Explain the difference between a paradigm, a method, and a theory, and give an example of each

Question

Please provide the best answer of the statement.

Answer 1

Answer: A paradigm is a belief system that represents a particular worldview and carries with it a set of assumptions about how we acquire knowledge, the nature of reality, and human nature. For example, most social scientists endorse a paradigm that assumes that knowledge should be acquired through “objective means,” that reality is external to (or exists outside of) individuals, and that human behavior tends to be the same across time and groups. Therefore, social scientists believe knowledge can best be acquired through observing the behavior of a group of individuals and generalizing from that group to other groups of people. A theory is a set of statements that explains a particular phenomenon; in communication, scholars develop theories in an attempt to explain why people communicate as they do. For example, the theory of evolution has been developed to explain the origins of life. Methods describe the specific ways in which scholars collect and analyze data, the results of which are used to support or disprove their theoretical claims. For example, they might ask a group of men and women to record the time they spend on social media over a period of a week and what kind of messages and other content they post; they then collect these time diaries and compare the amount of time spent by each gender group on various social media and what sorts of content they post.