The following example uses a single topic to demonstrate the logic of both a realist and constructivist approach, although in reality most projects would sit somewhere between the two.
What makes reading comprehension teaching effective in Year 3?
Two researchers may share this broad interest but turn it into different research questions because they treat the phenomenon differently.
How do specific teaching practices create improvements in Year 3 reading comprehension across different classroom contexts?
A realist-oriented researcher begins from the view that teaching practices, reading comprehension and classroom conditions are real phenomena. The researcher seeks to explain how particular practices contribute to outcomes.
This does not mean context is unimportant. Context may determine whether a causal process is activated, constrained or altered.
How do Year 3 teachers understand and describe effective reading comprehension instruction?
A constructivist-oriented researcher begins from the view that what counts as “effective instruction” is understood through experience, professional culture, language and interpretation. The researcher seeks to understand how teachers construct and describe that meaning.
Context also matters here. School culture, professional experience, relationships and institutional expectations may shape how teachers understand effective practice.
| Element | Realist-oriented approach | Constructivist-oriented approach |
|---|---|---|
| Thing to be found out | How practices generate changes in comprehension, and under what conditions | How teachers understand and give meaning to effective instruction |
| Ontological position | Teaching practices, classroom conditions and comprehension outcomes exist as real phenomena with causal relationships | Effective instruction is understood through meanings that are socially and contextually constructed |
| Role of context | Context affects whether and how mechanisms produce outcomes | Context shapes how people interpret and construct meaning |
| Role of teachers’ accounts | Accounts are evidence that may help identify mechanisms and contextual conditions | Accounts are the primary phenomenon being studied |
| What makes knowledge trustworthy | The explanation is supported across multiple forms of evidence, accounts for alternatives, and explains patterns in outcomes | The interpretation is rich, transparent, grounded in participants’ accounts and reflexive about the researcher’s influence |
| Possible methodology | Realist evaluation, explanatory multiple-case study, quasi-experimental design or mixed-methods design, depending on the precise question | Interpretive qualitative study, qualitative case study, phenomenological study or reflexive thematic inquiry, depending on the precise question |
| Possible methods | Reading assessments, observations, contextual data and teacher interviews | In-depth interviews, observations, reflective accounts and interpretive analysis |
| Likely claim | “This practice contributes to improved comprehension through these processes in these conditions.” | “Teachers understand effective instruction in these different ways, shaped by these experiences and contexts.” |
Both studies may use teacher interviews and both may take context seriously. The difference lies in what the accounts are treated as evidence of.
In the realist-oriented study, a teacher might say:
“Discussion helps students understand a text because they hear different interpretations.”
The researcher treats this as a possible explanation of a process. They may compare it with observations, student outcomes and alternative explanations. The account points beyond itself to something the researcher is trying to explain.
In the constructivist-oriented study, the same statement is evidence of how the teacher understands effective instruction. The researcher examines how this meaning has been developed, how it is expressed and how it relates to the teacher’s professional context. The account is not merely a route to something else; it is central to the phenomenon being studied.
For the realist-oriented researcher, trustworthiness rests mainly on the strength of the explanation. The researcher asks:
For the constructivist-oriented researcher, trustworthiness rests mainly on the quality of the interpretation. The researcher asks:
Critical realism holds that a reality exists independently of our descriptions of it, while also recognising that our knowledge of that reality is partial, fallible and shaped by theory and context.
The realist-oriented example above may therefore be closer to critical realism or realist evaluation than to a simple form of realism, because it combines an interest in real causal processes with caution about how those processes can be known.