Constructivist Research Paradigm

Common to all sociocultural approaches to research, is the idea that the individual cannot be understood in isolation from the context in which s/he is located and, therefore, a methodology which seeks to research individuals in their everyday social situations is called for. To do this effectively, there is a need to observe the different practices in which an individual participates through his or her daily life. In particular, developing an understanding of the societal, institutional and personal perspectives is important and enables the analysis of how individuals develop as they interact with other participants in a particular setting. Documenting the practices of the setting gives an improved understanding of the conditions the setting provides for interaction and activity while documenting the relations between the different perspectives provides for a richer and more clearly-articulated study of the social situation of children’s development and agency (Fleer & Richardson, 2004).

By taking such a view of research, I wish to argue for a methodology for studying children’s learning in everyday situations by considering both the perspective of the child and the teacher and by actively examining the relationship between these perspectives. However, Guba and Lincoln (1994, p. 105) in pointing out the importance of linking methodological choices to philosophical paradigms, note that ‘questions of method are secondary to questions of paradigm’. Therefore, before discussing the more specific choice of methods to be used in this inquiry, it is necessary to interrogate the paradigm that underpins the research.

According to MacKenzie and Knipe (2006) a paradigm is a theoretical framework. A paradigm is defined by Guba and Lincoln (1994, p. 105) as a ‘basic belief system or worldview that guides the investigator, not only in choices of method but in ontologically and epistemologically fundamental ways.’ Thus, it is clear that a choice of paradigm frames both what is believed to be the nature of knowledge and the methodology used to investigate this knowledge. Mertens (2005) suggests that the four main paradigms that form the basis of research in the social sciences are the postpositivist, constructivist, transformative and pragmatic approaches and although each paradigm is a specific collection of beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the best ways of understanding it, sometimes the lines between each paradigm are not altogether clear in practice.

It is the constructivist research paradigm which informs this research study. An alternative label for this paradigm is interpretivist (Hughes, 2001) and is used interchangeably throughout this chapter. In order to explicate this paradigm more fully it is necessary to provide the answers for three questions selected by Guba and Lincoln (1994, p. 108) that help define a paradigm:

1. The ontological question: ‘What is the nature of reality?’

2. The epistemological question: ‘What is the nature of the relationship between the knower and the would-be knower and what can be known?’

3. The methodological question: ‘How can the researcher go about finding out whatever is to be known?’

As a constructivist researcher, I hold the ontological point of view which claims there can be no single way of perceiving the world. Although I believe that reality is constructed in the mind of the individual, I would also adhere to the constructivist position that assumes multiple and equally valid realities exist. In this study, teachers, children and parents were allowed to express how they felt about the pedagogy they practise, experience and interpret in their own individual ways. This view is in direct contrast to postpositivist perspectives that hold that knowledge produced by scientific inquiries is objective knowledge and is untainted by the researcher’s own subjectivity. In the constructivist paradigm notions of objectivity and control in research are replaced with thinking about subjectivity and understanding. Such a subjective view assumes that, depending on people’s view of reality, their meanings can also change and while multiple views of reality exist, some of these may be in conflict with each other. Research from a constructivist perspective may be criticised for failing to consider in any great detail the influence of social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, gender and disability values in the construction of reality as is the case with research in the transformative paradigm. Therefore, as a constructivist researcher, I realise I must also be cognisant of what is assumed to be “real” and this must also be examined for its role in maintaining social structures.

Epistemology refers to the relationship between the knower and the would-be- known (Mertens, 2005). As a researcher in the constructivist paradigm, I argue for a strong connection between the two, i.e. where knowledge is created in dialogue and in other forms of joint activity and an important feature of this study was the co- construction of knowledge through collaborative participation by practitioners,

parents, children and the researcher. The analysis of my inquiry emphasised the socially-constructed nature of reality, arguing that knowledge is gained through interpretation of how participants make sense of their sociocultural contexts and activities. In keeping with the sociocultural theoretical underpinnings of the study, I entered the world of the teachers, children and parents in an attempt to describe and understand the contextualised social phenomena I found there.

A constructivist approach to methodology is underpinned by the notion that reality is a social construction created between the people active in the research process, that is, the observer and the observed (Mertens, 2005). Essentially, as a constructivist researcher I took a hermeneutical approach maintaining that meaning is hidden and must be brought to the surface through deep reflection (Schwandt, 2000). This in turn necessitated an exploration of the perspectives of a variety of people on early childhood pedagogy in a multigrade setting. Therefore, the methodology was multi-method in focus involving an interpretive approach conducted through interaction between and among the researcher and participants (Guba and Lincoln 1994). The data collection strategies used in this inquiry included interview, observation and questionnaire.