What is the difference between positivist and constructivist research?

Question

Consider the proposition that positivist/ quantitative research is technically complex but conceptually simple, while qualitative/ constructivist research is conceptually complex but technically simple.

Answer 1

Positivism and quantitative methods are the scientific way of doing research. The reason science works so well is that it tests out its theories by devising and carrying out repeatable experiments. But of course it's a difficult path to tread, and you make slow progress because most hypotheses are wrong.

Many sociologists reject this approach and would rather live in their own little dream world, where they can make up any theory they like and never have to go to the bother of testing it experimentally. That's fine, but if they do that they shouldn't call what they're doing a "social science". Perhaps "social speculation" would be more accurate?

Answer 2

Auguste Comte coined the term positvism. Positivism is also identified with empiricism, which is a belief in the importance of observation and the collection of facts, assumed to exist prior to theories. However Jean Piaget linked the term constructivism in Psychology. Constructivism refers to the process by which the cognitive structures that shape our knowledge, of the world evolve through the interaction of environment and subject.