For years, inquirers have hammered with one research paradigm, positivism, as if all topics of inquiry were nails. Currently, the tools for realizing the full potential for environmental education research remain locked in the tool box. A key issue in the paradigm debate centers around the unity of the sciences. The first view perceives human beings as complex physical systems differing from the rest of nature not in kind but perhaps in degree. Therefore, science can provide explanations for how the system works.
Inadequate explanations appear as temporary setbacks rather than failures.
Friction between these two stances, based upon epistemological conceptions, has fired this debate for years. Dilthey, one of the principle exponents of this separation, claimed that the two areas required different approaches because they dealt with significantly different subject matters. This contrasting view of the nature of reality distinguishes a range of research perspectives, or paradigms, which includes positivism, interpretivism, and critical science. Each differs on basic underlying assumptions that ultimately guide choices about research methodologies and methods. Based upon these assumptions, general characteristics of interpretivism become evident.