Thoughts on subjective theories and paradigms
Harald Seelig
Institut für Informatik und Gesellschaft, Abt.3 Kognitionswissenschaft,
Freiburg (Germany)
Abstract
Personal Construct Theory provides a potential to examine the process
of research. With the Grid Method it is possible to inspect the subjective
theories of researchers. In this article, some thoughts and arguments concerning
the question of why there might be good reasons to observe effects of subjective
theories will be presented. The focus will be on the influence these theories
probably have on paradigms in science. PCP can offer researchers a chance
to break away from - or at least clarify - the need to restrict research
to certain paradigms. The reason why PCP and the Grid are especially suited
for this topic is that all implications that had to be made in looking
at paradigms like “quantitative” and “qualitative” more closely are already
implicit in the PCP and Grid Methods. This paper should be seen as a basis
for further discussion.
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