Abstract
Positivism is a paradigm that has dominated both the natural and social sciences. The ontology of positivism is called realism where reality is seen as consisting of discrete events that can be experienced only by the human senses. Positivism uses dualist and objectivist epistemology. This means that the researcher and the observed reality are independent of each other and the quest for knowledge must be value-free and objective. Positivism mostly uses an experimental methodology as a way to gather information regarding the event which is being studied. This paradigm has been heavily criticized and this lead to the development of postpositivism. The ontology of postpositivism is critical realism. It has modified epistemological and methodological assumptions from positivism. Contemporary research uses a more postpositivist approach in research. This is mainly because some basic assumptions of positivism are almost impossible to be met in research.KeywordsPositivistRealismCriticismSocial science researchPostpositivismCritical rationalism
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