EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH QUESTION AND RESEARCH PROBLEM

1. Research Problem: Many students have a very low score in the final quiz, students recognized that they only study the quiz day, because is more easy remind when they do the quiz.

Research Question: Are the quiz scores of students who study the quiz day as alike as those who study many days before?

2. Research Problem: In the elemental school, children that in their home watch more television hours are violent with their classmates.

Research Question: Is there a link between hours of television watching and violent behavior in children aged 6-10?

KAREN TATIANA ESCORCIA CORONADO.

Social - Critical Paradigm

Critical theories share some ideas of the interpretative paradigm, but what makes it different is that critical paradigm focuses on oppression. Critical social scientists believe it necessary to understand the lived experience of real people in context. Persons can perceive reality outside them and represent that reality with language. Also, reality is defined by the interaction between the knower and the known. Critical approaches examine social conditions and uncover oppressive power arrangements. The theories found in this paradigm critique the known structure of social arrangement, and deny the existence of any true enduring one. They suggest, instead, a certain group has an explicit political agenda, which struggles with culture and other groups’ interests. In the field of communication, critical scholars are particularly interested in how messages reinforce oppression in society. No aspect of life is interest free, even science. They believe there are some groups who benefit from oppressing others, so their main jobs are to point out the existing contradictions, in order to help people be aware of what is really going on, and create new forms of language that will enable predominant ideology to be exposed and competing ideologies to be heard. (Based on Littlejohn, S. (2000). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth)

Positivist Paradigm

Logical Positivism represents one particular way of knowing. It asserts we gather information through our senses or we can discover it though some type of logical derivation or mathematical modeling. A crucial premise of positivism is that there are certain regularities in nature which can be observed and/or discovered. These regularities are called “laws”. Laws are universal. Another crucial concept is “causality”: people communicate the way they do because some prior condition caused them to respond to a message in certain ways; researchers using this paradigm review the preceding conditions of communication to know cause and effect of human communication. They believe they can explain our environment, predict findings and eventually, control our environment. They also believe that findings could be applied to anyone –generalization-- because laws transcend time and space. (Based on Infante, D., Rancer, A., & Womack, D. (2003). Building Communication Theory. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press) Scientists using this paradigm believe reality is more structured; they think it has an empirical character which allows them to observe facts; they believe it is objective.

The Qualitative Paradigm

The design of a research study begins with the selection of a topic and a paradigm. A paradigm is essentially a worldview, a whole framework of beliefs, values and methods within which research takes place. It is this world view within which researchers work.

According to Cresswell (1994) "A qualitative study is defined as an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem, based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting.

Alternatively a quantitative study, consistent with the quantitative paradigm, is an inquiry into a social or human problem, based on testing a theory composed of variables, measured with numbers, and analyzed with statistical procedures, in order to determine whether the predictive generalizations of the theory hold true."

The paradigm framework is made up of:

P Philosophy Ontology E Epistemology M Methodology