Speaker 1: So in this video I want to explain the notion of constructivism and my goal is to translate the discussions, the philosophical complex and confusing discussions that you may have heard or read somewhere into our normal human language. So in other words to make sure that you understand what constructivism is and also its practical implications for your study, for your methods, for the way you conduct your research. First I'll have to start with some philosophical statements and some definitions that you may have come across before but I will try to break them down into more understandable parts and provide some examples. And then I will move on to ontology and epistemology of constructivism. So two more dreaded and confusing terms but I will define both and again I will explain the practical implications of constructivism from the perspective of ontology and epistemology. So first let's start with what constructivism is in general. I'm sure you've read or you've heard that this idea that constructivism involves this belief that knowledge is socially constructed. So everybody co-constructs knowledge, co-constructs the reality. This involves the researcher so the researcher takes active role in co-constructing the researched reality. Quite often it is also argued that because of these multiple realities, multiple perspectives, because of how subjective the reality is, it is important to research, to investigate individual points of view. This is what constructivists do in their research. Okay so far so good but what the heck does this mean in practice? I'm sure that you've heard what I just said, you've read this in books. What does this mean in practice? I want you to understand that constructivism is actually a much less abstract idea than it may seem from these definitions. It's a much more common sense and much more everyday thing. Essentially constructivism is based on cognitive psychology so it involves a lot of beliefs about the mind, the role of our mind in understanding the reality. Some authors, there are several authors that argue that we are, that majority of us are in fact constructivists. So Schwant for example, I think it's Schwant, I'll just put the link in the description, believes that as long, as soon as you accept the idea that our mind is involved in construction of knowledge in any form, you have accepted the idea, the notion of constructivism. And he also argues that we are involved in everyday constructivist thinking. Again because of the same reasons. So essentially if you believe that our mind has any role in constructing and interpreting the reality and what's happening in our experiences and all that, it means that at least to some extent you have accepted ideas of constructivism. So because of this emphasis of constructivism on the role of our brain, on the role of our mental, our cognitive activity and in learning and interpreting the reality, as you may have guessed the ideas of constructivism have been used widely in many different fields. And this for example includes education. So again the idea that you're, that every learner is actively engaged cognitively in creating knowledge means in practice that we don't see teachers as just somebody who passively passes on or communicates knowledge, but rather somebody who encourages the learners to to construct that knowledge, to actively construct that knowledge. In practice this means nowadays probably most of teaching approaches involve this idea that rather than for example having the students memorize something, we should make sure that they are actively engaged. They are involved, they are actively engaged. Also there is plenty of interactions in classrooms. So again in modern, any kind of modern teaching approach, usually there is plenty of interaction, group work. So again this, all of this reflects really the idea that we learn through interaction that everybody is different, that everybody's constructing, actively acquiring knowledge rather than just accepting something that exists independently. So in practice this means that these these approaches, these views are based on constructivism. So going back to the topic of research, just like in our example of education of classrooms where this constructivism is evident in the belief that everybody, everybody's reality in a way is slightly different and therefore we have to diversify, diversify our teaching. We have to be flexible, we have to consider different learning styles, different, different students points of view. In research the implications are pretty much the same. So, so we have to consider multiple points of view, we have to consider the possibility that the reality is not one stable thing but rather the product of many different views of many different realities. And here what I said I'm pretty sure that again this is something that you have heard a lot and you're not really sure what that means. So, so what the heck do multiple realities mean? What are we talking about? What kind of multiple reality? So, and I think this is the most important thing when trying to understand constructivism. I'm a little bit surprised that this is the way they always describe it because this is, personally this is what really, what has always confused me most. This idea about multiple reality. What are we talking about? We're talking about matrix? Are we talking about multiverse? So, you know this idea that there are different universes, different dimensions. What the heck does this mean, multiple realities? And actually it's much simpler than that. Like I said it's much more a common sense and an everyday thing. So, I think about this, this notion and this idea in terms of a metaphor. So, just bear with me and I'll try to explain. So, basically in positivism for example, which is this contrasting worldview, which argues that there is this one single reality, reality that we can access as researchers. So, imagine that positivists see this reality as something, as one big globe or a sphere, which is inside this globe or this sphere is exactly the same everywhere. So, in order to understand what it's made of or you know what's inside, all we have to do as scientists is come up with a good method, scientific method, that will enable us to tap into that globe or sphere. It doesn't matter where you do it, it doesn't matter whether you tap in from the top or from the bottom. As soon as you manage to stick that probe or tap into that globe, you know everything about it. You know and that globe is reality, remember. So, you basically know everything about it and you can generalize about all other parts of that globe. So, remember this is positivism. You stick a probe here and you can generalize about what's happening on the other side, simply because it's the same, you know it's the same. So, obviously you can generalize. Now, think about constructivists. According to constructivists or according to how I see it and in my example at least, this reality is not this one globe that's made of the same material inside, but rather it's like a big ocean. So, it's a big ocean, it's a big vast and deep ocean and we are all floating in that ocean with our little points of view and ideas and beliefs and attitudes. So, the fact that you measure or manage to stick that probe into one place or one point in that ocean will probably give you plenty of ideas about this single area, but it will not mean that you can generalize about the whole ocean, because it's different, like I said, because it's dynamic, we are all floating in it. So, as I said, the ideas may differ. So, like I said, you can investigate in depth this one part of the ocean, so you can investigate all these different people and that, or all these different minds or worldviews or realities, as they say in methodology books, you can investigate them in depth and you can gain some really deep knowledge about this part of the ocean. But you don't want to generalize, because you know that it's so dynamic and so subjective elsewhere. So, what I'm saying is that nobody actually says there are physically multiple realities out there, if you believe in constructivism. What they say in practice means that they believe the reality is just much more subjective and much more personal than, for example, positivists would say. So, this means in practice, as you know, that in order to investigate that reality, we have to get to know individual points of view, and we can only investigate one part of that reality, one aspect of that reality. We cannot generalize about everyone based on, let's say, our research participants, but rather about this specific sample, because everybody's perceptions and views may differ. So, this kind of leads us to ontology and epistemology of constructivism. If you don't know, ontology is the study of being, what it means, what existence is, what knowledge is, what the reality is. And epistemology is the study of how to access that knowledge. So, essentially, in practice is the study of what kind of methods do we need in order to access the reality. So, first, ontology. So, the study of reality and what knowledge is. And actually, I kind of covered this topic when I discussed this idea, this example of reality, of this vast ocean, and us floating in that ocean. So, this is the ontology of constructivism, that there are multiple realities, which, remember, does not actually mean there are multiple realities, but rather there is a reality that is a sum of individual realities, individual perspectives. Which, again, to translate it even more simply means that everybody has their own perceptions, everybody has their own views and their own beliefs. So, the way I define something may be different from the way you define something. So, we absolutely have to, in research, so implications for research, we have to understand individual perspectives. We have to be sure what meanings certain people attach to certain terms, for example. Which means that, of course, there is no hypothesis. We don't want our research to be deductive in any way. So, research from this perspective of constructivism is much more inductive in nature. We want to make sure that our findings emerge strictly from the data. We don't want to impose any pre-existing frameworks, any pre-existing terms, but rather we want to understand how our participants understand whatever we are investigating. And also, importantly, and this is kind of what I said already in that example of reality as an ocean, we don't want to generalize. We can't really generalize. So, again, because we believe that all these meanings attached to certain terms may differ to different people, the goal is not really to generalize. So, we can't generalize based on this sample of ours. So, we have a small sample of people in our study rather than aiming to generalize based on that sample. We just want to generate a very deep understanding of this particular sample. So, as you know, case studies, for example, are quite a popular approach in qualitative research. So, the point is to understand, to gain a very in-depth understanding of this specific case rather than understand what's happening, you know, in the whole country or generalize to whole country or a whole city or whatever. And now, in terms of epistemology, which is, again, the study of how do we access knowledge. So, essentially, in practice, these are our practical considerations, our actual research processes. So, as you may have guessed, of course, studies based on constructivism are more likely to have methods such as interviews. So, methods that will enable us to gain direct access to our participants' knowledge or our participants, you know, beliefs and opinions. This is why interviews are so popular among not just qualitative researchers but also specifically constructivists. And because, as I said before, researchers are also involved in that construction of the reality. So, at the same time, when my participants are cognitively involved and, you know, making sense of what's around them, of course, I am too. So, this is what the authors mean when they say that we together co-construct this knowledge. So, what happens in practice is that we should acknowledge the role of us, of the researcher, in the research process. So, again, in more positivist studies, the researcher generally doesn't really matter. So, you know, he or she just is in a way of conducting research or gaining knowledge. Or maybe he or she is a tool for, you know, applying certain methods to find out this real, you know, this unified stable reality. And in research conducted from the constructivist point of view, the role of the researcher must be acknowledged. So, rather than pretending that there is no, you know, no influence and no role, we recognize that role, we acknowledge that role, and we take steps in order to minimize the influence of the researcher on the study, on the data. So, minimize researcher bias. Researchers adopting these constructivist ideas also like to collect data from different sources, which is in a process known as triangulation. I'm sure you've heard about triangulation. So, generally collecting different types of data in our study. So, of course, triangulation in general contributes to validity of qualitative findings, but it especially makes sense if you think about this constructivist perspective. Because since there is no single stable reality, but rather these different points of view, you cannot really claim that I understood a given phenomenon, I understood a certain concept, or I understood this ultimate truth. But instead, what you can do is show the reader, here is what I found, so here is what the interview participant said, here is what the observation data says. If it's similar, you make the decision, you interpret these findings. So, I'll give you as much as possible in terms of data. If the data from different sources suggests similar things, you can make your own interpretations and claims based on that data. But I'm not saying as a constructivist, I'm not saying I found what the ultimate truth is. Finally, the whole process of research conducted from this constructivist perspective generally tends to be quite flexible. So, the researchers like to change or adapt their research questions, they are immersed in that studied reality, a little bit like anthropologists would be. So, they are immersed, they are collecting this data from different sources, they are thinking about their own role in that study, and also they pay attention to the participants and their background and who they are. Because, again, they have to stress that in my study I investigated this particular group, but I'm not making claims about the whole population, for example. So, I guess to summarize, constructivism is just this worldview that really stresses the importance of individual perspectives, really pays a lot of attention to these subjectivities and how different people may interpret different things around us. Of course, these ideas of constructivism may overlap with some other worldviews, maybe you're not really convinced about how, about this extent to which constructivists believe the reality is in fact multiple and subjective, then perhaps other worldviews are more suitable for you, such as pragmatism, which is a very, very flexible worldview and it adopts parts of constructivism, parts of positivism, so generally it's something in the middle. I hope, however, that through this video I managed to make this concept of constructivism just a little bit easier to understand. If you learned something new, if you feel like you understood constructivism a little bit better, don't forget to like this video and if you're new to this channel, consider subscribing and turning the notifications on so that you don't miss future videos that I post. And if you're still struggling with these different worldviews or maybe you're writing your thesis or dissertation and you're struggling with writing a chapter on these different worldviews or maybe you just want to understand them a little bit better, do not hesitate to check my website for the list of services that I offer, among which are one-to-one sessions in which I can help you understand these concepts further. Thank you for watching and let me know in the comments if you have any questions.