Positivism and Interpretivism

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  • Positivism and Interpretivism
    • Positivism
      • belief that there are social facts that can be studied objectively using methods that are similar to the natural sciences
      • produce quantitative data of social patterns and trends which can be used to explain society
      • social surveys, structured qs, comparative method and lab experiments
      • structured interviews, non-p observation, official stats and content analysis
    • Interpretivism
      • implies that people are conscious of their personal beliefs, meanings, values and interpretations and these influence the way they act
      • researcher attempts to gain an in-depth understanding of how people see and understand the world around them by putting themselves in the position of those studied
      • must go beyond the empirical
      • uncontrolled field experiments, open-ended qs, unstructured interviews, overt and covert p and non-p observation, personal accounts

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