Objectivity in nursing research: observations and objections

Abstract 

Recent writings on nursing research methodology have introduced paradigms of research that challenge conventional notions about truth and objectivity which hold that scientific research is the factual and value-free study of objective reality. The purpose of this paper is to question these trends in nursing research by examining the critique of objectivity in science. The paper will propose that there is a conceptualisation of objectivity that does permit fruitful research on human subjects, which rebuts a relativist view of human knowledge, and it will argue that a rejection of the conventions of objectivity cannot licence new paradigms of research.

Keywords:  Methodology, Paradigms, Objectivity, Postmodernism, Phenomenology