Critical comparison of the principles and practices of research projectsThe way in which research is conducted can be considered in relation to the committed research philosophy, research strategies employed and the research tools used to achieve the research objectives and seek a solution to the research question. In compliance with the best research criteria, paradigms are introduced into the research. The ideology of paradigms is credited to Thomas Khun depicted in the natural sciences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayIt was argued that paradigms are made up of a set of interconnected concepts, problems and variables with similar methodological approaches and tools, as time passes paradigms are replaced by other paradigms (Bryman & Bell 2011). However, this is not the case in the social sciences as paradigms are not entirely abandoned with the emergence of others as they display distinct frameworks that reflect different perspectives chosen to suit the area of ​​study or the researcher. In contemporary education, the paradigm has been used to refer to the framework that defines the ways of studying knowledge, as well as its interpretation, implementation and research objectives. Paradigms are broadly conceptualized to be shaped by ontological, epistemological, and methodological issues. There are two key research philosophies that have been discovered in the Western tradition of science, positivist and interpretive paradigms. As a philosophy of inquiry, positivism focuses on the perspective that only factual information acquired through observation with the aid of the senses, including measurement, is valid. Positivists limit the researcher to collecting data and interpreting it through an honest approach and at the same time the results of the study are normally observable and quantifiable. Studies recognize the idea that the paradigm of positivism is challenging when it comes to its explanation accurately and concisely as it presents huge distinctions between the contexts in which positivism is employed by researchers Hendriks (2007). Apart from this, positivism is based entirely on quantifiable observations that guide themselves towards statistical evaluation. It has been argued that, considering positivism as a philosophy, according to the empiricist perspective, knowledge originates from the experiences of human life. It has an atomistic view of the world comprising separate, observable events and elements in interaction with the observer. Furthermore, in positivism, there is the freedom of the researcher from the research and at the same time there is no incorporation of human interests into the research carried out. As a distinctive rule that draws the line between positivism and interpretivist, positivist research normally takes the deductive approach while the latter takes the inductive research approach Hendriks (2007). Furthermore, positivism is associated with the perspective of the researcher who wishes to focus their findings on facts, while interpretivists are concerned with meaning and integrating individual interest dispositions. Additionally, it is worth noting that when you decide to take the positivist approach to your research, it simply means that they are independent of their study and that the study can be objective. Independent, in this case, refers to the fact that the researcher should maintain minimal interaction with study participants while carrying out their research. Therefore, research involving the positivist paradigm is virtuously based on factsand at the same time they see the world as external and objective (Bryman & Bell 2011). The paradigm of positivism is based on five main principles that distinguish it from interpretive philosophy. First, since positivism involves observations aided by the senses, there are no variations in the logic of inquiry within science since the expected results are the same apart from similar research approaches. Secondly, in positivism the researcher has the responsibility to aim to explain and predict the desired outcomes. Furthermore, since it is positivism, the study should be practically observable through human senses and at the same time inductive reasoning used to create the hypothesis to be tested in the research process. Fourth, one is also likely to encounter common sense biases (Bryman & Bell 2011). In the philosophy of positivism, the researcher is independent of the study, therefore, to minimize the rate of bias due to ordinary senses, the researcher must limit common sense in evaluating the results. Finally, positivism requires that science be independent of values, therefore judged only by logic and rationalism. Positivist paradigms incorporate observations with end results that are statistically quantifiable for analysis. Therefore it can be applied in different research projects. For example, in a country that has advanced technology, modernized smartphones that depend on Android-enabled applications are used. There are many software companies who are coming up with such applications to cater to these smartphones and at the same time fulfill the desires of their users. Due to the increase in demand for the applications, these have been generated significantly and have been seen spread across all regional areas of a nation. However, with the increase in supply due to the emergence of numerous software organizations, the market will eventually become saturated. Therefore, inspired by a positivist philosophy, a researcher will carry out a study to determine the relationship between the diffusion of the novelty of Android smartphone applications and the saturation of applications across the entire nation. The researcher will have to carry out an observation of the trends relating to the rate of diffusion of application innovation at the same time as the saturation level of the application. Therefore, making use of the senses to establish quantifiable results. Positivist philosophy in most cases incorporates the use of available theory to establish a testable hypothesis during the study. The research paradigm of positivism depends on science as its foundation. There are various scientific aspects dependent on positivist philosophy. Science is deterministic in that its entire approach is based on the assumption that Z causes X under certain conditions. The researcher's function in this approach is to identify particular conditions and relationships between effects. Second, science is mechanistic in the sense that its approaches can be described in such a way that researchers generate hypotheses to prove or disprove through the employment of particular research methods (Bryman & Bell 2011). As a result, it leads to the fact that science applies methods. There are selected methods used mechanically so as to operationalize the hypotheses. The use of the methodology engages the choice of samples, measurements, and interpretations while determining a conclusion for the hypothesis. So, finally, science deals with empiricism, that is, it only works on what is observable and quantifiable. Based on this point of view, science can be evaluated as an objective. The interpretivist research paradigm implies the ability of researchers tointerpret the elements of the research; therefore the interpretivist incorporates the researcher's interest into the research. Consequently, interpretive researchers adopt the idea that reality can only be accessed through the social construction of shared consciousness, tools, language, and meanings. In particular, the interpretivist paradigm is structured on the critique of positivist philosophical research in the social sciences. Furthermore, interpretivism is linked to the conceptual position of idealism where it is employed in the categorization of various approaches including hermeneutics, phenomenology and constructivism; an approach that refutes the objective perspective that description lies freely in the world of consciousness. The interpretive approach requires the researcher to evaluate people equally as social interpreters and to appreciate their differences. Furthermore, interpretivist paradigms are normally concerned with meaning and can use various approaches to reflect distinct aspects of the question. Different from positivist philosophy, the interpretivist paradigm approach is based on the naturalistic approach of data collection such as the use of interviews and observations. The approach also employs the use of secondary data in the research. The approach is typically characterized by the localization of meanings in the research; the meanings will appear at the end of the study. The interpretivist paradigm has various distinctive characteristics including hermeneutics, phenomenology, and symbolic interactionism. Hermeneutics involves the ideology of interpretation and indulgence. They primarily pay attention to biblical contexts, wisdom literature, and related information materials. However, hermeneutics has little importance for business researchers Hendriks (2007). Phenomenology involves the ideological tradition that pursues understanding the world through the direct experience of phenomena. Finally, symbolic interactionism embraces symbols as culturally resulting social objects that possess shared meanings. The philosophy of symbolic interactionism considers symbols as the means through which reality can be constructed. However, the interpretive approach is entirely based on beliefs that include relativist ontology and subjectivist epistemology. In relative ontology, reality is perceived intersubjectively and is based on meanings and understandings at the experimental and social levels. While the subjectivist epistemological approach considers individuals isolated from their knowledge, there is therefore a strong interconnection between the researcher and the subject of study. Unlike positivist philosophy which incorporates five principles, interpretivist philosophy is committed to seven distinctive principles. First, the fundamental principle of the Hermeneutic Circle that the researcher's understanding of the object of study as a whole is developed by reference to all sections, while at the same time understanding of all sections is achieved through reference to the entire research topic. The principle of contextualization that connects the situation to wisdom texts and biblical contexts. Third, the principle that guides the interaction of the researcher and research subjects which progressively differs from the paradigm of positivism in that it allows the interaction of the researcher with his research projects. The principle of abstraction and generalization that seeks to evaluate the parts of a piece of research and how they relate to the whole piece of research. Fifth, the principle of dialogic reasoning involving different parties and taking into account the differences observed between individuals. The interpretivist also incorporates the principle ofmultiple interpretations according to which the observation is not only seen in a single perspective but in different ways, thus generating different ideas (Remenyi et al 2005). Finally, the principle of suspicion according to which the attitude of researchers is limited to themselves and does not extend to the research design, the analysis of the results or to society as a whole. Based on the descriptions behind the two philosophies there are unique differences that arise between them regarding the nature of reality, the focus of interest, the objective of the research and the knowledge generated. Considering the nature of reality in the paradigm of positivism, it is objectively evaluated, tangible and unique while ininterpretativist the nature of reality is socially constructed and there are multiple interpretations. The positivism paradigm is driven by a goal that seeks to offer a detailed explanation about the research question and at the same time provide a strong prediction for its goals, while in interpretivist philosophy the research pursues understanding of contexts and offers weak predictions in return . Since positivism depends entirely on scientific observations, its focus of interest has been on what is general, average and representative, while the interpretivist paradigm focuses on what is specific, distinctive and divergent (Remenyi et al 2005). Finally, the knowledge developed from the findings is developed into laws for the philosophy of positivism. In relation to research methods, qualitative and quantitative methods, interpretivist and positivist paradigms also describe uniqueness. The interpretivist incorporates qualitative research methods into his or her evaluations of philosophical research. Similar in description, qualitative research methods are interpretive and seek to offer a depth of understanding. In qualitative methods, there is the involvement of perceptions, words and other social aspects, but it does not involve numbers and figures, however they also incorporate interviews, experiments, focus groups and open-ended questionnaires. Similar to interpretivist philosophy, qualitative methods are also characterized by abstraction and generalization with the inclusion of images, spoken and printed words, vision, forms and structures in media. Qualitative methods for data collection were introduced after the realization that available quantitative methods failed to take into account the expression of human feelings and emotions Hendriks (2007). In most cases, qualitative methods are believed to provide rich data that detail real-life situations and people and at the same time can establish meaning and understand behavior in a broad context. However, qualitative research methods are attacked for their lack of generalizability, their substantial dependence on researchers' interpretation, and their inability to be replicated by other researchers. On the other hand, the positivism paradigm incorporates quantitative research methods. Quantitative methods detail and measure the magnitude of events based on numbers and calculations. Also, try to consider the questions “how often?” and "how many?" in quantitative research. Quantitative analysis can be explained as the collection of data in numbers and show the perspectives of the relationship between theory as hypothesis and research as deductive (Bryman & Bell 2011). It is mainly concerned with natural sciences as well as the approaches represented in the philosophy of positivism, at the same time it has an objectivist conception of social reality. Although these paradigms have their own discrete definitions that limit them to their place of application, they still encounter criticism. The positivist paradigm encounters criticism due to its idea of ​​separating the.