ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a more substantial understanding of the impact of researchers’ epistemologies on their research work. There exists a range of epistemological stances with an even larger array of possible combinations of beliefs about knowledge that individual researchers can hold. At the risk of over-simplifying admittedly complex concepts, the chapter focuses on M. Crotty’s three general categories of epistemology — objectivism, constructionism, and subjectivism — to structure a range of theoretical perspectives that guide research work. It explains epistemology as a theoretical component of research arising from and part of one’s conceptual framework. The tree model shows epistemology rooted in and growing from the conceptual framework. The circle diagram shows how epistemology is embedded within the conceptual framework and is open to its influence. Unfortunately, too many researchers fail to make their epistemology explicit in the dissemination of their research work.
