Table 1 The ‘stereotypical view’ of differences between interpretive and behavioural (positivist) methodological approaches. Adapted from Evered and Reis Louis (1981).

From: Negotiating the ethical-political dimensions of research methods: a key competency in mixed methods, inter- and transdisciplinary, and co-production research

 

Interpretive tradition

Behavioural (positivist) tradition

Ontological assumptions

Reality generated through interaction of observer and observed

Reality exists independently of the observer

Mode of enquiry

‘From the inside’

‘From the outside’

Categories and research design

Interactively emergent

A priori

Aims

Contextual knowledge

Generalisable knowledge

Researcher positioning in relation to context

Immersion, ‘being there’

Detachment, neutrality

Nature of data

Interpreted, contextually embedded

Factual, context-free

Favoured methods

Ethnography, interviews, participatory methods (e.g., photovoice)

Experiments, statistics, mathematical models

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