging information between the teacher and the student, whereas today’s teaching method is taking information and applying so it can be understood. People who understood that education wasn’t just an exchange of information, like
An integrated theory is a combination of 2 or 3 theories that offers many explanations on why crime is occurring, compared to a traditional criminal theory that just focus on one type of aspect (Lilly et al.2010). The purpose of integrated theories is to help explain many aspects into what causes criminal behavior and why one becomes delinquent. From this an argument arises can integrated theories be used to explain all criminal behavior. Integrated theories are successful in explaining certain aspects of crime on what causes one to become deviant; however one theory alone cannot explain why an individual engages in crime. This paper will examine three integrated theories and look in-depth how these theories can explain different aspects on why criminal behavior occurs and the weakness of each theory. The three integrated theories that will be discussed in this paper are Cloward and Ohlin Differential Opportunity theory, Robert Agnew General Strain theory, and lastly Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond theory.
Positivism Paradigm is considered the “scientific method”; Interpretivist Paradigm approaches understanding using the world of “human experience”. Critical and Transformative researchers "believe that inquiry needs to be intertwined with politics and a political agenda" (Creswell, 2003, p.9). Pragmatism theorists are not committed to any specific system of philosophy or model that use the most relevant theory applicable to their research. Understanding paradigms is essential to preparing for dissertation research. Paradigms provide a framework to write and explain my philosophies, accurately support the data compiled and structure the narrative research. Selecting the paradigm will determine if the research will include qualitative data, quantitative data or a mixed method which will incorporate a blended method approach. Choosing an incorrect approach can lead to research flaws and
The five major theoretical perspectives in psychology are biological, learning, cognitive, psychodynamic, and sociocultural perspectives. Each one of these perspectives searches for answers about behavior through different techniques and through looking for answers to different kinds of questions. Due to the different approaches, each perspective form their own assumptions and explanations. Some perspectives are widely accepted while others struggle for acceptance.
The world is made up of a plethora of things, but what really makes up the world that we stand on today? There are four things that I believe have shaped the world to what it is today, and continue to play a huge role in our world.
There are four philosophies of education. They consists of perennialism, progressivism, social Reconstructionism, and essentialism. Each philosophy of education plays a role in American education. Today essentialism plays one of the biggest roles in American education. Essentialism tries to give all students the most basic academic knowledge, skills, and character development. I too believe in the essentialism philosophy of education. I agree with this philosophy because I believe that intellectual self-discipline should be encouraged within the classroom, all students have the ability to learn regardless of their needs, and teachers should concentrate on teaching basic skills. All of these beliefs falls under the essentialism philosophy
The term constructivism has been used to explain everything from school reform to teaching styles, and most importantly related to a learning theory. As you can imagine the term Constructivism has the potential to develop many misconceptions since it lacks a universal definition. “Constructivism is an important theory of learning that is used to guide the development of new teaching methods”(Baviskar, Hartle & Whitney, 2009, p.541). The framework of constructivism is built upon the understanding that “learning is an active process that is student centered in the sense that, with the teachers help, learners select and transform information, construct hypothesis’, and make decisions”(Chrenka, 2001, p.694). It is important to understand that when speaking about constructivism we are referring to a learning theory not teach...
Furthermore, there are four branches of philosophy that is known as the bases of each one of the four theories for education. Starting off
The two philosophies that I have chosen to write about for my Education Philosophy Paper includes progressivism and existentialism. Progressivism focuses on the child rather than the subject matter. Due to society always changing, new ideas are important to make the future better than the past for students learning. This educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. Progressivists believe that individuality, progress, and change are fundamental to one 's education. Existentialism is a highly subjective philosophy that stresses the importance of the individual and emotional commitment to living authentically. It emphasizes individual choice over