An analysis of consistency in, and between, ontology, epistemology and philosophical perspective as contained studies of the first year experience

Recurring themes in the literature on students' experiences of their first year in college education include performance and retention, socialisation, learning and teaching methods, interaction with staff and the student's history prior to college. Methods used to collect and analyse data vary considerably and reflect differences among researchers in the philosophical positions underpinning these projects. In this paper, we analyse two studies of the first year experience (FYE) that reflect the variation in ontology, i.e. what can be known about the FYE as manifest in the questions asked, and also epistemology, i.e. how we can learn about it as manifest in the methods used. The ways in which studies are conducted and data are collected and analysed are used to categorise the philosophy driving these research projects. We describe a study carried out from the positivist perspective and highlight the difficulty these researchers have in maintaining this perspective when reporting their findings. We analyse the objectivity that is claimed to exist in such research. Phenomenology, in contrast, has very different underlying assumptions about what can be known about student learning and development and studies in this camp deliberately avoid the hypothesis testing that characterises the former. An example of how this qualitative method has been employed in studying approaches to learning is provided along with the types of findings that emerge from this work. While positivism seeks to explain and model, phenomenology only aims to describe yet both camps seek to obtain some sense of truth. While phenomenologists claim to have truth but lack certainty in a generalisable sense, the positivists are certain but do they really know the truth? What can we learn from these two approaches? We contrast the findings that emerge from both methods and discuss the relevance and importance these have for the issue at hand - improving the first year experience in a real way.