What Is Research Philosophy?

Research philosophy is the part of the methodology chapter that students either skip or get lost in. Skip it, and your methods look like arbitrary choices to your committee (your examiners, in the UK). Get lost in it, and you lose a week to ontology debates nobody asked you to settle.

Having worked 1-on-1 with thousands of students, we’ve found that what you need is a working understanding, not a philosophy degree. In this post, I’ll explain what research philosophy is in plain language, compare the main philosophies, and show you how four real dissertations stated theirs.

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What is a research philosophy or paradigm?

A research philosophy is the set of beliefs and assumptions about reality, knowledge and values that underlies how you design and carry out your study. Whether it’s a dissertation, a thesis or a journal article, every study has one, even when the author never names it.

Take one assumption as an example. You might assume that there’s an external reality that exists independently of what anyone thinks about it (an objective reality), or you might assume that reality is constructed by the people experiencing it (a subjective reality). Those two starting points lead to very different studies, as you’ll see below.

Your philosophy also covers the kind of knowledge you expect your study to produce. You might expect a concrete, measurable answer to your research question, or you might expect findings that are more nuanced and harder to pin down. Put simply, it’s about whether you expect “hard”, clean answers or softer, more layered ones.

Many textbooks split these assumptions into three branches: ontology (what’s real), epistemology (how you can know it) and axiology (the role of values). You don’t need to master all three to follow this post, but if you want the detail, our guide to ontology vs epistemology takes them one at a time.

Each branch asks a different question about the same study. Your answers to all three, taken together, make up your research philosophy.

“So, what’s the difference between research philosophy and paradigm?”

It depends on who you ask. Some textbooks say philosophy is about the researcher’s own beliefs while a paradigm is the approach a study takes. Others use the two words interchangeably. And others treat philosophy as the umbrella term, with paradigms as ready-made packages of assumptions that researchers in a field share.

I wouldn’t lose sleep over the distinction. Both terms describe the beliefs and assumptions that sit underneath your study, and that’s the part your committee cares about. Pick the term your program and your methods textbook use, and stay consistent with it.

What matters is that your philosophy is the foundation of your research methodology. It shapes your research design, the data you collect, how you analyze it and how you interpret your results. If your philosophy and your methods point in different directions, that’s the gap your committee is most likely to question.

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So, what are the options?

There’s no single agreed list, and that’s a big part of why this topic confuses people. Saunders and colleagues’ Research Methods for Business Students, the textbook behind the research onion, names five philosophies:

• Positivism
• Critical realism
• Interpretivism
• Postmodernism
• Pragmatism

Education researchers Charles Kivunja and Ahmed Bawa Kuyini, following Candy (1989), group most paradigms into three (positivist, interpretivist and critical) and note that other researchers add pragmatism as a fourth (Kivunja and Kuyini, 2017).

The easiest way to hold them in your head is as positions along a line, from a fully objective view of reality to a fully subjective one, with pragmatism standing slightly apart.

The philosophies on the line differ in what they assume about reality. Pragmatism differs in where it starts: with the problem.

I’ll take the three you’re most likely to use first, then the other two.

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Paradigm 1: Positivism

When you think positivism, think of the natural sciences: physics, biology, astronomy. Positivism rests on the belief that knowledge comes from objective observation and measurement. It assumes the answers are out there, and that careful measurement, usually of numerical data, will find them.

As a research paradigm, positivism typically leads to methodologies built on quantitative data, often with experimental or quasi-experimental designs. The focus is usually on causal relationships: which variables affect which, in what way and to what extent. That’s why positivist studies aim for objectivity, generalizability and findings someone else could replicate.

Here’s a positivist study in outline, so you can see the assumptions at work:

Notice what the design assumes: that you get to the truth by controlling the environment, manipulating one variable and measuring the result. You don’t ask participants how they feel about the supplement, because in this view, that isn’t where the answer lives.

Positivism is so standard in the natural sciences that many lab-based dissertations never mention their philosophy at all. If you do name it, tie it to the kind of finding you’re after. The business doctorate extract below does exactly that. The doctorate is a cumulative dissertation from Bamberg, made up of twelve papers, and it says which paradigm or perspective each paper follows:

Two things are worth noting here. The extract links positivism to what it’s for: “generalizable findings”, and it’s exact about scope, naming the papers that follow each paradigm. A single study usually follows one philosophy, but if yours combines several, say which part follows which, and why.

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Paradigm 2: Interpretivism

Picture the philosophies on a line, and interpretivism sits more or less opposite positivism. It holds that reality is socially constructed: people experience the same situation differently, so there’s no single reality waiting to be measured. The researcher’s job is to understand those experiences from the inside.

Interpretivist studies usually aim to understand the meanings people attach to their experiences. That typically means a qualitative methodology, with data collected through interviews, observation or documents. These studies tend to explore complex social situations and individual perspectives, which don’t reduce neatly to numbers.

In a study design, it looks like this. Watch where the evidence comes from:

Here, the evidence is conversation, not measurement. If you want to understand people’s lived experiences, you have to assume that their accounts, subjective as they are, are a valid source of knowledge.

Interpretivist-based dissertations and theses usually state their philosophy, because it needs defending in a way positivism often doesn’t. The education master’s thesis below, a study of New Zealand teachers’ perspectives on their professional standards, does it in one paragraph:

Notice how the paragraph names the paradigm in its first sentence, defines it with a source, says what it asks of the researcher and then ties it to the research question. That last step is the one most students leave out, and it’s the one that turns a definition into a justification. Make sure yours has it.

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Paradigm 3: Pragmatism

Positivism and interpretivism both have their merits, and each suits a different kind of question. Some research aims, objectives and research questions need one; others need the other. But what happens when your study involves both “hard” and “soft” questions? That’s where pragmatism comes in.

Pragmatism judges research by whether its findings are useful, not by whether they fit one philosophical position. It doesn’t start from a view about reality. It starts from the problem, and picks whatever approach answers it, which lets you use different perspectives for different parts of the same study.

In a pragmatist study, quantitative and qualitative methods can both play a part, depending on the research questions and the context. That often means a mixed-methods design. This teaching study shows how the two kinds of data divide the work:

As you can see, the study uses both kinds of data to answer one practical question. You get a fuller picture of the method’s effect, and its practical implications, than either kind of data would give you alone.

Pragmatism also leaves room for commitments that aren’t methodological. The public health doctorate below measures health loss among Māori and non-Māori using national administrative data. The author calls their epistemology pragmatic because, in their words, “research has value if it can help resolve pressing problems and improve people’s lives”. They then set out their values (their axiology) like this:

Kaupapa Māori research is research led by Māori values and priorities. The point to take from the extract is that pragmatism here isn’t a shrug. Munn is specific about what drives the choices: solving a real problem, guided by a stated set of values.

One warning from me, too: Don’t choose pragmatism because the other philosophies feel hard. Choose it because your problem genuinely needs more than one kind of evidence, and say so.

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Critical realism and postmodernism

Two more philosophies come up often, especially if your program uses the research onion.

Critical realism sits between positivism and interpretivism. Like positivism, it accepts that a real world exists independently of us. Unlike positivism, it argues that we can’t observe much of that world directly, so the researcher’s job is to reason from what can be observed to the structures and causes underneath. That makes it a natural fit when you’re trying to explain why something happens.

It’s easy to assume critical realism means qualitative research, but it doesn’t have to. This psychology doctorate tests a questionnaire that measures vicarious trauma (VT), the cumulative impact that exposure to clients’ trauma can have on therapists and other helping professionals. It’s a quantitative study, and it explains its critical realist position like this:

Notice the phrase “fallible measurement tools”. The study still measures, but it’s honest that a questionnaire only approximates something real that can’t be observed directly. If your study measures something you believe is real but hard to pin down, critical realism may describe your position better than positivism does.

Postmodernism sits at the subjective end. It focuses on language and power, holding that what counts as “truth” is shaped by dominant ideas, and that some voices get left out. Postmodernist researchers often use methods such as discourse analysis, looking for what’s missing or silenced in a text. It’s far less common in dissertations than the other four, and it asks a lot of reflexivity from you, so choose it deliberately. Our post on the research onion covers both philosophies in more depth.

Research philosophy is the onion’s outer layer. Every decision inside it, from your approach to theory down to your data analysis, has to be consistent with the philosophy you choose.

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How to choose your research philosophy

Here’s how the four philosophies you’re most likely to use compare on the two things that matter most for your study:

Philosophy	What it assumes about reality	Methods it usually leads to
Positivism	One objective reality that can be measured	Quantitative: experiments, surveys, statistics
Interpretivism	Reality is built from people’s meanings	Qualitative: interviews, observation, documents
Critical realism	A real world, much of it not directly observable	Either or both, aimed at explaining causes
Pragmatism	Starts from the problem, not a view of reality	Whatever answers the question, often mixed

I’d start from your research question, not from a philosophy textbook. In most cases, your question already points to your philosophy, and your job is to recognize it and name it. The wording is usually the giveaway:

• “Does X affect Y?” or “How much…?” suggests positivism.
• “How do people experience…?” or “What does X mean to…?” suggests interpretivism.
• “Why does X happen here and not there?” suggests critical realism.
• “What works to solve this problem?” suggests pragmatism.

Then check your choice against two things. First, your methods: if you’ve planned interviews, a positivist philosophy will look like a mismatch, and if you’ve planned a survey with statistical tests, an interpretivist one will too. Second, your department’s conventions: read the methodology chapters of two or three recent dissertations from your program and see which philosophies they use and how much space they give them.

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How to write your philosophy section

Not every program expects a philosophy section. Many lab-based and quantitative dissertations never mention one, so check your handbook first. If yours does expect one, a clear section usually does four things, in this order:

1. Name your philosophy, using the term your methods textbook uses.
2. Define it with a source, in a sentence or two.
3. Say what it means for your study: what counts as evidence, and your role as the researcher.
4. Tie it to your research question, so the reader sees why this philosophy fits this study.

The interpretivist education thesis above does all four in one paragraph, which is about the right length for a master’s dissertation. A doctoral thesis may go further and state its ontology, epistemology and axiology separately, as the public health doctorate does.

Once your philosophy is set, the rest of your methodology chapter should follow from it: your design, your sampling and your analysis. Our guide to writing the methodology chapter walks through each part with real extracts.

If you’d like someone to check that your philosophy and methods line up before you submit, book a free chat with one of our coaches. We’ll talk through your study and where your methodology needs work.

Still have questions?

What are the four types of research philosophy?

There isn’t one agreed list. A common grouping is positivist, interpretivist and critical paradigms, with pragmatism added as a fourth by some researchers, as Kivunja and Kuyini set out in a 2017 paper on research paradigms. Saunders and colleagues’ Research Methods for Business Students lists five: positivism, critical realism, interpretivism, postmodernism and pragmatism. Use the list your program’s methods textbook uses, and name it.

What is an example of a research philosophy?

Interpretivism is a common example. A master’s thesis on teachers’ perspectives on their professional standards states that its “research design draws on an interpretive paradigm”, meaning it treats teachers’ own accounts as the evidence and understands their perspectives “through the eyes of the participants”. A study testing whether a supplement causes weight loss, by contrast, would follow positivism and rely on measurement.

Is a research philosophy the same as a paradigm?

They overlap so much that many textbooks use the terms interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn, philosophy usually refers to the researcher’s beliefs about reality and knowledge, and a paradigm to a shared set of those beliefs that a research community works within. Use whichever term your program uses, and keep it consistent.

Can you combine research philosophies?

Yes, if you can explain why. Pragmatism exists partly to combine approaches, so a mixed-methods study often states a pragmatist philosophy. A dissertation made up of several separate studies can also follow a different philosophy in each, as long as it says which part follows which. What doesn’t work is mixing them without saying so.

Do I need a research philosophy section?

It depends on your field and your program. Social science, education, health and business dissertations, especially qualitative and mixed-methods ones, usually include one in the methodology chapter. Many lab-based and quantitative dissertations never mention their philosophy, because positivism is taken for granted. Check your program’s handbook and a few recent dissertations from your department.

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