ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a paradigm that has a slightly different approach. The interpretive paradigm is the second theoretical paradigm described in this textbook. Interpretive research, sometimes called humanistic research, emphasizes the significance of subjectivity in constructing individual perceptions of reality. Unlike theories from the social scientific paradigm, which focus on describing and predicting human behaviours and activities, theories from the interpretive paradigm seek to describe individual meanings and social constructions of reality/realities. The discussion about rationalism is rooted in epistemology, the study of what knowledge is and how it is created. Rationalism or the idea that people can gain knowledge, and learn and describe the world through a variety of logical means is essential to interpretive researchers. Interpretive theories allow for/encourage more research involvement in data collection, writing, and analysis. Interpretivism was a response to social scientific inquiry in the 1800s and the 1900s. An interpretive field of study, hermeneutics is a theory of textual interpretation.
