REVISITING THE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Abstract

Various researchers employing either qualitative or quantitative researches should better understand the different competing research paradigms and its philosophical underpinnings in relation to ontology, epistemology, methodology and even the methods in collecting and analyzing data to produce an excellent research. Moreover, this paper uncovers the distinctive philosophical keystones of each competing paradigms of qualitative research: scientific, interpretive, and critical theory. In qualitative research, realities are multiple in nature and subjective; dissimilar to quantitative research there is only one objective reality.The qualitative researcher should be able to breach the objective separateness or distance between him and the participants to enter their subjective world for only then the researcher can fully well understand the experience of the phenomenon from the perspectives of the participants (emic perspective) and not according to his viewpoint (etic perspective). Thus, this article would help researchers to fully understand the nature, components, and uniqueness of each competing paradigms of qualitative research.