ABSTRACT

Overwhelmingly, these responses correspond to what Agar (1986) and Cuba and Lincoln (1994) referred to as the “received view” of the natural and social sciences that has dominated our language for nearly 400 years. Indeed, it is the conception of science and

research that most of us “received” in elementary school when we memorized what was

called “the scientific method.” This “received view” is a philosophical paradigm; it is a

worldview consisting of basic beliefs that guide action. A paradigm, according to Cuba

and Lincoln (1994), “defines, for its holder, the nature of the ‘world’, the individual’s

place in it, and the range of possible relationships to that world and its parts. The beliefs

are basic…accepted on faith…there is no way to establish their ultimate truthfulness” (p.