In philosophy and models of scientific inquiry, postpositivism (also called postempiricism) is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism.[1] While positivists emphasize independence between the researcher and the researched person (or object), postpositivists argue that theories, hypotheses, background knowledge and values of the researcher can influence what is observed.[2] Postpositivists pursue objectivity by recognizing the possible effects of biases.[2][3][4] While positivists emphasize quantitative methods, postpositivists consider both quantitative and qualitative methods to be valid approaches.[4]