SOK Formative Feedback

Positivism is the basic paradigm associated with natural science. In the view of this
paradigm, reality is independent of people’s beliefs. Positivism is on the basis of empiricism,
which claims that knowledge is dependent on the five senses and that through experience,
knowledge can be derived and accumulated (Howell, 2013, p.33).
The positivism paradigm believes that all meaningful statements are directly observable,
verifiable and logical. For the ontology turn, the positivism paradigm holds a belief that the nature
of the world is an entity that exists outside theories generated by scientific research, and it is
unchangeable despite how we regard it. It mainly illustrates the idea of naïve realism that there is
only one reality independent of the belief of all human beings, and it can be comprehended
through the five senses directly. For the epistemology turn, positivism is based on objectivism,
which means a value-free approach that separates the knower and the knowledge. The connection
between human beliefs and external reality is the correspondence approach. In other words, only if
something people believe happens literally, then their faith can be true.
Methodologically, educational research with the paradigm of positivism always attempts to
use observation, surveys and experiments to verify their hypothesis. These research methods
usually generate large-scale quantitative data and provide scientific statements with genuine truth
(Ibid., p.42). Nevertheless, it always ignores the unique features of single participants. Hence, the
purpose of research in positivism is to describe the observable fact superficially and to generalize
universal theory from a variety of similar points in a bottom-up way.
However, learning cannot occur in a vacuum. Different from natural scientific research
carried out in laboratories, the ultimate beneficiary of education research are individuals with
different genders, races, characteristics, identities, beliefs, life experiences and sociocultural
backgrounds. Everyone holds a different viewpoint on what they need and how they should fulfil
their needs with accessible resources inside their own situation. Therefore, there is no context-free
theory that can be suitably implemented as guidance for teaching and learning in different
contexts. Although knowledge from positivism can tell people some universal principles of
education, it still cannot give a solution to the diverse issues of individual learners or a specific
classroom.
References:
Howell, K. E. (2013). Empiricism, positivism and post-positivism. In An introduction to the
philosophy of methodology (pp. 32-54). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.