Students learning about research are expected to learn what ontology, epistemology and methodology
mean. In this video I am going to explain and simplify these terms for you.
Before we even get into it you may be asking yourself: Why do we ask students to learn
this stuff? Students need to learn these terms and how they apply to research so they can
look at a study and decide for themselves if it makes sense. Once you understand it
you can critique it and make better decisions about what should be applied to your practice.
Ontology is a fancy word for beliefs about reality. Different kinds of research are founded
on different beliefs about what we think truth is. Do you think that truth even exists? What
is true?
What we think reality is will shape what we think we can know about reality. That is why
it is important to understand ontology when you are learning about and critiquing research.
Philosophies about reality can be divided in different ways. When you are just starting
to learn about research it helps to understand the two types of ontology that are essentially
opposites: Realism and Relativism. Once you understand these two types of ontology you
can more easily understand others. In this video I am only going to talk about realism
and relativism, but in my book I also talk about critical realism and historical realism
as they apply to different approaches to research.
First let's talk about realism. In a nutshell realists believe that one truth exists. Truth
does not change. Realists believe that the truth can be discovered using objective measurements.
Once you find out what the truth is you can generalize it to other situations.
If you can wrap your head around this view of reality, even if you don’t totally agree
with it, you will understand why research that is based on this view of reality is designed
the way that it is. If this is what the researcher thinks about reality it will influence every
single decision that is made in the study.
The opposite view of reality is called relativism. If you look at what I just said about realism
you can probably guess that everything relativists believe is the exact opposite of what realists
believe.
Using that logic you know that relativists believe in multiple versions of reality - what
is real depends on the meaning you attach to truth. Truth does not exist without meaning.
Since reality is created by how we see things it evolves and changes depending on your experiences.
If reality is context bound it cannot be generalized. It can only be transferred to other similar
contexts.
Epistemology is another fancy word that basically means what relationship the researcher has
with the research. So, how do we get knowledge? How do we discover new things?
Ontological beliefs will dictate epistemological beliefs. Let me say that again in another
way. What the researcher believes about the nature of reality will dictate the kind of
relationship they think the researcher should have with whatever is being studied.
There are two basic sets of beliefs about how we should gather new knowledge.
Some researchers believe that research should be done in an objective way so that the researcher
does not influence the data that is gathered. They think that in order to find out what
the truth is the researcher needs to stay as far away from the research as they can
so that they can get an objective measurement.
This approach is also known as an etic approach to research. The word etic basically means
taking an outsider’s view of someone else’s situation.
So, if you use a fishbowl to represent someone’s situation that is being researched the researcher
taking an etic approach would want to look at the fishbowl from the outside, measure
it and make observations without ever touching it.
If we go back to look at the two major opposing views of reality, which one do you think leads
to this etic approach to conducting research?
That is right, realism! If you think that truth exists that can be objectively measured
then of course you want to stand back, look at your fishbowl and try to measure it without
disturbing the reality you are studying.
The opposite approach to research would be taking an emic approach. An emic approach
is used by researchers that believe in a subjective approach to reality. Interacting with people
to find out what truth means to them is needed. So these researchers would want to get inside
the fishbowl. The potential influence of the researcher on what is being researched is
acknowledged, sometimes avoided or sometimes even embraced. Interaction is seen as a necessary
thing to gain in-depth understandings of what is going on.
What ontology do you think leads to this way to approaching research?
That is right, relativism! Remember that relativists believe that the truth is created by meanings
and experiences. In order to understand someone’s experience and the context that shaped it
you need to dig deep and talk to them.
Methodology is another fancy word that means how knowledge is discovered and analysed in
a systematic way. Don’t confuse methodology with methods. Yes, they are closely related
but the term methodology refers to philosophies that guide how knowledge should be gathered.
The term methods, on the other hand, is specific to a data gathering techniques like interviews
or surveys.
Methodology can be divided based on the ontological and epistemological beliefs that led to them.
For the purposes of this video I want you to take a guess what ontology and epistemology
would be linked to an experimental methodology.
Let me give you a hint. The purpose of an experiment is to prove that one thing caused
another.
That is right, experiments are designed to discover the truth so they are based on a
realist ontology and an etic epistemology. How can you tell? Well, they are looking for
one truth. The methodology behind experimental research is built on the idea that data should
be discovered and analysed in an objective way. Since they are wanting to be objective
they are looking at the topic from the outside, which means they are using an etic epistemology.
The experimental methodology is planned in advance to eliminate the influence of as many
contextual factors as possible since the only way these researchers believe that truth can
be discovered is to remove it from it’s context.
Quantitative researchers want to make generalizations based on their results. An experiment uses
a deductive approach to analysis. That means that the study will start with a theory. From
that theory hypotheses will be developed. You normally see the hypotheses explicitly
stated at the beginning of the methodology section or just before it. These hypotheses
are then tested. Specific data is collected and analysed to either prove or disprove the
original hypothesis.
Since the experimental research is designed to be objective the methods in an experiment
will likely include surveys and other objective measurements like weight, height, blood pressure
and so on.
How about another example. What ontological and epistemological beliefs lead to a phenomenological
study? Let me give you another hint … phenomenology is designed to explore lived experiences.
Often researchers will do in-depth interviews with people to collect information and understand
the context of the experience.
I hope you picked up on the keywords in that question. Experiences, in-depth, interviews,
context … all of these words only make sense if the researcher is using a relativist ontology.
The fact that interviews are being done to explore and understand the context of a situation
means an emic epistemology is being used.
In a phenomenological methodology research design decisions are made based on complex
philosophies about how data should be collected and analysed. But basically they start talking
to participants to gather as much specific information as they can about a situation.
Then they look for patterns or common findings in their data. From those patterns tentative
hypotheses are created even though they are not usually labeled as hypotheses in the actual
study because that is a quantitative term. These hypotheses are used to promote more
research and eventually general conclusions or theories are developed. When results are
presented they are always linked to the context that was studied. This kind of logic that
is most commonly (but not always) associated with qualitative research is called inductive
reasoning.
Remember, your ontology dictates your epistemology which dictates your methodology which dictates
your methods. All of this needs to make sense for the question you are asking since in reality
the question drives everything. If you can understand the basics of realism and relativism
you can use logic to match everything else about research epistemology and methodology
to the appropriate paradigm as long as you know what the other terms mean.
Let’s say you are looking at another article and you notice that they are describing patterns
among a large group of people using statistics. If you had to guess, what do you think the
ontology and epistemology that lead to this approach is?
Most times the article will explicitly tell you if it is quantitative or qualitative , but
sometimes it won’t. Another way to tell if your methodology is quantitative or qualitative
in nature is to look at the use of statistics and the sample size.
Typically quantitative research uses statistics and large sample sizes.
Qualitative research on the other hand uses smaller sample sizes and thematic analysis.
Sometimes it is more complicated than that so make sure you look beyond the sample and
statistics to confirm your guess.
Do you think that makes sense based on what we have discussed so far? Please comment below
to let me know if you can make sense of the reasoning.
I hope you have found this video helpful. For more about the basics of this complex
terminology please read my book and let me know if you have any other questions. I also
have a few other videos about research philosophy you might want to check out. Sometimes all
you need to do to understand something is to hear it explained in a few different ways.
That is why I have multiple videos on this topic.
If you take a moment to explore my channel you will see that I have other videos on this
same topic that explain things in other ways. If you like my videos please press the like
button and subscribe to be notified when new videos are released.