William M. Trochim (Cornell University) has put together a research methods knowledge base that contains a good introduction to positivism, post-positivism and critical realism, the difference between induction and deduction, and the concept of validity.
| “Where the positivist believed that the goal of science was to uncover the truth, the post-positivist critical realist believes that the goal of science is to hold steadfastly to the goal of getting it right about reality, even though we can never achieve that goal! ” |
[Photomedia Forum post by T.Neugebauer from Feb 7, 2006]