Have you ever wondered why we use these fancy words in research. Many students are bogged down with processes, details, and a lot of citations in research. It’s even worse if you are new to research or you simply don’t understand the lingo. In this blog, I try to break down some of these complex concepts and demystify these into practical everyday life experiences. Today I would like to provide clarity on the concepts: Ontology; Epistemology; and Methodology.

Why are these so important to study?

Ontology is a fancy word for beliefs about reality. Different kinds of research are founded on different types of beliefs of what we think truth is! Does truth even exist? What is truth? What we think reality is will shape what we think

Philosophies about reality can be divided in different ways. There are two types of ontologies that are essentially opposites: realism and relativism. In a nutshell, realist believe that one truth exists, truth does not change, realists believe that truth can be discovered using objective measurements. Once you find out what the truth is, you can generalize it to other situations. If the researcher is resolute about this belief, it will influence every single decision that is made in the study.

The opposite view of reality is called relativism, relativists believe in multiple versions of realities, what is real depends on the meaning you attach to it. Truth does not exist without meaning. Since reality is created by how we see things it evolves and changes depending on your experience. If reality is context bound it cannot be generalized it can only be transferred to other similar contexts.

Epistemology is another fancy word for what relationship the researcher has with the research. It answers the questions, how do we get knowledge? how do we discover new things? In essence 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 on how we should gather new knowledge, some researchers believe that research should be done in an objective way, so that the researcher does not influence the data that is gathered. Using this approach, the researcher will have to stay as far away from the research as they can so that they can get an objective measurement. This view would normally be adopted by the realists who believe in the one world view of the truth.

Other researchers believe in being part of the research and the potential influence of the researcher or what is being researched is acknowledged. Interaction is seen as a necessary thing to gain in-depth understanding of what is going on. The relativism ontology usually leads to this way to approaching research. Relativist believe that the truth is created by meaning and experiences therefore in order to understand someone’s experiences and the context that has shaped it you need to dig deep and talk to them.

Methodology is another fancy word for how knowledge is discovered and analyzed in a systematic way. Do not confuse methodology from methods, even though they are closely related. The term methodology refers to philosophies that guide how knowledge should be gathered. The term methods on the other hand, is specific to data gathering techniques like interviews or surveys. Methodology can be divided based on the ontological and epistemological beliefs that led to them.

Remember, your ontology dictates your epistemology, which dictates your methodology, which then dictates your methods and all of this needs to makes sense for the question you are asking.

if you know of any other examples we can use, get in touch