Theoretical background

Before beginning this new study, it was essential to establish my theoretical position as a researcher. This section discusses the theoretical stance I took in the development of Study 2 and its undertaking.

Ontology has been defined as the theory of existence, or, the science or study of being, asking what the nature of reality is. Blaikie (1993) proposed that this definition includes the claims made by a particular approach to social enquiry and the nature of social reality. Linked with ontology, epistemology is concerned with what counts as knowledge, asking what it is that we can claim to know (King & Horrocks, 2010). As

95

our ontological understanding directly influences what we claim to be knowledge, ontology and epistemology are interconnected.

Ontological positions are usually described as realist or relativist. A realist or positivist position views the world as being predictable, law-based and asserts that a real world exists independently from human experience. Its epistemological standpoint requires knowledge to be observable and testable through hypothesis testing, and free from human subjectivity and bias (Keat, 1979). As a result, the researcher is placed outside of what they are researching or observing. In contrast, a relativist or subjectivist position assumes that there is no real world that exists independently of human experience, and that social reality and the world are relative. An epistemological standpoint allied with this ontological position is constructivism, whereby knowing and learning are embedded in social life and social reality consists only of the meanings made by individuals who create their reality (Crotty, 1998).

Another closely related epistemological standpoint to the relativist position is interpretivism, whereby interpretation is emphasised as a means by which to understand the world (Crotty, 1998). Interpretivism acknowledges the influence of a range of factors such as cultural, historical or psychological influences, which can have significance in shaping how people understand the world. There is an overlap between constructivism and interpretivism, as both seek to understand meaning, experiences, and how human behaviour can be interpreted, whilst recognising that these are bound by time and context (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). However, critics of interpretivism have argued that by privileging individuals’ agency, little attention is given to the means by which social phenomena are created and embedded, which is fundamental to an understanding of constructivism (Crotty, 1998; Wainwright & Forbes, 2000). In contrast to the epistemological position of objectivism which emphasises that there is only one unique truth to discover, interpretivist and constructivist positions assert that there are multiple truths. Rather than being dichotomous, these ontological and epistemological standpoints can be viewed as a continuum (Morgan & Smircich, 1980).

4.3.1 Ontology and epistemology of the study

The aim of the study was to explore the experiences of children, parents and intervention providers in relation to the interventions and identify the difficulties of evidencing intervention effectiveness. In light of this, I believed that there was something important to be understood about the experiences of these individuals, even though how this was understood would be influenced by the social and cultural lenses worn by myself and the participants. Therefore, I rejected both the pure realist and the

96

relativist stance and instead, I took a position that was more closely aligned with critical realism, in contrast with the stronger realist position I had adopted when undertaking Study 1.

The perspective of critical realism is one that blurs the distinction between the realist and relativist positions, as elements of realism and relativism are retained (Bhasker; 1998; 2008; Willig, 1999). Critical realist research aims to “provide causal

explanations rather than predictions, of how and why events occur” (Hu, 2018, p. 122).

Whilst critical realism rejects the idea of ‘multiple realities’ whereby individuals or societies socially construct independent worlds, critical realism does acknowledge that there are different yet valid perspectives about ‘reality’ (Wiltshire, 2018). Thus, critical realism recognises that there is an independent reality as well as a subjective interpretation of that reality (Hu, 2018). According to critical realism, human knowledge

“captures only a small part of a deeper and vaster reality” (Fletcher, 2017, p.182), and

enables knowledge to be gained in relation to theories which can facilitate becoming closer to reality as theories can help to identify causal mechanisms of phenomena (Fletcher, 2017). In accordance with Bhasker, Danermark and Price (2017), this requires consideration of both structure and agency, whereby observable human agency and unobservable social structure are equal parts of causal explanation. This recognises how individuals have agency in how they perceive and shape their world, rather than viewing the social world as static. As the study aimed to explore how recipients and providers of the DVA intervention interpreted the reality of that service, I adopted a critical realist position. In line with critical realist philosophy, the service was a real intervention with a reality. Critical realism acknowledges that perceptions of reality are influenced by individuals’ interpretation of this reality at an individual and social level. Thus, reality can be perceived in contrasting ways. Adopting this position was right for this study, in light of how I aimed to explore intervention recipients’ and providers’ views about an intervention. I approached this study by recognising that individuals’ perspectives of an intervention may contrast despite experiencing the same service (Walsh & Evans, 2014). Adopting a critical realist perspective was also right for this study given the exploratory nature of the study and the decision to undertake a qualitative approach (which is further discussed in Section 4.5) as qualitative methods “are more capable of describing a

social phenomenon and producing situated analytical explanations” (Hu, 2018, p. 124).

Being more aligned with critical realism shaped how I viewed the findings from the study. I viewed the findings as an interpretation influenced by how participants interpreted reality, in addition to the context and beliefs that I brought to the study.

97

4.4 Ethical framework of the study