As Scotland states in his article “Exploring the Philosophical Underpinnings of Research: Relating Ontology and Epistemology to the methodology and Methods of the Scientific, Interpretive, and Critical Research Paradigms”, knowledge is subjective and so are the ways to discover knowledge. A paradigm is any set of concepts or thought patterns, Scotland discusses each component of a paradigm and then he discusses the relationships that each component has with each other. Within each paradigm there is four components: ontology defined as “what is”, epistemology defined as “what it means to know”, methodology and methods, each component is important as a whole to a single paradigm. The interpretive paradigm is the idea that “to experience the world is to participate in it, simultaneously molding and encountering it” (Heron & Reason, 1997, p. 3). Something that I found to resonate with me most is that with the interpretive paradigm, knowledge differs from individual to individual. I think that it is really important for a person’s ideas to display a unique sense of knowledge as the world changes every second for the better, mostly due to individuals with subjective views and strong opinions. The interpretive paradigm relates strongly to a student like myself being in the liberal studies program, being able to direct your own studies and choose what is most important for each individual to study. When you are able to choose topics that interest you more, your passion helps to lead your research which is most beneficial to you and your research.
I think it is a difficult but interesting question to know what biases or assumptions that you hold personally because as stated by Scotland “reality is individually constructed”. Meaning everyone holds their own beliefs and views about the world internally that most likely are not shared with others. With that being said as a young, white female student, living in the middle to upper class in North America it is difficult to be 100% objective. Mentally these are not adjectives that I would describe myself with, but regarding biases, these are all facts that will hold and shape me as an emerging researcher.