Positivistic paradigms seek facts or causes of social phenomena with little regard to the subjective state of the individual. Positivism is based upon realism. Thus logical reasoning is applied to research so that precision, objectivity and rigour replace experience and intuition as means of investigating research problems. Positivism is founded on the belief that research on human behaviour should be conducted in the same way as research in the natural sciences. This belief is based on the assumption that social reality is independent of research objectives and exists regardless of whether the researchers are aware of it. Therefore, the ontological debate of ‘What is reality?’ can be kept distinct from the epistemological question of ‘How the researcher obtains knowledge of that reality?’ When using positivistic research methodologies, the act of investigating realty has no effect on that realty (Collis & Hussey 2003:52).
实证范式寻求事实或社会现象的原因，很少考虑到个人的主观状态。现实主义是基于实证。因此，逻辑推理应用研究，使精确，客观和严谨的调查研究问题的手段更换的经验和直觉。相信应该进行同样的方法在自然科学的研究中，对人类行为的研究是建立在实证。这种信念是基于这样的假设，社会现实是独立的研究目标，不论研究人员是否意识到这一点存在。因此，本体论“的辩论，什么是现实？”可以保持不同的从认识论问题研究者如何获得知识，现实吗？’当采用实证研究方法，调查不动产的行为有没有影响该不动产（科利斯＆罗赫西2003:52）。
