PARADIGMS AND METHODS FOR NURSING RESEARCH
A paradigm is a worldview, a general perspective on the complexities of the world. Paradigms for human inquiry are often characterized in terms of the ways in which they respond to basic philosophical questions, such as, What is the nature of reality? (ontologic) and What is the relationship between the inquirer and those being studied? (epistemologic).
Disciplined inquiry in nursing has been conducted mainly within two broad paradigms, positivism and constructivism. This section describes these two paradigms and outlines the research methods associated with them. In later chapters, we describe the transformative paradigm that involves critical theory research ( Chapter 21 ), and a pragmatism paradigm that involves mixed methods research ( Chapter 26 ).
The Positivist Paradigm
The paradigm that dominated nursing research for decades is known as positivism (also called logical positivism ). Positivism is rooted in 19th century thought, guided by such philosophers as Mill, Newton, and Locke. Positivism reflects a broader cultural phenomenon that, in the humanities, is referred to as modernism, which emphasizes the rational and the scientific.
As shown in Table 1.2 , a fundamental assumption of positivists is that there is a reality out there that can be studied and known (an assumption is a basic principle that is believed to be true without proof or verification). Adherents of positivism assume that nature is basically ordered and regular and that reality exists independent of human observation. In other words, the world is assumed not to be merely a creation of the human mind. The related assumption of determinism refers to the positivists’ belief that phenomena are not haphazard but rather have antecedent causes. If a person has a cerebrovascular accident, the researcher in a positivist tradition assumes that there must be one or more reasons that can be potentially identified. Within the positivist paradigm, much research activity is directed at understanding the underlying causes of phenomena.
