[AAACE-NLA] A Brief Critique: The Foundations of ResearchCatherine B. King

[gdemetrion@msn.com]

Thank you, Catherine, for this thorough explorations.

A point of clarification in terms of terminology, perhaps the phrase neopositivism rather than postpositivism would be the clearer term to draw on to distingiush research traditions based on the positivist paradigm from other research traditions.  The problem stems from Donna Mertens' usage of the term postpositivismat least in the 1998 version of her important text, Research Methods in Educational Psychology."  In that text, postpositivism is clearly an extension of positivism.  Others have used the same term, postpositivism in a more critical vein, meaning beyond the positivistic tradition.  I draw on this latter usage myself in my on-line essay, Postpositivist Scientific Philosophy: Mediating Convergences: http://www.the-rathouse.com/Postpositivism.htm in which the term is a mediation between positivism and constructivism and postmodernism.

The broader point is that research traditions are human product and constructed out of the human imagination in which, according to Karl Popper, even science is a form of fiction--a highly salutary one, to be sure.

Best

George Demetrion
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