Terminologies Associated With Research

1. Action Research **:
2. Constructivism
3. Correlational Research
4. Critical Realists
5. Empiricism
6. Epistemology
7. Explanatory Research
8. Ex-Post Facto Research**
9. One-time and longitudinal research
10. Impact factor**
11. Interpretive paradigm
12. Hypothesis: An assumption, an idea that is proposed for the sake of argument so that it can be tasted to see if it might be true.
13. Positivism/ Positive Paradigm:
    1. positivism refers to an evidence-based reality that can be mathematically interpreted.
    2. Quantitative research, this is a point of view of how research should be done which suggested that we should carry out research in social sciences in a way that are similar to the methods within the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, & biology). It says research design should be highly structured, method should be reliable, and research design should aim to generate large scale, statistically based studies.
    3.   Positivist and post-positivist designs are on a continuum between the quantitative and qualitative paradigms (paradigm can be described as a worldview that underlies theory). Positivism is still the dominant quantitative paradigm (Hunter, & Leahey, 2008), but there seems to be a shift towards post-positivist thinking.
14. Post-positivism
    1. The post-positivist paradigm evolved from the positivist paradigm. It is concerned with the subjectivity of reality and moves away from the purely objective stance adopted by the logical positivists (Ryan, 2006).
    2. There are three paradigmatic determinants:
       1. ontology – the reality studied;
       2.  the epistemology – the knowledge of the reality,
       3. and lastly, the methodology or strategy used to seek the truth.
    3. The post-positivist perspective is that not everything is completely knowable (Krauss, 2005).According to Waismann (2011), positivist generalisations are based on ‘real’ causes which are perceived as the true source of behaviour and are based on unchangeable, sound foundations.
15. Rationalism
16. Research Paradigms
17. Time series, cross sectional and panel data
18. Theism
19. Verstehen