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Health Education Research, Vol. 13, No. 3, 439-450, 1998
© 1998 Oxford University Press

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Beyond positivism: humanistic perspectives on theory and research in health education

David R. Buchanan

Community Health Education, 306 Arnold House, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003, USA

The purpose of this paper is to expand the set of ideas about what constitutes ‘theory’ in public health education. The paper presents a review of seven functions of theory: prediction, explanation, making assumptions explicit, understanding, sense-making, sensitization and critique. The first two uses fall under the domain of positivist research; the latter five are drawn from theorizing conducted in the humanities, as in historical, legal, literary and philosophical research. The paper argues that a broader conception of theory and research, one that moves beyond the parameters of the positivist paradigm, may help to bridge the gap between theory and practice in health education.


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