MEANING
Relating to an approach that treats observable evidence and logical analysis as central foundations of knowledge.
Use it for
identifying assumptions about what counts as knowledge; contrasting observational explanation with other interpretive approaches; examining a study’s philosophical orientationIdentifies a particular view of how knowledge should be grounded, rather than using scientific as an undifferentiated label. Academic functions: Theory / Conceptual Language.
Words that belong together
- a positivist approach
- positivist assumptions
- a positivist account of knowledge
On the page
The critique questions the positivist assumptions underlying the study’s treatment of interview data.
A positivist approach is not established simply by including numerical tables.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- positivist
Usage notes
Adjective and countable noun: a positivist, plural positivists. No ordinary comparative/superlative. Register: technical. Commonness: uncommon (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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