Philosophy of science and leisure research: an exploratory analysis of research paradigms
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this exploratory analysis was to examine paradigmatic trends within leisure research. Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy of science suggested that a field is the operational paradigm composed of a set of assumptions that include theories, methodology and instruments that guide inquiry. In contemporary leisure research, the scholarship being produced can be categorized into four research paradigms: (post)positivist, interpretive, critical and post×. The sample for this exploratory study included two timeframes (1991–1993 and 2014–2016) resulting in a total sample of N = 495 articles. Results confirmed evidence of a dominant (post)positivism in leisure research in the first sample and a trend toward paradigmatic pluralism in the second. Findings suggest that the philosophy of Larry Laudan’s ‘research traditions’ may be a more accurate model, compared to Kuhnian philosophy, for discourse within the leisure field. Additionally, results indicate a lack of paradigmatic and ontological and epistemological reflexivity among authors in leisure research.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.082 | 0.079 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.012 | 0.013 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.015 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".