How Ones World View Influences the Research Process - Essay Example

The research design that is developed by the researchers is determined by the research question. The research question can be explanatory or descriptive and affects the information collected. A descriptive question gives a description of the research subject through qualitative or quantitative analysis while an explanatory question gives an explanation of why the research subject is used and mainly gives statistical information. Creswell (2009) claims that there are four philosophical world views that shapes objectives, methodology, and the expected results of research. They include advocacy, constructivism, pragmatism, and post-positivism. The purpose of this paper is to assess a researchers’ world view and explain how it influences the approach to research.

Researchers’ World View

Makoe, Richardson, and Prince (2008) represent the post-positivism philosophical world view. Post-positivism world view, also known as the scientific method of research deals with reduction research i.e. it reduces ideas into small variables that are used to test the theory and the sample subject. This world view is used to generalize population through qualitative research using a large number of samples. Thus, the research done by Makoe, Richardson, and Prince (2008) used qualitative research to find out the conceptions of adult students embarking on distance education.

One assumptions of post-positivism stated by Creswell (2009) are that knowledge is conjectural. This means that the truth can never be found in research, and that is why researchers nullify the hypothesis. For instance according to Makoe, Richardson, and Prince (2008), there is no consensus about how the conceptions of learning can be characterized and whether they constitute a developmental hierarchy. Another assumption according to Creswell (2009) is that data, evidence and rational considerations shape knowledge. This means that the researcher collects the information based on observations or from questionnaires filled by the participants. From the article, researchers collected data using a 60-item questionnaire which were mailed to students taking preparatory courses by distance learning.

According to Creswell (2009) in quantitative method of research, researchers reduce ideas into small variables, which they use to formulate questions and hypothesis. In Makoe, Richardson, and Prince (2008), researchers used the information they collected to come up with a hypothesis that all adult learners taking long distance education hold distinctive conceptions of learning; hence they concluded that conceptions of learning are culturally and contextually dependent.

My World View

My philosophical World View on Kaufman (2011) is pragmatism. According to Creswell (2009), a pragmatism researcher seeks to find solutions to solve existing problems by understanding the nature, cause, and history of a problem before conducting research. The researcher uses mixed methods of research i.e. to qualitative, quantitative and other research methods to collect data. Mixed methods involve the use of both qualitative and quantitative research. One characteristic of qualitative is that it examines a small number of sites, people or situations over a period of time. Kaufman (2011) states that in the past, their system-wide office used to travel to campuses to deliver professional development seminars but, they now deliver information via interactive web casts. This shows that the researcher examined the situation in various campuses over a period of time before conducting research to find solutions.

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to examine how one’s world view influences the research process. As stated above, researchers approach inquiry from a given philosophical world view that determines the purpose of the research, its design, methods and the expected results. Creswell (2009) states that there are three philosophical assumptions that can be used to differentiate between quantitative and qualitative methods of research: epistemological, methodological, ontological, axiological, and rhetorical.