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UNDERSTANDING ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND AXIOLOGY
# 1 of 15/08/2020 @ AXIOLOGY
Peter Deane, (2018) argues on AXIOLOGY:
- That interdisciplinary researchers overlooks axiology as a third major arm of philosophical inquiry into human understanding at the expense of ontology and epistemology
- That axiology is the study of value or, more adequately, theory on the nature of value.
- That simply put axiology is about what’s good (or bad) in life and what we find worthy.
- That axiology incorporates ethics (theory of morality) and aesthetics (theory of taste and of beauty), as well as other forms of value.
- That asking what ‘ought to be’ than what it is fulfills the axiological concerns.
- That the moment issues of being impartial, curious; caring and diligent in a researcher arises we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That the moment a choice of worthwhile science has to be made from for example from among correlational, causal, problem-centered, hypothesis-centered, experimental, applied, private, public type of research then we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That even regarding a research question as created and enacted from either personal, scientific and other commitments for instance, the moment we ask about what is valued as a research question and the research outcome we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That consideration of the paradigmatic influence regarding the context in which the research is situated; the philosophical values chosen in guiding the inquiry; the value attached to a specific inquiry chosen or the focus of research instead of the other one and which claims are made or recommendations to other practitioners qualifies axiology as a part of the overall usefulness of philosophy on the same level as ontology and epistemology which also should be mentioned in our research.
Full argument can be accessed on, A guide for interdisciplinary researchers: Adding axiology alongside ontology and epistemology by Peter Deane
https://i2insights.org/2018/05/22/axiology-and-interdisciplinarity/

UNDERSTANDING ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND AXIOLOGY
# 1 of 15/08/2020 @ AXIOLOGY
Peter Deane, (2018) argues on AXIOLOGY:
- That interdisciplinary researchers overlooks axiology as a third major arm of philosophical inquiry into human understanding at the expense of ontology and epistemology
- That axiology is the study of value or, more adequately, theory on the nature of value.
- That simply put axiology is about what’s good (or bad) in life and what we find worthy.
- That axiology incorporates ethics (theory of morality) and aesthetics (theory of taste and of beauty), as well as other forms of value.
- That asking what ‘ought to be’ than what it is fulfills the axiological concerns.
- That the moment issues of being impartial, curious; caring and diligent in a researcher arises we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That the moment a choice of worthwhile science has to be made from for example from among correlational, causal, problem-centered, hypothesis-centered, experimental, applied, private, public type of research then we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That even regarding a research questions as created and enacted from either personal, scientific and other commitments for instance, the moment we ask about what is valued as a research question and the research outcome we are dealing with axiology in research.
- That consideration of the paradigmatic influence regarding the context in which the research is situated; the philosophical values chosen in guiding the inquiry; the value attached to a specific inquiry chosen or the focus of research instead of the other one and which claims are made or recommendations to other practitioners qualifies axiology as a part of the overall usefulness of philosophy on the same level as ontology and epistemology which also should be mentioned in our research.
Full argument can be accessed on, A guide for interdisciplinary researchers: Adding axiology alongside ontology and epistemology by Peter Deane

A guide for interdisciplinary researchers: Adding axiology alongside ontology and epistemology By Peter Deane Can philosophical insights be useful for interdisciplinary researchers in extending their thinking about the role of values and knowledge in research? More broadly, can a model or he…

Of ontologies epistemologies methodologies and axiologies. Next on understanding the confusion of research concepts will cite Dr Simwinga, Dr Mwanza Prof Nyambe and Prof Mubiana Machwani all of unza products. Let's share it, nifi data fye fi. When you know you know. After that we will share Socrates Aristotle Plato and Martin Heidegger as espoused by Prof Sleekumay of India and many more so get involved on Research Chat and Consultancy and know what Research is all about. Nifi data fye fi.

# 5.07/07/2020 @ UNDERSTANDING THE CONFUSSION AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF PARADIGM, METHOD AND DESIGN
(The target audience - early career researchers, Master’s and PhD students though all researchers can benefit.)
Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That any research inquiry should be guided by a paradigm.
- That early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry
- That qualitative and quantitative methods are sometimes erroneously referred to as research paradigms or research designs.
- That although experienced researchers do understand the distinction and relationship between the three concepts, the loose use of the concepts leads to confusion among early career researchers, especially Master’s and PhD students.
Regarding RESEARCH DESIGN Makombe (2017) goes on to argue:
- That experienced researchers often use the terms research paradigm, research methods and research design in a loose and confusing manner.
- That for instance Creswell (2009) on p. 3 under the heading “Three types of designs” discusses qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods and on p15 under the heading “Research methods,” he discusses qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.
-That again under the heading “Strategies of inquiry” Creswell (2009) on p 11, discusses survey and experimental research under the heading “Quantitative strategies” and ethnography, grounded theory, case studies, phenomenological research and narrative research under the heading “Qualitative strategies.”
- That Ferguson (1993) interprets qualitative and quantitative to be methods and worldviews while Creswell (2009) interprets the same concepts to be methods and designs fueling further confusion.
-That more confusion arises when Crotty (1998) refers ethnography as a methodology which guides a researcher to choose a method when it should be a design which can be selected after the decision of a method (qualitative) is made.
- That Gringeri et al. (2013) refer to grounded theory, phenomenology, case study and ethnography as methods when they should be referred to as designs within the qualitative research method.
- That this leads to erroneous lumping of concepts such as constructionism, interactionism, and ethnography together as if they are comparable and yet not.
- That besides confusing research design with research methods, generally students do not mention the research design.
- That to clear the confusion students should know that research design addresses questions similar to the following: Is an experiment the best way to conduct the study (experimental design), is the study a descriptive one (descriptive design), has a similar question not been explored before (exploratory design) or is it a philosophical expose of events or relationships (philosophical design).
- That there are several designs.
- That Although design should not be explicitly associated with certain methods it is true that qualitative and quantitative methods tend to be associated with certain designs.
- That for example, nothing prohibits qualitative research to be done by experimental design.
- That this why the case study approach can be used for both quantitative and qualitative research.
- That the measurement aspect determines the research method being used.
-That no ethnographer would use interviews only without any participant observation (Citing Ferguson 1993)
-That research design provides an instrument or a combination of instruments by which the research will be conducted.
- That it is within the research design that the data that will be collected, how it will be collected and analysed is determined.
- That the measurement aspect determines the research method being used.
-That no ethnographer would use interviews only without any participant observation (Citing Ferguson 1993)
- That there are also research designs like ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory that are associated only with qualitative research.
- That further understanding can be made with reference to Betram and Christiansen (2014) who describe research design as follows:
The research design should answer the following questions: what evidence or data must the researcher collect in order to answer the research question? How will the researcher collect the data (or what data collection method will be used)? What will the researcher do with the data once they have been collected? How will the researcher analyse and make meaning from the data? (p. 40)
Full argument can be assessed in Makombe, G. (2017). An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research. The Qualitative Report, 22(12), 3363-3382. Retrieved fromhttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss12/18

#4.04/07/2020 @ UNDERSTANDING THE CONFUSSION AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF PARADIGM, METHOD AND DESIGN
(The target audience - early career researchers, Master’s and PhD students though all researchers can benefit.)

Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That any research inquiry should be guided by a paradigm.
- That early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry
- That qualitative and quantitative methods are sometimes erroneously referred to as research paradigms or research designs.
- That experienced researchers often use the terms research paradigm, research methods and research design in a loose and confusing manner.
-That understanding of the research methodology is exhibited in a well-structured research and a clear articulation of these three critical components of research inquiry especially at the proposal stage.
Regarding RESEARCH METHODS Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That many agree that quantitative and qualitative research methods are the two major research methods (citing Tuli, 2010).
- That although not inherent to any particular paradigm, qualitative methods are usually associated with the normative paradigms and quantitative methods with the positivist/postpositivist paradigms (citing Ferguson, 1993).
- That sometimes they are erroneously referred to as paradigms and or designs even for early career researchers, Master’s and PhD students.
- That a third research method is a combination of the quantitative and qualitative research methods referred to as mixed methods research which sometimes guarantees high quality research (citing Upadhyay, 2012).
-That Crotty (1998) refers to the existence of countless methods agreeable only to the extent that, for mixed methods, there is a spectrum between qualitative and quantitative methods and therefore an innumerable number of ways of addressing a mixed methods research.
- That many Master’s and PhD students mention the research method without demonstrating the paradigmatic implications thereby making it difficult for the research questions to be understood especially for qualitative research where there are a number of paradigms to choose from.
-That Doyle et al. (2009) urge researchers to locate their research in a paradigm.
- That it is up to a researcher to decide on the research method he or she feels will adequately answer the research problem whether quantitatively, qualitatively or use mixed methods (citing Crotty 1998) but most importantly the choice on method to use is determined by the paradigm (citing Guba and Lincoln 1994).
- That since it is the paradigm which drives the choice of method failure to state a research paradigm of the research may give the researcher difficulties in choosing the appropriate method for their proposed research.
-That Ferguson (1993) notes that it is not the methods used for collecting data that determine the kind of study but the approach to inquiry (research method: qualitative or quantitative or mixed method research) and the “knowledge claims” (the paradigms: positivist/postpositivist or any choice of the normative paradigms).
-That although the state is changing until recently, quantitative methods (generally referred to as the scientific method) have not only dominated research in the so called hard sciences but also in the social sciences.
- That the expected rigor and how to achieve it is well understood for quantitative research.
-That rigor in a qualitative research study is guaranteed in the well articulation of at least two of the following strategies: audit trail, prolonged engagement, thick description, persistent observation, negative or deviant case analysis, member checking, data triangulation and peer review or debriefing ( citing Gringeri et al., 2013).
- That epistemologically the quantitative analyst is detached and value free whereas human connectedness of the researcher to research subjects is a requirement for qualitative research (citing Harworth ,1984).
- That the choice between quantitative and qualitative methods should be guided by how the group being studied may become accommodative or resistance to the research techniques being used in yielding data (citing Harworth ,1984).
-That since positivism is concerned with the falsification of theoretical propositions or hypotheses and since quantitative method is associated with positivism, it is, therefore, a requirement that quantitative research be guided by hypotheses (citing Giedymin, 1975, Guba & Lincoln, 1994, Xinping, 2002)
- That since it is generally acceptable that in qualitative research, research questions can adequately guide inquiry stating a hypothesis is not usually a requirement which makes some (quantitative) scientists doubt the robustness of conclusions drawn from such studies (citing Upadhyay, 2012).
- That it is important to understand that hypotheses are not appropriate in some qualitative studies, such as phenomenological studies, where the process of epoch and bracketing is a fundamental step in the research process.
- That even in the cases where hypotheses can be stated, for instance in qualitative case studies, it should be noted that the hypotheses should not restrict the generation of theories, other hypotheses and or knowledge that extends beyond the stated hypotheses.
-That qualitative researchers should always carefully examine their methodology and research goals to determine whether stating hypotheses can add analytical rigor to their work in the face of Daniel and Onwuegbuzie (2002)’s argument of questioning the analytical rigor of qualitative research unless methods for examining rival hypotheses are developed.

Full argument can be assessed in Makombe, G. (2017). An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research. The Qualitative Report, 22(12), 3363-3382. Retrieved fromhttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss12/18

#3.27/06/2020 @ UNDERSTANDING THE CONFUSSION AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF PARADIGM, METHOD AND DESIGN
Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That any research inquiry should be guided by a paradigm.
- That early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry
- That qualitative and quantitative methods are sometimes erroneously referred to as research paradigms or research designs.
- That experienced researchers often use the terms research paradigm, research methods and research design in a loose and confusing manner.
-That understanding of the research methodology is exhibited in a well-structured research and a clear articulation of these three critical components of research inquiry especially at the proposal stage.
- That Gringeri et al. (2013) argues that a paradigm has influence on the research method, instruments used and interpretations and goes further to identify postpositivism, constructivism, critical theory and participatory action framework as paradigms applied in the social sciences.
-That Guba and Lincoln (1994) underscore the need of being clear about what paradigm guides research and goes further to identify and describe four paradigms, namely positivism, post-positivism, critical theory and constructivism
-That Piele (1988) distinguishes between Empirical Paradigms and Normative Paradigms.
-That Empirical Paradigms are positivism/postpositivism and antipositivism and Normative Paradigms include interpretivism, social constructivism, criticlism/critical theory and pragmatism.
Under Positivism/Postpositivism Makombe indicates
-That Logical positivism was developed in the nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties by August Comte, John Stuart Mill, Schlick, Neurath, Carnap and other scientists associated with the Vienna Circle (citing Giedymin, 1975).
-That positivism, which is also generally referred to as the scientific method, “…strongly emphasises the antispeculative attitude in both scientific theorising and in philosophy, the ideals of caution, clarity and precision, the preference for scientifically solvable and practically useful problems” ( citing Giedymin, 1975, p. 277).
-That Positivism Paradigm it is quite prescriptive about how to practice science.
- That positivists believe that strict adherence to methodological rules results in objective truth (citing Äge, 2010) and that truth is extrinsic and discoverable (citing Xinping, 2002).
-That positivism advocates identifying the problems, putting forward theoretical hypotheses, and then using methods such as experimentation or investigation to test and verify hypotheses.
-That the basic research process is: problem - hypothesis – proposition – verification - conclusion (citing Xinping, 2002, p. 40) and positivists uphold the notion that this basic proposition or premise applies to all sciences no matter the diversity of the subject matter (citing Giedymin, 1975).
-That some scientists from some disciplines of social sciences and humanities regard positivism as, not only deterministic and mechanistic, but also to some extent, parochial.
-That operationalizing cultural phenomena to concepts of a mechanistic nature is difficult and that for human activities of the nature similar to creative activities, no deterministic laws can be used to predict them (citing Giedymin, 1975).
- That whereas positivism was concerned with verification of hypotheses, postpositivism is concerned with falsification of hypotheses.
-That antipositivists are empiricists, but those who are opposed to the narrow application of positivisim.
- That early career researchers who choose these paradigm/s can state their paradigm as positivist or positivism.
- That a major criticism of positivism and quantitative methods, is the nomothetic or idiographic disjunction (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994).
Under Normative Paradigms Makombe indicates
- That interpretivism which brings in the question of value is the most well-articulated normative paradigm
- That interpretivism holds the belief that “facts” are not things out in some objective world waiting to be discovered, but, rather, are the social constructions of humans who apprehend the world through interpretive activity (citing Ferguson 1993)
- That constructivism is an alternative paradigm whose breakaway assumption is the move from ontological realism to ontological relativism (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 109).
- That reality is a mental construct of which many can exist and which can be incompatible and conflicting (citing Creswell, 2009, Guba & Lincoln, 1994, Heron & Reason, 1996, Upadhyay, 2012).
- That the constructs are self-reflexive and what there is can be verbally articulated (citing Heron & Reason, 1997).
- That instead of starting with a theory (as in postpositivism), inquirers under constructivism generate a pattern or inductively developing a theory that ascribes meaning (citng Creswell 2009).
- That Criticalism (Critical theory) among others includes participatory inquiry, neo Marxism, materialism and feminism (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994) and critical race theory ( citing Logan, 2016, Marri, 2007, Modiri, 2012).
- That participatory paradigm, goes further than simply addressing the question of value but treats research subjects as co-researchers.
- That Heron and Reason (1997) and Reason and Bradbury (2001) describe participative research to be subjective-objective and self-reflexive.
-That participative research allows one to be part of the whole instead of being detached and underscores collaborative, experiential with living encounters undefiled of preconceptions.
-That for participative research a paradigm can be reframed and what there is can be verbally articulated.
- That the participatory paradigm refutes final or absolute experiential knowing of what is there in that in the relation of knowing by acquaintance, the experiential knower shapes perceptually what is there and to experience anything is to participate in it, and to participate is both to mould and to encounter, thereby making experiential reality a subjective-objective…. (and) relative to the knower. (citing Heron & Reason, 1997, p. 4).
-That participatory paradigm addresses issues of inequality, empowerment, domination, oppression and alienation and that participants get involved and assist in question design, data collection and analysis or reap the benefits of the research and has an action agenda of altering the lives of the respondents, the organizations in which respondents live and work as well as the researcher’s life . (citing Creswell, 2009).
-That Pragmatism is the paradigm which accommodates mixed methods and is therefore applicable to both quantitative and qualitative methods.
- That pragmatism allows and guides mixed methods researchers to use a variety of approaches to answer research questions that cannot be addressed using a singular method (citing Doyle, Brady and Byrne (2009, p. 175).
- That the timing of the mixing of the methods and the emphasis given to the methods results in variety of methods such as partially mixed, concurrent, equal status method; partially mixed, concurrent, dominant status method; partially mixed, sequential, equal status method and fully mixed, concurrent, dominant status method (citing Doyle et al. (2009).
Full argument can be assessed in Makombe, G. (2017). An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research. The Qualitative Report, 22(12), 3363-3382. Retrieved fromhttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss12/18

An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research It is crucial that any research inquiry be guided by a paradigm. However, many early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry. Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative methods are sometimes erroneously referred to as research paradigms or research designs. Exper...

UNDERSTANDING THE CONFUSSION AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF PARADIGM, METHOD AND DESIGN #2.12/06/2020
(The target audience - early career researchers, Master’s and PhD students though all researchers can benefit.)

Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That any research inquiry should be guided by a paradigm.
- That early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry.
- That referring to quantitative or qualitative methods as paradigms and also as designs is erroneous because by definition a paradigm is a “world view” (citing Creswell, 2009) whereas qualitative and quantitative are distinctions between research methods ( citing Tuli, 2010) or the way the researcher goes about attempting to know what can be known (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994) about the research problem.
- That this confusion in early career researchers is as a result of how some experienced researchers write such as Ferguson (1993) who writes that , “Qualitative research is both a set of methods for gathering and analyzing data and a world view or paradigm about the nature of knowing and inquiry,” making it difficult in understanding the concepts of and the distinction between paradigm (world view) and research methods (quantitative and qualitative).
-That unambiguous guidance should be sought from Guba and Lincoln (1994,) who recommend that the term qualitative be reserved for the description of method as well as from Gringeri, Barusch and Cambron (2013, p. 761) quoting Marshall and Rossman (2006) who state that it is essential to present “….logical and compelling connections between genre, overall strategy, the research questions, the design and the methods.”
-That paradigms should not be left implicit in in the research as guided by Gringeri et al. (2013)
- That paradigms are world views (citing Creswell, 2009; Gringeri et al., 2013).
- That they are sets of basic beliefs about the nature of reality, how we may know this reality, how knowledge is produced (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Heron & Reason, 1996; Gringeri et al., 2013) including the assumptions involved ( citing Harworth, 1984).
-That according to Guba and Lincoln (1994), A paradigm may be viewed as a set of basic beliefs (or metaphysics) that deals with ultimates or first principles. It represents a worldview that defines, for its holder, the nature of the “world,” the individual’s place in it and the range of possible relationships to that world and its parts, as, for example, cosmologies and theologies do. The beliefs are basic in the sense that they must be accepted simply on faith… (p. 107) and citing Piele (1988) who says paradigms do not represent hard and fast sets of rules but that they are, more accurately, loose and developing guidelines that assist the ongoing production and resolution of research problems.
Full argument can be assessed in Makombe, G. (2017). An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research. The Qualitative Report, 22(12), 3363-3382. Retrieved fromhttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss12/18

RESEARCH DATA MUST BE SHARED HERE ITS RESEARCH OVERDOSE LETS SHARE AND LET US INVITE NOT ONLY THOSE WHO WANT TO KNOW BUT ALSO THOSE WHO KNOW BUT WANT TO SHARE JUST RESEARCH DATA ONLY. THIS PAGE IS FOR RESEARCH DATA LOVERS ONLY ANYHING ELSE IS OUT OF BOUNDS. NO POLITICS, NO SOCCER, NO SOCIAL, NO CHURCH ISSUES HERE WE KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM. FEEL FREE TO POST OR SHARE ASK OR COMMENT ON ANY PART OF RESEARCH FOR WE KNOW THAT WHAT APPEARS TO BE A NIGHTMARE TO OTHERS MAY BE A CUP OF TEA TO SOME.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONFUSSION AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF PARADIGM, METHOD AND DESIGN #1.11/06/2020

(The target audience - early career researchers, Master’s and PhD students though all researchers can benefit.)

Professor Godswill Makombe (2017) argues:
- That any research inquiry should be guided by a paradigm.
- That early career researchers do not mention the research paradigm guiding their inquiry
- That qualitative and quantitative methods are sometimes erroneously referred to as research paradigms or research designs.
- That experienced researchers often use the terms research paradigm, research methods and research design in a loose and confusing manner.
- That although experienced researchers do understand the distinction and relationship between the three concepts, the loose use of the concepts leads to confusion among early career researchers, especially Master’s and PhD students.
-That understanding of the research methodology is exhibited in a well-structured research and a clear articulation of these three critical components of research inquiry especially at the proposal stage.
- That three basic questions that form the structure of all research inquiry and whose answers determines the paradigm, method and design of any research are:
1. The ontological question: What is there to be known about the form and nature of reality?
2. The epistemological question: What is the relationship between the researcher (would be knower) and that which can be known about the reality?
3. The methodological question: How can the researcher go about attempting to know that which can be known about the reality?
- That the answers to the above three questions determines the paradigm, method and design of any research because the concepts are interconnected to the extent that once an answer is provided to any one of these questions, it restricts the possible responses to the other two (citing Guba & Lincoln, 1994).
-That ontologically assuming a real reality assumes objective detachment as the epistemological stance, positivism as the paradigm and quantitative as the method.
-That if a researcher locates the research in a paradigm, say a normative paradigm, then a real reality cannot be the ontology, and objective detachment cannot be the epistemological stance.

Full argument can be assessed in: Makombe, G. (2017). An Expose of the Relationship between Paradigm, Method and Design in Research. The Qualitative Report, 22(12), 3363-3382. Retrieved fromhttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss12/18