Description:
This chapter outlines a case study of the application of the neo-positivist paradigm in the higher education research field. A small scale evaluative study of an attempt to improve teaching and learning provides the case study. The neo-positivist paradigm involves the objective investigation of an aspect of reality, providing provisional, contemporary understanding of patterns and entities. The ways in which this paradigm informed the research desgin, methodology, and the interpretation of results in a small-scale evaulative study are discussed. The study represents an attempt to conduct a rigorous empirical research project that incorporated random allocation to intervention and control groups; pre- and post-intervention measures of teaching and learning and the use of psychometrically sound measurement tools and qualitative data. The ways in which the ontology. axiology and epistemology of the neo-positivist paradigm impacted on the study and its findings are outlined.