Week 2 Discussion

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Apr 3, 2024

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Post an explanation of the role of theory in research. Next, identify a theory in your discipline and explain its basic tenets. Then, with this theory in mind, consider your answer to the question posed by Drs. Burkholder and Burbank in last week's reading: "What do I have to believe about the world and human beings for me to accept or use this theory?" (p. 27). Finally, describe the extent to which your chosen theory's epistemological and ontological assumptions align with the philosophical orientation that reflects your worldview. The scientific method involves utilizing theory to explain facts in the natural world. The theory is evaluated using observation, examination, and data collection methods. There are four purposes to theories, “describing, explaining, predicting and controlling or changing phenomena” (Burkholder et al., 2020, p. 23). The theory is “a systematic explanation for the observations that relate to a particular aspect of life” (Babbie, 2017, p. 8). Understanding theories within one discipline is the difference between success and failure (Babbie, 2017). A theory within my discipline is a developmental theory, but to get more specific, it is Lerner’s Developmental Contextualism. Lerner’s Developmental Contextualism is “ individuals act on their contexts that, in turn, act on them” (Lerner et al., 2018, para 7). This theory has three central themes: individuals are creators of their development, development is a life-span occurrence, and development is an environmental context. Theme one suggests reciprocal relationships may impact the development and shape personal development. The second theme suggests that development is lifelong and “differences in individual characteristics and differences in individual roles and experiences may form the basis of diverse life-span developmental trajectories” (Lerner et al., 2018, para 9). The final theme highlights the importance of the “ecology of human development and development in real-life situations” (Lerner et al., 2018, para 10). The epistemology of developmental contextualism is that knowledge is subjective and influenced by individuals' perspectives. Human development involves the interpretation of interactions with specific contexts. Qualitative research methods would be most appropriate with this theory involving descriptions, narratives, and examination of individual experiences to understand one's reality (Richardson, 2011). The ontological assumptions include the dynamic interactions between individuals and social contexts. The interactions are reciprocal, with the individuals being influenced by their context. Development changes are probabilistic due to the variations in biological, psychological, and social factors, as these play an essential role in shaping development (Richardson, 2011). The epistemology and ontology assumptions of developmental contextualism align with the philosophical orientation of relativism and constructionism by looking at how one's knowledge is based on one's experience and acknowledging that reality is not fixed but is from interactions and interpretations. Looking at the question, "What do I have to believe about the world and human beings in order for me to accept or use this theory?" (Burkholder et al., 2020, p. 27) With the developmental contextualism theory, an individual must believe human development is inseparable from context (family, culture, education, social systems, experiences, etc.). Development is a reciprocal

process in which individuals are actively engaging within their environment, and these influences impact both the individual and context, References Babbie, E. (2017). Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Burkholder, G. J., Cox, K. A., Crawford, L. M., & Hitchcock, J. H. (Eds.). (2020). Research designs and methods: An applied guide for the scholar-practitioner . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lerner, R., Champine, R., Tirrell, J., Fremont, E., & Su, S. (2018). Developmental theory. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (Vol. 5, pp. 600–604). SAGE Publications, Inc., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506307633 Richardson, R. A. (2011). Developmental contextualism. In R. J. R. Levesque (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (pp. 683-687). SpringerLink.

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