Revista Scientific Volumen 3 / Nº 7 - Febrero-Abril 2018 | Page 12

Editorial The scientific and technical development in contemporaneity configures a new investigative thought. From this perspective, quantitative approaches are accompanied by phenomenological understandings for the explanation of processes. While qualitative research involves resources and quantitative measurement and explanation techniques. One of the problems that researchers face when organizing an investigative process is to select a methodology that is relevant to the nature of the object / subject of study. This selection leads them to take sides in favor of processes of a quantitative or qualitative nature, with plural points of view depending on the ways of perceiving and understanding the panorama before them. In addition, the conformation of a scaffolding of methods and techniques of positivist or phenomenological cut or where a complementarity between both must be expressed. We have an example in the study of human behavior where we can not lose sight of the causal nature that originates human behavior and the peculiar combination of heredity and the environment, the reasons and the orientation towards conscious goals and objectives. In this study, the use of quantitative methods and techniques may be relevant, as well as those that explore human subjectivity. The epistemological debate between rationalist and empiricist paradigms lacks a sufficient basis, since particular methods are not necessarily linked to a paradigm. The so-called positivist paradigm (quantitative, empirical-analytical, rationalist) seeks to explain, predict, control phenomena, verify theories and laws to regulate phenomena; identify real, temporally preceding or simultaneous causes. 11 Editorial Contemporary investigative practices. The challenges of his new epistemological approaches