Selecting a Constructivism Paradigm

Philosophical assumptions support different paradigms. Table 4.1 adopted from Creswell (2009), illustrates four worldviews and assumptions. This research, undertaken by a female researcher, examined women’s views of their world from their own experience. Because thoughts, feelings, beliefs and values are involved, the researcher is required to understand the deeper perspectives that can be captured through face-to-face interaction (Marshall, C & Rossman 2006). Marshall and Rossman (2006) argue that coding the social world using variables destroys valuable data by imposing a limited worldview on the participants’ responses. Based on the table below, this thesis used a constructivist paradigm to uncover factors that influenced women’s relationship with money over time.

Table 4.1: Four Worldviews (or paradigms)

Postpositivism Constructivism Advocacy/Participatory Pragmatism

Determination Understanding Political Consequences of actions

Reductionism Multiple participant

meanings

Empowerment Issue-oriented Problem-centred Empirical observation and

measurement

Social and historical construction

Collaborative Pluralistic

Theory verification Theory generation Change-oriented Real-world practice

oriented Source: Adopted from Creswell (2009, p. 6)

115 Epistemology

According to Lincoln, Lynham and Guba (2011), the constructivist paradigm assumes that the inquiry is ‘transactional and subjectivist resulting in created findings’ (p. 98). This means that people are shaped by their lived experiences, ‘and these will always become apparent in knowledge generated as researchers and in the data generated by our subjects’ (Lincoln, Lynham & Guba 2011, p. 104). Even though a conceptual model was developed rather than using a purely grounded theory approach, the value of the model was in its synthesis of economic socialisation during female adolescence, the gaining of financial literacy, and inclusion leading to financial capability at maturity to gather rich and meaningful data on women’s relationship with money from adolescence to maturity. The model was not imposed on data. The initial model was synthesized from the literature. Model development was iterative as the initial model provided the foundation for interview questions, which in turn generated data with participants. The data analysis process provided finer grained detail until the final model evolved. Using an inductive approach couple with some grounded theory techniques, which involved building a model from data generated from participants’ views, were used in the thesis. Charmaz (2006) contends that ‘we are part of the world we study and the data we collect. We construct our grounded theories through our past and present involvements and interactions with people, perspectives, and research practices’ (p.10).

Grounded theory techniques such as coding transcripts, writing memos or notes, and comparing themes that were identified with women employed in financial services and

116 women working in other sectors (Charmaz 2006) were employed. An interpretive strategy of inquiry was used to develop a model of women’s financial capability that was grounded in participants’ views and emerged from the data (Creswell 2009). The model developed as analysis progressed. Rather than using a grounded theory approach to produce a new theory, the techniques used were employed as they offered a flexible approach to manage and interpret data to develop a model (Charmaz 2006).

The advantages of a constructivist interpretive approach to financial capability meant that as this type of research works from the particular to generalisations or theories, patterns and relationships, the outcomes were compared to existing literature (Creswell 2009). Themes were identified (Creswell 2009; Denzin & Lincoln 2011; Glaser 1992) by coding the data as they were collected and categorised. The researcher composes the narrative; it does not simply unfold before the eyes of an objective viewer. Understanding the link between who participants are and oneself and how participants and oneself comprehend the world is pivotal in how we understand our self, others, and the world (Guba & Lincoln 1994). As such, this account reflects the viewer as well as the viewed and was considered a useful approach to answer the research questions from the personal data generated with participants.

Ontology

A social constructivist paradigm appeared most suited to both the field of financial capability research and to the research question. The literature reflects research that reveals multiple realities based on adolescent women’s relationship with money, their development as young

117 women and their place in work, family, and social environments. This is one of the characteristics of financial capability research – diversity in both the object of the research and the discipline of the researcher, for example, behavioural finance, economics, and social sciences. This refers to an ontological perspective of constructivism based on ‘relativism – local and specific co-constructed realities’ (Lincoln, Lynham & Guba 2011, p. 100) as the topic, women and financial capability, was the object of the exploratory research. Constructivism is a perspective built on the belief that people are social actors and socialisation is an interactive, social process that allows them to simultaneously act on their environment while also being shaped by it (Freeman & Mathison 2009).

The emergent nature of financial capability research and lack of development of a model for the evolution of women’s financial capability, pointed to the need for deeper understanding of individual women’s financial situations utilising a methodology that accounts for personal interpretations of their lives. The researcher believed that postpositivism, advocacy, and pragmatism were not relevant in research about individuals who need to manage personal finances and plan for future independence and security. Existing research on financial capability from a women’s perspective generally suffers from a paucity of research on methodology (Birkenmaier, Sherraden & Curley 2013). This thesis identified salient factors that influenced women’s resilience to manage personal finances to enhance their financial futures.

118 Methodology

According to Guba and Lincoln (1989), the constructivist paradigm addresses hermeneutical and dialectical interaction where ‘individual constructions are elicited and refined hermeneutically, and compared and contrasted dialectically, with the aim of generating one or a few constructions on which there is substantial consensus’ (p. 27). In this thesis, a qualitative methodology was used with semi-structured and open-ended interview questions posed to females.

Personal interviews were chosen because rich detailed information was sought by the researcher through the guiding questions and observation. Questions could be explored more thoroughly if required and any issues with understanding or interpreting meaning could be clarified immediately, for example, feedback was in the moment and flowed naturally between researcher and interviewee. All participants approached agreed to be interviewed and honoured their commitment to the thesis. Additionally, interviews generally went for the agreed time of approximately one hour or in some cases for up to two hours if the participant chose to offer additional personal financial information in response to questions.

By observing and listening to the participants, it was hoped to generate information to develop a pattern or theory of meaning. It was recognised that the researcher’s background and personal, cultural and historical experiences helped shape this interpretation. As this thesis came from a social theory perspective and not a feminist perspective, there was no need to

119 disclose one’s own position in society. If the thesis employed a different theoretical view such as feminist methodology, personal information would be disclosed.

People are seen as actively co-constructing meaning and understanding of their lives. The research question sought to identify the issues that influenced women’s responses to money, how this happened and if there were observable changes over time to develop a theory or concepts or build upon a theory or concepts. While the focus is on generating data, it is the quality of the interaction that hopefully leads to deep understanding between the participant and the researcher (McMurray et al. 2004). By creating a reality from the inside out, the goal is to make sense of the social interaction (McMurray et al. 2004). In this thesis, by directly observing each woman in individual interviews, the researcher was able to immediately challenge and engage with the person based on personal responses, thereby creating an ongoing dialectical exchange to produce rich, in-depth, meaningful data for analysis.