What Comes First? The Paradigm or the Approach?

Abstract

The mixed methods community is awash in discussions about philosophical frameworks or paradigms that provide guidance for mixed methods approaches (B. Johnson & Gray, 2010). Part of the reason for the multiplicity of viewpoints about the role of paradigms in mixed methods research emanates from the different uses of the term paradigm. When Thomas Kuhn (1962) brought this term into the academic community through his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he gave it a particular meaning that characterized a paradigm as a worldview that embodied the beliefs of scientists. He added that different scientists who held different worldviews would be unable to communicate with each other because of the fundamental differences in their definitions of reality and methodology. He argued that the scientific community experienced paradigm shifts when a phenomenon could no longer be understood using past methods and new methods would emerge. Guba and Lincoln’s (1989, 2005) adaptation of the idea of paradigms to the social sciences retained the idea of paradigms as worldviews that reflect researchers’ assumptions about reality and methodology, and they added two other categories of assumptions that constitute a paradigm: assumptions about ethics and epistemology. However, they rejected the idea that researchers would replace one dominating method from the past with a new approach. Rather, they described paradigms in terms of assumptions related to ethics, reality (ontology), and epistemology that lead to different assumptions about the nature of systematic inquiry (Mertens & Wilson, 2012). Hence, Guba and Lincoln set the stage for recognition of different paradigms that start with different philosophical assumptions and that lead to different methodological assumptions and methods choices. This concept of paradigms contrasts with the idea that there are three paradigms: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (Biesta, 2010; Freshwater & Cahill, 2012; Greene & Hall, 2010). In this editorial, I argue against the school of thought that paradigms can be methodological in their foundations. I am in agreement with Greene and Hall (2010) who wrote,