Thank you, Sarah!
This most certainly is an international issue. And some of that
preciousness you describe still exists. I don't know how many
graduate students -- in many different fields -- who appear to have
had no research training whatsoever. And there are different
problems with some of them who have had some training -- they seem
all bogged down in quantitative language (even if they have been
exposed to some qualitative thinking). To my mind, this is
particularly a difficulty with people who are primarily practitioners
(social workers, teachers, nurses, etc.) and wish now to do some more
formal research.
This is related to another aspect that has to do with qualitative
research being taken up (and partly developed by) folks who haven't
traditionally been researchers and who aren't altogether confident
about their researching capacities. I'm one of those. Qualitative
methods are wonderfully suited for practice-oriented field like my
own of social work, but the practitioners (who most need qual
methods) tend to be very unsure of themselves in the research arena.
Now that more of us are doing research, things are coming together
more.
I think of an example. A couple of years ago I was advising a
student who was developing a very complex dissertation, looking at
particular aspects of the experience of adults who have experienced
sexual abuse as children. Much of her understanding of her subject
came from her own clinical experience, working with patients, but she
couldn't use this material directly because of ethical
confidentiality requirements. We developed a sort of triangular
model, looking at the topic from several different directions. She
used her own experience to inform her research. She did a very very
careful reread of several texts which This is proving very valuable
and the dissertation is moving along beautifully. spoke in great
detail about the experience she was investigating, identifying themes
as they appeared and then subthemes, etc. until a pretty clear
picture of the experience began to emerge. There were a couple of
other aspects that escape me at the moment. We thought of it as
shining a light from several directions on something partly hidden in
a dark corner, rather like investigating something in a corner of
grandmother's attic. But the student had to take exquisite care in
preparing the proposal, selecting committee members, etc. because it
hardly seemed straightforward to the powers-that-be. And although
she read the research literature carefully and fully and found some
work that helped, in the end, she really had to "invent" her
methodology and in a way which allowed it to continue to evolve as
she went. There was one point when she couldn't really see where she
was going and it was my, and another advisor's support, that let her
take a sort of flying leap which has proven useful. This had to do
with the close reading of the texts and the emergence of themes and
what on earth she would do with them once they emerged.
Even after several years of doing my own research and advising on a
good many dissertations and other projects, I am still not at all
comfortable with the language of more formal researchers and very
often I don't know what words to use to help me find someone who
speaks about a methodology which might be useful, eg. this triangular
sort of model I've been talking about. We finally did well enough
with that one, but the difficulty remains each time I embark on a
project. I don't think it is a matter of lack of exposure or
training; it seems to have more to do with an affective connection or
resonance. Fundamentally I am a practitioner and much of the
research language simply doen't "connect" for me, so it seems almost
meaningless other than in a very abstract way. I think we are seeing
a good many new researchers who struggle with this problem (it is not
just me!).
Harriet
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