Ontology: Assumptions About the Nature of Reality
Every research design carries a position on what the thing being studied actually is. The supplied source calls that position ontology, and in practitioner research it is almost always inherited rather than chosen.
What the supplied source says ontology is
The material states the idea three times, in three places, and not in identical terms. Setting them side by side is more useful than reconciling them.
ONTOLOGY AS THE SUPPLIED SOURCE PUTS IT
| Where it appears | How ontology is put |
|---|---|
| The five-element table | Assumptions about the nature of being: embedded in the theoretical perspective and thus in the methodology. |
| The three-term table | Ways of looking at work. Associated terms: paradigm, philosophy. |
| The prose on research philosophies | “Your choice and use of particular methodologies and methods relate to the assumptions about reality that you bring to your work. Questions about the nature of reality are questions of ontology.” |
All three appear in the same supplied teaching material.
Dividing the two questions: ontology and epistemology
Ontology and epistemology are asked together and answered separately. The source draws the line clearly enough to be usable: questions about the nature of reality are ontological; questions about knowledge, how it is created and what it is worth are epistemological.
Ontological questions — this page
- What kind of thing is the phenomenon I am studying?
- Does it exist independently of the accounts people give of it?
- Is there one delivery reality here to be measured, or several accounts of it that are all real to the people holding them?
- If everyone stopped describing it, would there still be something there?
Epistemological questions — the sibling page
- How is knowledge about this thing created?
- What justifies the methodology and methods I have chosen?
- What will count as adequate evidence, and to whom?
- What value do I ascribe to the knowledge this design can produce?
Everything on the right-hand side is treated at epistemology: how knowledge is created, including the justification obligation the source places on the researcher. This page does not repeat it. Read the two together and in this order: what the thing is, then how you can come to know it.
Where ontology hides in a research plan
The position rarely appears as a statement. It appears as four apparently technical decisions, each of which quietly assumes an answer.
Four places the assumption is already operating
In the unit of analysis
Choosing the project as the thing you are studying assumes a project is a bounded entity with edges that exist independently of who is drawing them. Choose the programme, the team or the practice instead and you have made a different assumption, usually without noticing.
In the measurement decision
Deciding to score something from one to five assumes it varies along a single dimension that exists prior to the scoring. If the thing is constituted by how people talk about it, the scale is not measuring it — it is creating it.
In how you treat disagreement
Two stakeholders describe the same handover incompatibly. Treating one as mistaken assumes a single independent reality. Treating both as data assumes reality here is what participants construct. This is the sharpest practical test available.
In the sampling frame
Deciding who counts as a member of the population assumes the population has a real boundary. Where the boundary is contested — who counts as a stakeholder, who counts as a project manager — the frame is an ontological claim wearing procedural clothing.
What the source names, and what it never states
The material lists eight philosophical frameworks on its methodological pyramid and names several more in prose. It also states that each of them represents particular ontological and epistemological standpoints. It then declines to say what any of those ontological standpoints are.
PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORKS AND THEIR STATED ONTOLOGY
| Framework named in the source | What the source does say about it | Ontological standpoint stated? |
|---|---|---|
| Positivism | Hypotheses tested using objectively collected factual data; if successful, leads to scientific laws. | Not stated |
| Constructionism / constructivist | People construct their own views of reality and the researcher seeks to discover this. | Not stated |
| Interpretivism / interpretive | People provide their own accounts or explanations of situations and behaviours. | Not stated |
| Critical inquiry | Research is influenced by beliefs and values critical of the status quo in society. | Not stated |
| Functionalism, symbolic interactionism, feminism, postmodernism | Named in the prose as other philosophical frameworks used in social science research. | Not stated |
The middle column reproduces what the source supplies. Every one of those statements describes how knowledge is pursued, not what is taken to exist.
Surfacing the assumption you have already made
The source does not give a procedure for this. The routine below is ours, and it takes about twenty minutes on a real project question.
A twenty-minute ontology check
Write the phenomenon as a noun phrase
Three or four words, no verbs and no causal claim. “Risk register updating.” “Stakeholder confidence.” “Use of lessons learned.” Vagueness at this step is the assumption hiding.
Ask what would have to exist for your planned measure to be valid
If you intend to count occurrences, something must occur discretely. If you intend to score intensity, something must vary along one dimension. Write down what your instrument presupposes.
Test it against disagreement
Picture two credible participants describing the same event incompatibly. If your instinct is to establish which is correct, you are working with a single independent reality. If your instinct is to keep both accounts, you are not — and your design must reflect that.
State it in one sentence
“In this study, X is treated as …”. Then read your draft methodology against the sentence. Where they disagree, one of them is wrong, and it is usually not the sentence.
Put the sentence where a reader will find it
An assumption stated once at the front and never used again is decoration. The connection between the stated position and the design is what has to be visible, and holding that connection is the subject of methodological coherence.
Worked contrast: two studies of the same problem
A delivery organisation notices that project teams stop updating the risk register about a third of the way through execution. Two studies could be built on that observation. They differ at step one, not at step five.
Study A — updating is an event that occurs or does not
- The phenomenon exists independently of what anyone says about it and leaves traces in the system.
- Correlation methodology, which the source defines as describing the statistical measure of association between two phenomena.
- Data: update timestamps, register versions, project attributes such as size and duration.
- Claim available: whether updating co-varies with other measurable project characteristics.
- Claim not available: why anyone stopped.
Study B — updating is a practice constituted in use
- The phenomenon is what participants do and how they account for it; the system trace is a partial record of it.
- Descriptive methodology, which the source defines as relying on observations recorded to be analysed subsequently, and classes as qualitative.
- Data: interviews with the teams, observation of risk workshops, the registers read as artefacts.
- Claim available: an account of how updating is understood, prioritised and worked around.
- Claim not available: how prevalent any of it is across the portfolio.
Neither study is more rigorous than the other, and both are defensible. What is not defensible is running Study A while answering Study B's question at the presentation, which is exactly what happens when the ontological position was never stated. The methodologies themselves are set out under correlation and experimental methodologies and descriptive research methodology.
Common mistakes with ontology
- Declaring a position in the methodology chapter that the rest of the study then ignores. An examiner reads the design, not the declaration.
- Treating ontology as a compliance step to be cleared before the real work starts. It is not a preliminary; it is embedded in the theoretical perspective and thus in everything above it.
- Assuming that quantitative work implies a single reality and qualitative work implies many. The supplied source states no such pairing, and asserting it commits you to a position you have not argued.
- Using ontology, paradigm and philosophy as interchangeable words because one source table lists the latter two as associated terms of the first.
- Choosing the position that makes the data you already hold look adequate. This is the reverse of research and it is usually obvious to everyone except the author.
Check before you proceed
Five checks on your ontological position
- You can name the phenomenon as a noun phrase and say what kind of thing you are treating it as.
- You know what your design does with two incompatible accounts of the same event, and the answer is deliberate.
- Your unit of analysis follows from your position rather than from what data happened to be available.
- You can point to the sentence in your write-up where the position is stated, and to the design decisions that follow from it.
- You have taken any named ontological position from a work you can cite, not from the supplied teaching material, which does not supply them.
What to carry forward
- Ontology is assumptions about the nature of being; questions about the nature of reality are ontological questions.
- The supplied source defines the word twice and in different terms. Use the nature-of-being sense and say that you are.
- You brought the assumption with you. The work is surfacing it, not selecting it from a list.
- The sharpest test is what your design does with incompatible accounts of the same event.
- The source names philosophical frameworks but never states their ontological standpoints — take any named position from a work you can cite.
Frequently asked questions
What does ontology mean in a research project?
In the supplied source it means assumptions about the nature of being — questions about the nature of reality are questions of ontology. In practice it is the position your study takes on what kind of thing the phenomenon is: something that exists independently of how people describe it, or something constituted by those descriptions.
How is ontology different from epistemology?
Ontology asks what the thing is; epistemology asks how knowledge of it is created and what justifies your methodology. They are asked together and answered separately, and the source ties both to the theoretical perspective and thus to the methodology. The epistemology page covers the second question in full.
Does the supplied source list ontological positions I can choose from?
No. It names philosophical frameworks such as positivism, constructionism and interpretivism and states that each represents particular ontological and epistemological standpoints, but it describes them only in epistemological terms and never states what the ontological standpoints are. Any named position you use should be attributed to a work you can cite.
Do I have to state my ontological position in a practitioner research project?
The source treats ontology as one of the five basic elements and states that the assumptions are embedded in the theoretical perspective and thus in the methodology. Whether or not you state it, it is operating. Stating it is what allows you to defend the design when someone challenges it.
What is the fastest way to work out my own position?
Ask what your study does when two credible participants describe the same event incompatibly. If you would establish which one is right, you are treating reality as single and independent. If you would keep both accounts as data, you are not, and your methodology needs to be able to carry both.
References and source attribution
- The supplied teaching source: master's-level teaching notes and slides on research methods, including the five-element table, the three-term table and the prose on research philosophies.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing. Chapter 1, p. 50 — the methodological pyramid, whose base tier names the philosophical frameworks referred to here.
- Clarke, R. J. 2005, Research methods and methodologies, pp. 35–45 — the work the supplied source adapts for the correlation and descriptive methodology definitions used in the worked contrast.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Listed in the supplied source's reading list.)
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Help me state the ontological position behind my research question in one sentence.
- Is my unit of analysis an ontological choice or a practical one?
- What should my study do when two participants describe the same event differently?
- Show me the difference between an ontological and an epistemological question for my topic.
- Which parts of my draft methodology contradict the position I stated at the front?