RES 709 Week 1 Research Paradigms Example

How a Practitioner Researcher Chooses a Paradigm: Studying Remote Onboarding in Accounting Firms

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

RES/709: Research Conceptualization and Design

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The learner, the firms and the research topic are composites written for a model paper.

The learner in this essay, a composite audit partner at a 300-person accounting firm in Columbus, Ohio, has noticed a troubling pattern. Before 2020, about 18 percent of first-year associates left within two years. Among associates hired since the firm moved to hybrid work, the figure is 37 percent. Exit interviews mention long hours, which are not new, and feeling disconnected from colleagues and partners, which is. She wants her doctoral research to explain why newcomers leave and whether onboarding practices can help. Before choosing methods, she must decide what kind of knowledge her study seeks. This essay examines the main research paradigms and positions her study among them.

Paradigms and Their Components

Kuhn (1996) used the term paradigm to describe the shared beliefs, values and methods that guide a scientific community's work and define what counts as a legitimate problem and solution. In methodology writing, a paradigm usually refers to a set of assumptions about ontology, the nature of reality; epistemology, how knowledge is gained and what counts as valid; axiology, the role of values; and methodology, the logic of inquiry that follows. Guba and Lincoln (1994) argued that these questions are prior to questions of method: researchers should decide what they believe about reality and knowledge before choosing quantitative or qualitative tools.

Positivism and Postpositivism

Positivism holds that reality exists independently of the researcher and can be measured objectively, with knowledge produced by testing hypotheses and seeking general laws. Postpositivism keeps the commitment to an external reality but accepts that knowledge is probabilistic and fallible, that measurement contains error and that theories are tested rather than proven. Creswell and Creswell (2018) note that most quantitative social science today is postpositivist in practice.

A postpositivist study of onboarding would define turnover and onboarding practices as variables, such as number of in-person days, mentor contact hours and structured training, and test whether they predict two-year retention across many firms, controlling for pay and workload.

Constructivism and Interpretivism

Constructivism holds that social realities are constructed through people's interpretations and interactions, so there may be multiple realities, and knowledge is co-constructed between researcher and participants. Research seeks understanding of meaning in context rather than general laws.

A constructivist study would ask how new associates make sense of belonging and professional identity when they seldom work beside colleagues, using in-depth interviews to understand their experiences in their own terms.

Critical Theory

Critical paradigms see reality as molded by power, whether economic, political or social, and that research should expose and help change inequities. A critical study might ask whose interests hybrid policies serve, for example whether senior staff gain flexibility while newcomers lose the informal learning that once happened in the office, and whether some groups of newcomers, such as first-generation professionals, are affected more.

The same exit interviews could feed a regression, a set of life stories or a critique of who gains from hybrid work.

Comparing the Paradigms Side by Side

Placing the paradigms next to each other shows how much the choice matters. On reality, postpositivism assumes one external reality that can be approximated; constructivism assumes multiple realities shaped by people's meanings; critical theory assumes realities shaped by power; pragmatism sets the question aside and asks what works. On the researcher's role, postpositivism seeks distance and objectivity, constructivism expects closeness and co-construction, critical theory takes an explicit stance for change and pragmatism allows the role to vary with the method. On what counts as a good result, postpositivism values generalizable findings, constructivism values rich and credible accounts, critical theory values findings that empower and pragmatism values findings that help solve the problem at hand.

What Each Frame Would Miss

Each paradigm also has blind spots for this problem. A postpositivist study could show that mentor hours predict retention but not why mentoring matters to newcomers or which kind helps. A constructivist study could reveal how isolation feels but not how widespread it is or how much it affects turnover. A critical study could expose power imbalances but might offer the firm few practical steps. Seeing these gaps helps explain why a combined approach suits the learner's goal of both understanding and changing practice.

The Learner's First Assumptions

Before reading the methodology literature, the learner assumed her study would be a survey, because accounting is a numbers profession and surveys felt rigorous. Working through the paradigms showed her that the most important unknown, why newcomers feel disconnected, is about meaning, which a survey alone would capture poorly. That realization is the practical value of thinking about paradigms early.

Pragmatism

Morgan (2007) argued that pragmatism offers an alternative to the paradigm debates, focusing on the research question and the consequences of knowledge rather than on metaphysical commitments, and supporting combinations of methods when they serve the question. Pragmatism treats knowledge as provisional and judged by its usefulness for action.

Positioning This Study

The learner's questions are practical: how large is the onboarding effect on retention, and why do certain practices matter to newcomers? The first calls for measurement across firms; the second for understanding experiences. A pragmatic stance fits because it allows both and keeps the focus on a problem practitioners must solve. It commits the learner to justifying each method by the question it answers and to integrating results meaningfully rather than placing them side by side.

Axiology and the Practitioner Researcher

As a partner, the learner has a stake in the answers and power over the associates she might interview. Her values, a belief that the firm should keep its people, will shape her questions. Making those values explicit, and planning safeguards such as interviewing associates at other firms rather than her own, will strengthen the study's credibility.

Why Not Choose One Pure Stance?

A reasonable reviewer could ask why the learner does not simply choose constructivism, given that meaning is at the heart of the problem. The answer lies in her audience. Firm leaders and accounting associations will want to know how much onboarding practices affect retention before they invest in changes, and that question calls for measurement. Pragmatism allows her to answer both audiences while staying honest about which claims each part of the study can support.

Implications for Later Design

The pragmatic stance points toward a mixed methods design: a quantitative component examining onboarding practices and retention across firms and a qualitative component exploring newcomers' experiences. It also requires clear problem and purpose statements, discussed in Week 4, that justify combining the two.

Conclusion

Paradigms shape what a study can ask and claim. Applied to the problem of newcomer turnover in hybrid accounting firms, postpositivism would measure, constructivism would interpret, critical theory would question power and pragmatism would combine approaches to answer practical questions. The learner's questions and position as a practitioner make pragmatism the most fitting stance, with attention to her own values.

References

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Sage.

Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Morgan, D. L. (2007). Paradigms lost and pragmatism regained: Methodological implications of combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(1), 48-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/2345678906292462