ABSTRACT
Reasons for choosing qualitative, quantitative or both methods for inclusion in a methods course are complex and multifarious, and these reasons do not always involve a clear explication of the theoretical assumptions that the lecturer has used when designing the course (Wagner and Okeke, Chapter 5). Frequently even those teaching experimental methods within a quantitative paradigm resign themselves to being labelled positivist. One can avoid certain basic epistemic mistakes such as believing that positivism and measurement equates to being scientific (and being interpretative or constructionist is not scientific!) by examining some basic assumptions about what science is and what reality is.
