What is the difference between positivism and interpretivism

However, interpretivism states that human behavior can only be studied by using more qualitative and non-scientific methods. Moreover, while positivists believe that human behavior can be explained by social norms, interpretivists believe that humans are complex creatures whose behavior cannot be explained by social norms. Thus, this is a summary of the difference between positivism and interpretivism.

Crossman, Ashley. M, Paulina. Hasa is a BA graduate in the field of Humanities and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in the field of English language and literature. Her areas of interests include language, literature, linguistics and culture.

Your email address will not be published. Comments very nice…great job. Great insight, very helpful and resolved my confusion. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Links to all of my research methods posts can be found at my main research methods page. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content Positivists believe society shapes the individual and use quantitative methods, intepretivists believe individuals shape society and use qualitative methods.

Positivism Positivists prefer quantitative methods such as social surveys, structured questionnaires and official statistics because these have good reliability and representativeness. The positivist tradition stresses the importance of doing quantitative research such as large scale surveys in order to get an overview of society as a whole and to uncover social trends, such as the relationship between educational achievement and social class.

This type of sociology is more interested in trends and patterns rather than individuals. This is known as the comparative method. Interpretivism An Interpretivist approach to social research would be much more qualitative, using methods such as unstructured interviews or participant observation Interpretivists , or anti-positivists argue that individuals are not just puppets who react to external social forces as Positivists believe. It is related to the scientific view of the natural world as being one that operates via laws such as gravity that can be revealed by careful study and observation.

Positivists assert that equivalent laws can be revealed about the social world. Postpositivism rejects the positivist approach that a researcher can be an independent observer of the social world. Postpositivists argue that the ideas, and even the particular identity, of a researcher influences what they observe and therefore impacts upon what they conclude.

Postpositivism pursues objective answers by attempting to recognise, and work with, such biases with the theories and knowledge that theorists develop. Take fire, for example. We need the three elements of oxygen, heat and fuel in order for fire to occur. If one element is missing, there is no fire. This is not up for discussion. It is a black and white fact. Interpretivism lends itself well to studies that have a lot of grey areas, like society, for example.

Understanding why or how somebody feels or behaves cannot be achieved through the analysis of numbers. Instead it requires an in-depth assessment of words, actions and behaviours.

An interpretive researcher concentrates on the meanings that people bring to situations and behaviour and the ways that they use this to interpret the world. Take my experience as a TEFL teacher , for example. Having been educated in the UK, I had a perception of the way that lessons should be taught based on my own personal experiences.

This would likely be very different to someone who was educated in a different environment, such as rural India. There are benefits and limitations to both types of research.

A positivist study enables control and precision and returns verifiable data, that is very black and white in nature. However, a positivist approach is limited in that the data that it produces can be inflexible and fails to address aspects such as personal beliefs, experiences and motivations. Interpretivist studies aim to understand things, as opposed to providing the rigid explanations that a positivist study would do.

In other words, what I think may not be what you think. I might observe somebody to be upset and you might see them to be fine. We all see things differently. Hi Dr.