Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to attempt the analysis of the 'Positivist' School and the 'Interpretative' School to the Relationship between Theory and Method, Using examples from Criminological Research. The differences between approach of the positivist school and interpretative school are often made very difficult to make an approach. What are more to focus on are the relationships between quantitative research and positivism and qualitative research and interpretative paradigms are often presented as essential connections. Therefore, it is a lot more difficult to imply an appropriate research method and process depends on the subject and field of the research topic. The differences between types of research and also the connections which are made between types of research and theoretical paradigms portray a very simple picture. The danger of this is that two readily available set of research methods and assuming that positivist and interpretative research style represent competing approaches and also that they present 'either-or' alternatives as to strategies of research. For example, in some instances positivist and interpretative's methods do represent alternatives but in some case, positivist and interprativist each other can complement about each other's defects in terms of use of methodology. Though depending according to the specialist of the topic, it needs sensitivity to the potentials and the contributions of different styles of data and different methods of information collection and analysis to the criminological issues under test and to the theoretical questions being asked of them.