A paradigm is a framework which helps researchers identify the types of problems which need addressing, the methodological steps for addressing these problems and the way that evidence can be marshalled to say whether the problem has been addressed satisfactorily. It achieved prominence in the physical sciences. Here Kuhn argued that ‘normal science’ took place within a particular paradigm, for example astronomy was explored through the theoretical framework described by Ptomely, but that science was subject to paradigm shifts as existing frameworks failed to address a critical question. A new paradigm supersede an existing paradigm not because it is right but it works well enough until faced with a further critical event. Science may establish universal laws but paradigms are good enough to not immutable. get by until the next comes along.

Educationalists like the idea of paradigms as a means for explaining the frameworks in which research takes place. For example there is a handy, though not entirely accurate story of educational research, as having taken place within a behaviourist paradigm; a cognitive paradigm a social constructivist paradigm. We are not in a post paradigmatic age or at least one accepting of different paradigms.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 199