What Is Ontology in Research?

What Does Ontology Actually Mean in Research?

Ontology is one of those research terms that can sound much more intimidating than the question underneath it. You may encounter statements about “ontological assumptions,” “multiple realities,” “realist ontology,” or “relativism” and wonder what any of this has to do with conducting a study.

At its core, ontology asks what exists and what the nature of reality is. For researchers, that becomes a practical question about the phenomenon being investigated: what do you assume is real, what kind of thing do you think it is, and what properties or structures do you believe it has?

Those assumptions matter because researchers cannot investigate a phenomenon without conceptualizing what they think they are investigating. The challenge is to recognize those assumptions without reducing ontology to the misleading choice between “one reality” and “many realities.”

Ontology Concerns What Exists and the Nature of Reality

Ontology Is About the Reality Your Research Claims to Investigate

Ontology Is the Philosophical Study of Being

In philosophy, ontology concerns being and existence. Research-methods literature applies this concern to assumptions about the nature of reality and the entities or phenomena researchers claim to investigate.

The Open University, for example, defines ontology in research as concerning a researcher's view of reality and what is true or real. In social and educational research, ontological questions include how researchers understand the social world and what they regard as existing within it.

That may initially sound abstract, but consider the concepts researchers routinely study: intelligence, learning, poverty, organizational culture, gender, motivation, trust, disability, social class, academic achievement, or student engagement. Researchers must decide what these concepts refer to before they can meaningfully decide how to investigate them.

Ontology therefore sits beneath a deceptively simple question: What exactly do I believe I am studying?

Ontology Is Not Limited to Asking Whether Reality Exists

A common introductory explanation contrasts a single objective reality with multiple subjective realities. This can be useful as a first approximation, particularly when comparing some positivist and constructivist approaches, but ontology is broader than that binary.

Ontological questions can concern what kinds of entities exist, whether particular social phenomena depend on human interpretation, whether structures exist independently of individuals' awareness of them, how different levels of reality relate to one another, and whether the objects described by our concepts correspond to realities beyond those concepts.

This matters because saying “I believe in multiple realities” does not, by itself, provide a complete ontological position. Nor does saying “there is one reality.” The researcher still needs to explain what those claims mean for the phenomenon under investigation.

Ontological Assumptions Become Visible When You Define the Phenomenon

Imagine studying “academic success.” Before collecting any data, you need some conception of what academic success is.

You might conceptualize it primarily through observable outcomes such as grades, progression, retention, or degree completion. Alternatively, your research question might treat success as partly constituted through students' own understandings of achievement, belonging, development, or fulfillment. Another study might examine how institutional structures shape what counts as success in the first place.

These are not merely different measurement choices. They make different claims about the phenomenon that deserves investigation.

Operationalization makes the issue especially visible. When researchers convert theoretical concepts into indicators that can be observed or measured, they make decisions about what observable instances are taken to represent the concept. Research-methods literature consequently recognizes that operationalization can raise ontological as well as epistemological questions about the nature of social reality and whether particular phenomena can adequately be measured.

Realism and Relativism Represent Important Ontological Debates

Researchers often encounter terms such as realism and relativism when studying ontology. These terms have several philosophical variants, so simple definitions should be treated cautiously.

Broadly, realist positions maintain that at least some reality exists independently of our descriptions, perceptions, or knowledge of it. Relativist positions place greater emphasis on the dependence of reality, truth, or meaning on conceptual, social, historical, linguistic, or other frameworks, although precisely what is considered relative differs among philosophical accounts.

Between and beyond these broad descriptions lie many positions. Critical realism, for example, should not be collapsed into naive realism, while different forms of constructionism and constructivism make different ontological commitments.

Social Reality Creates Particularly Interesting Ontological Questions

Some things researchers study appear to have a straightforward physical existence. Others depend in important ways on social practices, institutions, classifications, language, or shared understandings.

Money provides a familiar illustration. A banknote is physically real, but its status as money depends on social and institutional arrangements. Universities, academic degrees, professional ranks, laws, and many organizational roles similarly have realities that cannot be explained only by describing their physical properties.

Social researchers therefore ask not only whether something is real but in what sense it is real. A phenomenon can have consequential effects without being a physical object. Institutional rules, social identities, norms, classifications, and power relations may shape people's lives even though they exist differently from rocks or molecules.

This is one reason ontology becomes particularly consequential in social science, education, health, organizational research, and other fields concerned with human meaning and social structures.

Ontology and Epistemology Are Connected but Different

Once you make assumptions about what kind of reality you are studying, the next problem is how knowledge about that reality is possible.

That is an epistemological question.

The two are related because your understanding of reality can affect what you think can be known about it. But they should not be collapsed. The question “Does this phenomenon exist independently of how people understand it?” differs from “What evidence would allow me to know something about this phenomenon?”

If that distinction remains slippery, examining ontology and epistemology side by side is more useful than memorizing another pair of definitions.

Ontology Can Influence What You Treat as Evidence

Ontological assumptions can have methodological consequences because what you believe about a phenomenon affects what kinds of evidence seem capable of representing or explaining it.

If a phenomenon is conceptualized as measurable and relatively stable across contexts, standardized observations may be appropriate for particular questions. If the phenomenon concerns meanings that are developed through social interaction, understanding participants' interpretations and contexts may become essential. If the researcher assumes that observable events arise from underlying structures or mechanisms, the inquiry may seek explanations that go beyond simply recording what can be directly observed.

This relationship helps explain how philosophical assumptions influence what counts as evidence.

Still, ontology alone does not tell you which instrument to use. A belief about reality needs to be considered alongside epistemology, the research question, theoretical framework, methodology, and practical research context.

Ontology Does Not Belong Exclusively to Qualitative Research

Ontology sometimes becomes visible to students only when they encounter qualitative methodology. That can create the impression that quantitative researchers study reality while qualitative researchers discuss ontology.

Both make ontological assumptions.

A quantitative study that treats anxiety, achievement, or socioeconomic status as variables capable of operationalization makes assumptions about what those constructs are and how they can be represented. A qualitative study exploring how people experience anxiety or construct meanings of achievement also makes assumptions about the nature of those phenomena.

The difference lies in the particular assumptions and purposes of the inquiry, not in whether ontology is present.

Ontology Is One Part of a Larger Philosophical Framework

Ontology does not operate alone. Ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology can be considered together when examining the broader philosophical logic of a study.

Some frameworks place these assumptions within a research paradigm or research worldview. Others organize the relationships differently. The terminology matters less than understanding how your chosen framework conceptualizes the assumptions and using it consistently.

The practical purpose is not to demonstrate that you know several words ending in -ology. It is to make clear what your study assumes about its object of inquiry and why the resulting research decisions are defensible.

How Ontology Changes What You Think You Are Studying

Neither researcher has discovered the one universally correct definition of engagement. They have conceptualized the phenomenon differently because their research questions are different.

The important point is what happens next. Each researcher needs evidence and methodology capable of addressing the particular phenomenon and question as conceptualized. Ontology therefore affects research not because it supplies a ready-made method, but because it clarifies what the researcher believes there is to investigate.

Common Misunderstandings About Ontology in Research

How to Think About Ontology in Your Own Research

Instead of beginning with “What is my ontology?”, begin with the phenomenon itself.

Ask what you are claiming exists, what kind of thing it is, whether it is stable or context-dependent, whether it depends on people's interpretations, and whether your theoretical concepts refer to observable properties, underlying structures, social constructions, experiences, or some combination of these.

Then connect those assumptions to the rest of the study. Your ontology should make sense alongside your epistemology, research question, methodology, evidence, and interpretation.

This does not mean writing a philosophical autobiography for every research project. The amount of explicit discussion required depends on the research tradition and reporting context. What matters is being able to defend the assumptions that materially shape the inquiry.

Before You Describe Your Ontological Position

Frequently Asked Questions About Ontology in Research

Ontology Clarifies What You Believe There Is to Investigate

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