The epistemological foundations of quantitative research.
Quantitative research characterizes for being a systematic investigation of a topic related to a social phenomenon and a specific research methodology gathering quantifiable data and using statistical
Some of the most used quantitative methods can be discrete and continuous simulation, heuristic and meta-heuristic analysis methods, as well as design of experiments (very abundant in the scientific literature).
Epistemology is a branch of Philosophy whose
object of study is scientific knowledge.
The underlying philosophies and worldviews of researchers, also called epistemologies, are basically the fundamentals that mark the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.
Subjectivism
Is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience",[1] instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth… Subjectivism gives primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law.
Positivism
Is a philosophical theory stating that certain ("positive") knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations.
Post-positivists consider that research can never be certain, and that researchers should approximate that reality as best as they can. That is the best way how they can represent that reality.