Aligning Philosophies of Science with Research Approaches/The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods:

Constructivism, Critical Theory, Empiricism, Interpretivism, and Positivism/ Research Design

Creswell has aligned certain philosophies of science with each of the three research approaches: Qualitative approaches-constructivist; Quantitative approaches-postpositivist and Mixed Methods approaches-pragmatic.

To what extent do you agree with Creswell's alignment of these philosophies with these approaches? How flexible is such alignment? For example, can a qualitative approach ever be postpositivist? With which approaches would you align empiricism, interpretivism, and critical theory? For example, does empiricism align with a quantitative approach, a qualitative approach, a mixed methods approach, or more than one approach? How would you support your choices of alignment?

Please give current references.