Declaring a Research Paradigm — Or Not
None of five examined works declares an ontology or epistemology, while the teaching material treats the question as fundamental. What to do with that contradiction in your own methodology chapter.
What the teaching material asks for
The material lists positivism, constructionism and interpretivism as the positions generally considered, and adds functionalism, symbolic interactionism, feminism, critical inquiry and postmodernism as other frameworks used in social science research. It asks you to locate yourself among them.
What the examined works actually do
PARADIGM DECLARATION ACROSS FIVE EXAMINED WORKS
| Exemplar | Format | Paradigm declared? | What appears instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| A — action research thesis | PhD, 447pp | No | Methodology named as action research and described as emergent and as a meta-methodology. No ontology or epistemology discussion. |
| B — mixed methods thesis | PhD, 404pp | No | Positivism described as underlying modern quantitative work — but the researcher does not position himself within it. Roughly ten of fifteen methodology pages are generic textbook exposition. |
| C — portfolio thesis | DBA, 146pp | No | No epistemology or philosophy discussion anywhere. Methodology treated purely instrumentally, about three pages per empirical paper. |
| D — journal paper | Peer reviewed, 20pp | No | Methodology named as case study plus expert interviews. No philosophical positioning. |
| E — conference paper | Conference, 14pp | No | Method named as desktop literature research plus comparative analysis. No philosophical positioning. |
Five documents. Two of them doctoral theses that passed examination. This is an observation about these five works, not a measured rate across the field.
Why the tension exists
Two explanations fit the evidence, and they are not mutually exclusive.
The disciplinary explanation
- Project management is an applied field with engineering and management roots
- Its journals publish work judged on design adequacy and usefulness, not on philosophical positioning
- Reviewers in the field ask whether the sample supports the claim, not which epistemology licenses it
- The two theses were examined in that same disciplinary culture
The pedagogical explanation
- The teaching material is drawn from business and social research methods texts
- In sociology and adjacent fields, declaring a position is genuinely expected
- A general research-methods subject teaches the broadest requirement, not the local one
- Students are therefore taught to a standard their own field's literature does not display
What an undeclared position still does
Exemplar B is the clearest case. It runs a survey with Likert scales, applies analysis of variance and multiple regression, tests seven declarative hypotheses and adjudicates each one against the data. Every one of those choices assumes there is a stable external reality that can be measured, that measurement error is separable from the thing measured, and that hypotheses can be confirmed or disconfirmed by data.
That is a position. Not declaring it does not make it absent — it makes it unexamined, and therefore unavailable for the reader to challenge. The same applies in reverse to exemplar A, whose insider action research assumes the researcher is part of what is being studied and that knowledge is produced through participation.
Answering those three is most of what a paradigm statement contains, without needing the vocabulary. Methodological coherence sets out the fit test the answers have to pass.
Writing the section your discipline will accept
How to handle the tension in practice
What to carry forward
- None of five examined works declared a paradigm. Two were doctoral theses that passed examination.
- That is an observation about five documents, not a rate — and not permission to skip the question.
- An undeclared position is not an absent one. It is an unexamined one, and unexamined assumptions cannot be defended.
- Answer three concrete questions about reality, replicability and direction of inference; that is most of a paradigm statement without the vocabulary.
- Keep the positioning short and specific enough that your method follows from it. Generic exposition of qualitative versus quantitative is not a paradigm statement.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to declare a research paradigm?
If your assessment criteria or supervisor require it, yes — that is the binding constraint. The observation that five examined works omitted it describes those five documents and does not override what you are being assessed against.
How can a doctoral thesis pass without one?
Two of the examined theses did. The most likely explanation is disciplinary: applied project management research is judged on design adequacy and usefulness rather than philosophical positioning, and both theses were examined within that culture.
If I skip the paradigm, do I avoid having one?
No. An examined thesis that runs hypothesis tests and regression is assuming a measurable external reality whether it says so or not. Omitting the statement makes the assumption unexamined, not absent.
How long should a paradigm statement be?
Short and specific. The failure mode observed in the examined work is the opposite one — roughly ten of fifteen methodology pages given to generic textbook exposition, with only about five describing what was actually done.
How do I know my paradigm statement is doing any work?
A reader should be able to predict your method from it. If the same statement would sit equally well above a survey and an ethnography, it is decoration.
References and source attribution
- Five examined research works supplied as exemplars: two doctoral theses (1999, 2016), a doctoral portfolio thesis (2004), a peer-reviewed journal paper (2014) and a conference paper (2017/2018). Structural observations only; chapter bodies were not reproduced.
- Supplied teaching source, Weeks 2-4: Introduction to Research Methods, Developing a Research Topic, Reviewing the Literature.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Write a short paradigm positioning paragraph for a survey-based project study.
- What assumptions does hypothesis testing commit me to?
- Does my methodology follow from my stated epistemology?
- How do applied and social science fields differ on declaring a paradigm?
- Trim my methodology chapter's generic exposition down to what I actually did.