The Pros And Cons Of Epistemology

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Epistemology means what relationship the researcher has with the research subject - how do we get knowledge and how we discover new things. Ontological beliefs will dictate epistemological beliefs. In other words, what the researcher believes about the nature of reality will dictate what kind of relationship they think the researcher should have with whatever is being studied. There are two basic beliefs about how we should gather new knowledge. Realists believe that research should be done in an objective way so that the researcher does not influence the data that is gathered. They think that in order to find out what the truth is the researcher needs to stay as far away from the research as they can so that they can get an objective measurement. This approach is also known as an etic approach to research. The word etic basically means taking an outsider's view of someone else's situation. So, if you use a fishbowl to represent someone's situation that is being researched the researcher taking an etic approach would want to look at the fishbowl from the outside measure it and make observations without ever touching it. If we go back to look at the two major opposing views of reality, it is realism that leads…show more content…
Emic approach is used by researchers that believe in a subjective approach to reality. Interacting with people to find out what truth means to them is needed so these researchers would want to get inside the fish bowl. The potential influence of the researcher on what is being researched is acknowledged, sometimes voided or sometimes even embraced. Interaction is seen as a necessary thing to gain an in-depth understanding of what is going on. Relativism leads to this way of approaching research as relativists believe that the truth is created by meanings and experiences. In order to understand someone's experience in the context that's shaped it you need to dig deep and talk to
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