Positivism
A research philosophy holding that reality is objective and knowable through observation, measurement, and hypothesis testing.
Positivism assumes an objective reality that exists independently of the observer and can be studied through systematic observation and measurement. Research in this tradition emphasizes hypothesis testing, quantification, replicability, and researcher neutrality, aiming to identify general laws or causal relationships. It underpins most experimental and survey-based quantitative research, along with its more moderate successor, postpositivism, which accepts that observation is fallible and theory-laden.
For a thesis, naming your philosophical position explains why your methods hang together. A positivist stance justifies standardized instruments, statistical inference, and claims of generalizability, and it commits you to their standards: validity, reliability, and control of bias. Stating this in the methodology chapter, and matching your language to it, prevents the mismatch examiners notice when interpretive claims are drawn from a positivist design.
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