Ontology in Research: Writing Guide for Dissertations (57 characters)

Written By

Henry Miller

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Ontology's the philosophical question of what actually exists. For your dissertation, it's your position on the nature of reality and what counts as real. That sounds abstract until you realise it profoundly affects how you design your research. I'll make it concrete.

What Ontology Actually Means in a Research Context

Ontology comes from Greek meaning "being" plus "account." It's philosophy's way of asking: what's real?

In research, the ontological question is specifically: what's the nature of social reality?

Imagine you're researching student confidence. What is confidence? Does it exist as an objective property that students either possess or don't possess, independent of how they describe themselves? Or is confidence something socially constructed through interaction, language, and meaning-making? Or is it some combination of both?

Your answer shapes everything about how you research it.

If you're objectivist, you'll treat confidence as existing independently. You might measure it using validated scales, compare groups, correlate it with other variables. You're treating confidence as something discoverable.

If you're constructivist, you'll explore how students talk about confidence, what experiences and relationships shape it, how it emerges in specific contexts. You're treating confidence as something created through meaning-making.

Understanding Objectivism Versus Constructivism

Let's be clear about what each position actually entails.

Objectivism holds that social reality has objective existence independent of people's beliefs or interpretations. Institutions, structures, roles, and norms are real entities with actual properties and causal effects. A university is genuinely an institution with real structures and effects. Poverty is genuinely measurable through income and housing. Mental illness involves genuine pathological processes.

An objectivist researcher assumes their job is discovering and describing that objective reality. They're seeking facts about how things actually are. This aligns naturally with quantitative research, but objectivists can conduct qualitative research too. You might interview people about their experience but still adopt objectivism if you assume their experience reflects an underlying objective reality you're trying to understand.

Objectivism's strength is taking reality seriously. Real structures and constraints genuinely shape people's lives, regardless of whether people recognise them. Its limitation is potentially missing how meaning and interpretation matter. It can ignore how social reality gets actively constructed through people's actions.

Constructivism holds that social reality is constructed through human interaction, meaning-making, and language. Concepts like poverty, mental illness, or education aren't objectively "out there" but are socially constructed categories. What counts as mental illness varies across cultures. What counts as education differs across societies.

A constructivist researcher assumes their job is understanding how people construct meaning and reality through interaction. They're uncovering the meanings people create and how those meanings get negotiated and sustained. This aligns naturally with qualitative research and interpretive approaches.

Constructivism's strength is recognising the active role of human meaning-making in creating social reality. It avoids naive realism assuming the world exists independently of human understanding. Its limitation is sometimes struggling to acknowledge material constraints that exist whether or not people construct them as meaningful.

Critical Realism as the Middle Path

Many contemporary researchers adopt critical realism, which balances objectivism and constructivism. Critical realism holds that objective reality exists independent of human perception, but our access to that reality is always mediated through interpretation, social context, and our theoretical frameworks.

Think of poverty. It's objectively real, lack of material resources genuinely exists and has genuine effects. But poverty is also experienced and interpreted differently depending on cultural context and personal history. A critical realist would investigate poverty's objective dimensions (measurable income, housing, services access) and its subjective dimensions (how people experience deprivation, what meanings they attach to it).

Critical realism's increasingly popular in social science dissertations because it lets you engage with both material reality and people's interpretations.

How Ontology Actually Shapes Your Research Design

Your ontological position constrains your research design in concrete ways.

An objectivist position aligns with designs assuming you discover pre-existing facts. You'd use surveys with standardised measures, randomised designs, longitudinal tracking, large samples, statistical analysis. These methods make sense if reality exists independently and can be reliably measured.

A constructivist position aligns with designs exploring how meaning gets created. You'd use interviews, focus groups, ethnography, discourse analysis, participatory research. These methods make sense if reality is constructed through interaction and meaning-making.

A critical realist position aligns with mixed-methods designs combining discovery of objective patterns with interpretation of subjective meanings. You might use surveys alongside interviews or statistical analysis alongside qualitative explanation.

The key point is coherence. Your ontological position should align with your research questions, your design, and your analysis. If you believe reality is constructed but then design a study around discovering objective facts, you've got a mismatch that examiners will spot immediately.

Understanding Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology Together

These three concepts are distinct but interrelated. Understanding how they fit together is important for writing clearly.

Ontology (what exists?) is foundational. Your view on what's real shapes what kind of knowledge you can produce.

Epistemology (how do we know?) builds on ontology. Your epistemological position determines what counts as valid knowledge and how knowledge is obtained. It should align with ontology. Constructivist ontology pairs with interpretivist epistemology. Objectivist ontology pairs with positivist epistemology.

Methodology (how do we do research?) is the practical expression of your ontology and epistemology. It's your overall research strategy and your choices about design, methods, sampling, analysis. Methodology should be justified by both your ontological and epistemological positions.

Here's how they connect in an example. Say you're researching procrastination.

Objectivist ontology: Procrastination is an objective phenomenon, measurable behaviour patterns involving delayed task initiation.

Positivist epistemology: We know procrastination through observation and measurement of behaviour and identification of variables predicting it.

Quantitative methodology: Survey large student samples, measure procrastination using standardised scales, identify correlations with personality, time management, and course factors.

Alternatively:

Constructivist ontology: Procrastination is constructed through interaction and meaning-making. What counts as procrastination varies depending on cultural values, individual meanings, and social contexts.

Interpretivist epistemology: We know procrastination by understanding how students construct and interpret their behaviours and how they make sense of delayed engagement.

Qualitative methodology: Interview students about procrastination experiences, explore their meanings about delay, understand how social contexts shape their behaviours and interpretations.

Both are valid. Both are coherent. The mismatch would be adopting constructivist ontology but using quantitative design based on standardised measurement.

Writing Your Ontological Position Clearly

Don't begin with philosophical definitions. Begin with your research question and what it assumes about reality.

"My research investigates how teaching assistants experience their role in university departments. This question assumes that experience is real and meaningful, and different people construct different understandings of the same role. I so, adopt a constructivist ontological position, assuming social reality is produced through people's interactions, interpretations, and language. This lets me treat participants' accounts as genuine insights into role experience, not as something fixed and objective."

Notice this grounds the position in your research question itself. It explains why this ontology is appropriate.

Another example: "My research examines the relationship between family structure and educational attainment in disadvantaged pupils. I adopt realist ontology, assuming family structure is objective fact with real material consequences. But I also explore how children and families interpret and respond to circumstances, recognising that interpretations mediate the relationship between structure and attainment. This acknowledges both material reality and meaningful interpretation."

Four Common Errors

First error: claiming to adopt opposing ontologies without integrating them. You cannot be purely objectivist and purely constructivist. If you want both perspectives, explicitly adopt critical realism.

Second error: letting your ontological position contradict your research question. If your question asks "what does this mean?" you need constructivist ontology. Claiming objectivism creates inconsistency.

Third error: not explaining why your ontology is appropriate for your specific question. Generic statements won't work. Show the connection.

Fourth error: treating ontology as decoration rather than as genuinely shaping your research design. If your ontological position isn't shaping your actual methodological choices, either you don't genuinely hold it, or it's inappropriate.

Three FAQs

Q: Should I have a separate ontology section in my methodology? Check your university's guidance. Typically, a brief explicit statement early in your methodology (one or two paragraphs) is appropriate. Then, as you describe your methods, repeatedly show how choices reflect your ontological position. This integration demonstrates you understand ontology as your research's foundation.

Q: Can my ontological position change during research? Yes. Many researchers' positions shift as they engage with data. If this happened, acknowledge it. "I began with objectivist assumptions but found the phenomenon was more complex. I so, adopted critical realism, investigating both objective dimensions and subjective interpretations."

Q: Is critical realism weaker than pure objectivism or constructivism? No. Critical realism is increasingly respected. But you must show it genuinely guides your research, not that you're just combining approaches without coherent thinking. Clear critical realism is strong. Vague eclecticism is weak.

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Related posts: Epistemology in Your Dissertation, Understanding Methodology, How to Write Your Research Philosophy

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Seeking support during the dissertation process is a sign of academic maturity, not weakness, and most universities provide a range of resources specifically to help students manage the demands of independent research. Your dissertation supervisor is your most important source of academic guidance, but the support available to you extends well beyond that one-to-one relationship to include library services, academic skills workshops, and student welfare provisions. Many universities also run peer study groups and writing communities where dissertation students can share their experiences, read each other's work, and provide mutual support during what can be a challenging and isolating period. Taking full advantage of the support structures available to you is one of the most sensible things you can do to protect both your academic performance and your mental wellbeing during the dissertation writing process.