Despite the recognition by postpositivists that facts are theory laden, other researchers
questioned the underlying assumptions and methodology of that paradigm. Many
different labels have been used for the constructivist paradigm, which can be seen from
the sample list in Table 1.1. The constructivist label was chosen for this paradigm because
it reflects one of the basic tenets of this theoretical paradigm, that is, that reality is socially
constructed.
The constructivist paradigm grew out of the philosophy of Edmund Husserl’s
phenomenology and Wilhelm Dilthey’s and other German philosophers’ study of interpretive
understanding called hermeneutics (Eichelberger, 1989). Hermeneutics is the study
of interpretive understanding or meaning. Historians use the concept of hermeneutics
in their discussion of interpreting historical documents to try to understand what the
author was attempting to communicate within the time period and culture in which the
documents were written. Constructivist researchers use the term more generally, seeing
hermeneutics as a way to interpret the meaning of something from a certain standpoint
or situation.3
Clegg and Slife (2009, p. 26) further explain the concept of hermeneutics by
citing the work of “Martin Heidegger (1927/1962) [who] argued that all meaning, including
the meanings of research findings, is fundamentally interpretive. All knowledge, in this
sense, is developed within a preexisting social milieu, ever interpreting and reinterpreting
itself. This perspective is usually called hermeneutics.” An example of a constructivist
research study is presented in Sample Study 1.2.
The basic assumptions guiding the constructivist paradigm are that knowledge is
socially constructed by people active in the research process, and that researchers should
attempt to understand the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of
those who live it (Schwandt, 2000). The constructivist paradigm emphasizes that research
is a product of the values of researchers and cannot be independent of them. The answers
to the paradigm-defining questions for the constructivist approach are as follows.