Interpretive Paradigm in Research: Characteristics, Important Authors and Examples

He Interpretive paradigm in research It is a way of understanding scientific knowledge and reality. It is a research model that is based on a deep understanding of reality and the causes that have led it to be so, instead of simply remaining in the general and casual explanations.

This scientific model is part of qualitative research, which seeks to study a topic in depth to fully understand it. Therefore, it is typical of human and social sciences, contrary to the quantitative paradigm that can be found more often in pure sciences.

The interpretive paradigm in research seeks to know more about different cultures, studying their customs, religious beliefs, ways of behaving, politics and economy. It also tries to understand individuals in the same way.

However, instead of trying to study individuals and cultures from the outside, researchers who follow the interpretive paradigm try to achieve it by putting themselves in the place of the entities they observe.

Characteristics of the interpretive paradigm

The interpretive paradigm focuses on the way in which knowledge about individuals and cultures is generated.

For the proponents of this research model, knowledge arises from the interaction between the researcher and the object of study. Both are inseparable, because the mere fact of making an observation already changes the result of it.

- For scientists who follow the interpretative paradigm, any research is influenced by the values ​​and points of view of the person who performs it. This paradigm, therefore, is more typical of the sciences that study the human being, such as psychology, anthropology or sociology.

- It does not seek to find general explanations for phenomena based on specific cases, as other quantitative research currents do. On the contrary, the main objective is to understand in depth the object of study, mainly through observation.

- The proponents of this research model consider reality as something changing and dynamic, so they would be within phenomenological currents. They go against the assumptions of positivism, which seeks to understand reality and then make predictions. The interpretive paradigm just wants to discover reality.

- The main research methods of the interpretive paradigm are observation and interview; each one will be used more or less depending on the specific object of study. Due to this, a greater emphasis is placed on the practice than on the theory, and from this paradigm usually do not formulate large theoretical bodies to explain reality.

- Regarding the relationship between the researcher and the object of study, both collaborate and communicate to achieve the best possible version of knowledge. This is very different from what occurs in quantitative research, in which the relationship between the researcher and the subject of the research does not influence the final outcome of the research.

Important authors

Although there are many researchers who follow the interpretative paradigm of investigation, some of the most important authors who speak of this topic are Martin Heidegger, Herbert Blumer and Edmund Husserl.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher born at the end of the 19th century. Although his first interest was Catholic theology, he later created his own philosophy, which had a great influence in different fields such as ecology, psychoanalysis, cultural anthropology and art. Today he is considered one of the most influential modern philosophers.

This author considered that it was fundamental to study the interpretations and meanings that people give to reality when they interact with it; in this way, he had a constructionist approach. Based in part on the ideas of symbolic interactionism, Heidegger thought that to acquire knowledge it is necessary to understand the subjective reality of each one.

Herbert Blumer

Blumer was an American philosopher and researcher born at the beginning of the 20th century. Influenced by the works of George Herbert Mead, he was one of the fathers of symbolic interactionism, a current that studies how our own interpretations of the world influence the way we experience it.

For Blumer, scientific research has to be based on the subjective points of view of researchers; According to him, only by uniting his interpretations can true knowledge be reached.

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl was a philosopher born in Moravia in 1859. He was one of the founders of the phenomenological movement, which has influenced the way of thinking of a large number of modern thinkers and scientists.

His theory is based on the idea that the reality we experience is mediated by the way we interpret it. Therefore, his main interests were the meanings we give to things, the awareness and understanding of the mental phenomena of human beings.

Examples

The interpretive paradigm focuses on studying mainly social phenomena, or that have been caused by human beings. Therefore, it is a type of research that is widely used in sociology, psychology and anthropology.

Some of the topics most studied through the interpretive paradigm are the following:

- Social movements and revolutions, as well as the way in which they are produced and what has to happen in order for one of these to emerge.

- The characteristics of indigenous cultures; that is, those people who have not been in contact with Western civilization and who, therefore, preserve their traditional ways of living.

- The cultural customs of the developed countries, how they have been produced and how they have changed in recent times. Some of these customs could be marriage, the most common forms of work, or family and social relationships of people.

- Study of minority groups, such as homosexuals, people with disabilities or people of color, and what differences and difficulties they encounter in their day-to-day lives.

References

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3. "Qualitative Research"in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: March 17, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "Qualitative Research"in: Atlas.ti. Retrieved on: March 17, 2018 from Atlas.ti: atlasti.com.
5. "Phenomenology (psychology)"in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: March 17, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.