Interactive Digital Textbook — Demo
An Interactive Digital Textbook
From Philosophical Foundations to Your Research Project
Dr Pauline Prevett
Reader in Education • University of Manchester
Comprehensive coverage from philosophy to design
Learn by doing with hands-on exercises
Build methodologically sound research
All data stays in your browser
Many research methods courses teach techniques without the philosophical foundations that make those techniques meaningful. Students learn how to collect data without understanding why different approaches lead to different kinds of knowledge.
This textbook builds research literacy from the ground up—starting with ontology and epistemology, moving through paradigms and validity, and culminating in coherent research design. Every chapter connects back to these foundations.
Your ontological assumptions must align with your epistemology, which must align with your methodology and methods. This textbook helps you understand and achieve this coherence.
Before choosing methods, you need to understand what reality is and how we can know it.
Where do you position yourself on the ontological spectrum?
Paradigms are worldviews that shape how we approach research. Understanding them helps you make informed methodological choices.
Objective reality, scientific method, generalisation
Subjective meaning, understanding, context
Power, justice, emancipation, transformation
What works, practical consequences, mixed methods
Real structures, causal mechanisms, depth
The chapter includes an interactive tool where you can explore each paradigm's assumptions about reality, knowledge, values, and methods—and see how they connect.
Different paradigms require different quality criteria. What counts as 'valid' research depends on your assumptions.
You cannot judge interpretivist research by positivist criteria (or vice versa). This chapter helps you understand which criteria apply to your paradigm and how to implement them.
Maxwell's Interactive Model provides a framework for designing coherent research.
Build your own research design using the interactive Project Designer—check alignment between components and receive feedback on coherence.
Ontology, epistemology, and their relationship
Five major worldviews and their implications
Paradigm-appropriate quality criteria
Maxwell's Interactive Model
Crafting questions that work
Choosing and justifying approaches
Techniques across paradigms
Bringing it all together
Each chapter includes interactive tools that let you explore concepts hands-on.
Explore ontological positions from realism to relativism
Compare paradigms across key dimensions
Test whether research designs are coherent
Match methods to paradigms and questions
Navigate from data to analysis approach
Build and test your own research design
Examples and applications drawn from eight social science disciplines:
While disciplines have distinct traditions, they share core methodological principles. This textbook shows both what unites them and where they diverge.
All your reflections, notes, and project work save locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to any server. Your research ideas remain yours alone.
Every keystroke saves automatically. Come back days later and pick up where you left off.
Download your work as JSON backup or formatted documents for your portfolio.
Data persists in your browser. Clearing browser data will remove saved work—use the export function for permanent backup.
Masters and PhD students designing their first major research project
Final-year students preparing dissertations
Teachers seeking structured resources for methods training
The textbook assumes no background in philosophy of science. Concepts are introduced from first principles with clear explanations and examples.
Each chapter builds on the last. Interactive tools allow practice at every stage. Reflection activities help you apply concepts to your own research.
Interactive Digital Textbook for Research Methods
Reader in Education
School of Environment, Education and Development • University of Manchester
Try Chapter 2: Research Paradigms
8 chapters + all interactive tools
Free slides, lesson plan & worksheet
Individual & institutional licences available
Research Literacy & Design: Building methodological understanding from philosophical foundations to coherent research design.
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