Free Research Paper About Aligning Philosophies Of Science With Research Approaches

Discussion

I agree with Creswell’s attempt to align philosophical world-views with research approaches provided the alignments are recognized and accepted. Creswell’s discussion on alignment of philosophical world views to research approaches is presented as a guide, not rules that bind researchers. According to Creswell 2009, there are various aspects of research that contribute to the choice or selection of a research design, they include: Experience of the researcher, issue of study as well as philosophy of science.
My philosophical world-view is based on absolute truth to solve worldly and social problem. This world-view means that the process of solving social problems should focus on research designs that focus on seeking absolute truth. In this regard, I associate empiricism with quantitative research designs. I believe that empiricism facilitates the access to absolute truth through quantitative data methods. However, I acknowledge the fact that empiricism may also be applicable to qualitative researches. Research has indicated that empiricism has been associated with absolute truth owing to the fact that it does not depend of subjective knowledge (Solomon, 2011). Some scientists and researchers have argued that most empirical data are irrefutable and consists of traditionally accepted dimensions of evidence (Solomon, 2011). These are some of the reasons why empiricism would influence my choice of research design, basically because am a believer of absolute truth in solving social issues. On the other hand, I acknowledge some of the challenges that might arise from the use of empirical data as mentioned by Creswell 2009. One major challenge that researchers might experience while using empirical data is a paradigm shift in research that has made empirical data susceptible to changes or instances of becoming obsolete.

References

Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
Solomon, M. (2011). Social empiricism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press