This document discusses research paradigms and methodologies. It explains that a paradigm frames how a study is conceptualized and influences the research question, design, theory, and methods used. It discusses different philosophical perspectives including positivism, interpretivism, structuralism, and post-structuralism. These perspectives have differing beliefs about ontology, epistemology, methodology, and what constitutes valid and reliable knowledge. The document also raises important issues about power dynamics in research, whose knowledge and voices are privileged, and challenges of generalizability.