Canadian National Health Plan - Assignment Example

Best Research Approach for Determining the Canadian National Health Plan Research varies, ranging from highly sophisticated studies to short term investigations, and there are different research approaches. The most commonly used research approaches are the interpretive approach and the positivist approach, each one of them with its own merits and demerits. If I were researching on whether the Canadian National Health Plan is better than the current United States Health Coverage Plan, I would choose the positivist approach.

This is because the positivist approach explores social reality on a basis of observation and reason as a way of understanding human behavior. In carrying out the above research, it would require the researcher to analyze the two health plans in terms of coverage, care, and choice of doctors, an analysis that requires an understanding of the human behavior (Monette, Sullivan and Dejong 125). According to August Comte, the French philosopher whose ideas form the basis of the approach, true knowledge can be obtained by experiment and observation and is based on experiences of the senses.

Positivist thinkers use this research approach as a way of generating knowledge, so it has to be understood within the framework of the assumptions and principles of science. All the knowledge available to humans came from positive information of experience that can be observed. One disadvantage of social research is that it is difficult to obtain repeatable and solid results as human beings are variable and complex species, thus leaving the positivist approach as the one best suited. Positivism roots lie in empiricism that works with facts that can be observed only.

Its basic principle is that all knowledge that can be classified as facts is based on the positive information obtained from experience that can be observed (Monette, Sullivan and Dejong 312). Work Cited Monette, Duane, Thomas Sullivan, and Cornell DeJong. Applied Social Research: A Tool for the Human Services. New York, NY: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print