Difference between paradigm and value
Answers
Answer Describing something as a ‘research paradigm’ means that it is an established model, accepted by a substantial number of people in aresearch community. For example, tt could be argued that positivism and interpretivism are (rival) paradigms of research within sociology. Each academic discipline may have its own research paradigms.
A ‘research approach’ has a less evaluative meaning: it simply refers to a way of doing research, which may or may not be accepted by a significant proportion of a research community. For example, ethnomethodology, grounded theory, narrative analysis and auto-ethnography could all be described as different research approaches. 'Approaches' could refer to designs, methods of data collection or analysis.
In time, a research approach could become paradigmatic for a discipline. Thus, experimental method is a well-established paradigm in many natural sciences, but it took centuries for this to become the case.
You are right to identify post-positivism as a paradigm, but it only has this status in certain social science suibjects.