Pragmatic is an epistemological approach to research that recognizes that there are deep interconnections between experience, knowing and acting. It is rooted in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, which was later adopted by philosopher and educationist John Dewey and influenced many social workers including Jane Addams, the mother of modern social work. Today, pragmatism is also a key philosophy underpinning much of the scholarship on human action and learning.
It is a philosophy that seeks to move beyond the debates about the validity of scientific theories and methods, and it promotes the use of multiple methodologies in the pursuit of knowledge (Feilzer 2010). Inquiry is not seen as a struggle between ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ – rather, the goal is to find ways to get things done and the outcomes of those actions (Lorino et al., 2010: 778).
The pragmatist stance offers numerous possibilities for the exploration of how individuals and groups interact with one another to construct meaning in context. This has been the focus of the field of pragmatics since its inception. Pragmatics explores how meaning is created and conveyed through language in the social context of interaction and it draws on a number of different philosophical traditions, including the theory of conventional implicature, speech act theory and relevance theory (Feilzer 2010).
In the research arena, pragmatism promotes an open-mindedness to a wide range of methods and approaches, and it encourages the use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques to address the complex nature of research problems (Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2005). It also encourages researchers to avoid imposing their own assumptions and biases on the research process by actively engaging with participants in a co-construction of knowledge.
At the data collection stage, pragmatism promotes an exploration of how individual interpretations, such as views of NGO leaders on organizational processes, may shape the collection of data. This can be particularly important in the case of evaluative activities, where the use of specific tools and methods may imply certain normative beliefs about what constitutes ‘good’ evaluation. In such cases, the pragmatist stance can support a researcher in challenging these assumptions and using the data to provide insight into how evaluative practices are shaped in practice.
While a detailed exploration of the historical, epistemological and definitional roots of pragmatism is outside the scope of this article, three methodological principles of pragmatism are presented and analysed using our two doctoral projects as worked examples. These principles are: