this approach draws upon the techniques of formal logic - every sentence and every statement has to be a direct statement of observable things and all speculative ideas removed. Draw upon the linguistic distinction between analytic ( true by definition eg all bachelors are unmarried) and synthetic statements ( based on observation and contributing new knowledge) in order to demonstrate how emprirical science could be developed.
use the method of induction - collecting observable data and building theories to explain the observations. Assumes all observers treat the act of observation in the same way - ie no room for a constructive role.
central tenet the verifiability principle
- tautological claims - i.e. claims that are true by definition
- claims that are verifiable empirically through observation
- claims that are neither 1 nor 2 and therefore seen by proponents of the verifiability principle as meaningless. ( e.g.) metaphysical and moral statements.
Assumes that unobservables must be dismissed as meaningless because they cannot be verified.
looks for confirming evidence rather than offering critical appraisal of existing knowledge. The truth of a statement is confirmed by the accumulation of evidence.
Popper (1959) and falsification
- For Popper , the inductive method cannot sustain the explanatory weight placed upon it. cannot know what is going to happen in a new situation , something that has to be accomodated
- Crucial insight - that unrestricted generalisations (e.g. all swans are black) cannot be verified (might eventually observe a white one) but they can be falsified. The falsification method rests upon the assumption that the demarcation criteria between what is science and what is pseudo -science rests upon whether the statement is testable or not, rather than whether it is true or false.
- Falsification is as much an attitude to research as a method
Epistemology and methodology
Hammersley (1995) -' positivism a broad term for derision' .
It is sometimes used in imprecise ways.
positivism- empirical claims, interpretivist - value claims
quantitative methodology tends to represent the positivist tradition
qualitative more concerned with fore-grounding interpretivist interpretations
mixed method approach see Rashomon paper - 'qualitative judgements are integral to quantitative analysis'
Connection between epistemology and methodology
not as simple or direct as sometimes characterised
some advocates of mixed method approach argue that 'methodologies should be driven by pragmatic rather than epistemological considerations'
'New' sociology of education in the 1970s
rejected 'positivism' as anti-humanistic as well as politically conservative. In particular they saw positivism as overly restrictive in terms of the types of questions that could be asked and answered in terms of methodology.
Theory in positivist research
Whilst every theory must be based on observable facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory.
Positivism relies on the ideas of hypothesis testing i.e. don't test theory directly but rather derive hypothesis from theory i.e. a hypothesis is a testable implication of theory
e.g. one theory that might arise from the literature on gender and schooling
Theory 1 boys and girls have fundamentally different learning styles, therefore:
Hypothesis 1 both girls and boys will learn more if they are taught separately.
Hypotheses need to be postulated in advance, post hoc explanations can follow that.
if
both girls and boys benefit from single sex schooling then this does not verify the theory that girls and boys have different learning styles ( there could be other explanations), although a negative result would count against it.
Hypotheses have to be operationalised - including deciding what to measure. However hypotheses are not absolutely logically implied by the theories. It does not provide certainty.
Evans, J. and Benefield, P. (2001) Systematic reveiws of educational research: does the medical model fit? British Educational Research Journal 27, (5). 27-41
