Dear Ken
Sorry for the delayed reply.
I made one but then i pushed the wrong button and it was gone without me
noticing that it never made it to the list.
Though some days have passed i still feel that i should answer because i
feel a bit misinterpreted and also may be we disagree on some points.

I couldn't resend my reply before because i was tied up with teaching
master students, advising doctoral students, working on a boat design I
am engaged with and planning a sound active installation that should be
coming up within the next year or so. This sounds crazy and it is, but
it also illustrates my point. I believe that in-between these practices
there is a special type of knowledge generated that is neither possible
by just practicing or just by research. It is what i called the only
type of research only possible done by designers. That does absolutely
not mean that I think there is only one right way of research. I
apologize for being unclear.

My point is that there is a trade-off between different knowledges. This
does not mean lowering the standards but that the emphasis and mix of
backgrounds and knowledges will vary in different modes of design
research some times on the cost of the depth of academic knowledge. We
need to realize this trade off or i would prefer to call it negotiation
of knowledges but it seems very few do. Robson writes about the
advantages and disadvantages of the insider perspective. 

The problems of the practitioner researcher:
-lack of time
-lack of experience
-lack of confidence
-insider problems
Insider problems are:
Preconceptions, lack of distance to the material, hierarchy problems

The benefits of practitioner-research:
Insider opportunities:
Pre-existing knowledge and experience, 
Practitioner opportunities: less implementation problems
Practitioner-researcher synergy: Robson claims that the practitioner
experience helps to the carry out of useful and appropriate studies
(relevance)

 Robson (1993) Real World Research, Blackwell, Oxford


(If somebody could contribute to this it would be great.)

I think I basically agree with most of what you say, like not all design
research can seamlessly integrate with practice, sure but some of it
should (and i think we agree). Robin Adams mentioned an upcoming book by
Van de Ven where this is seen as a contradiction between those who
emphasize rigour and generalisation (academics) and those closer to
practice who emphasize relevance. I think we need to look for relevance
with rigour! But as you can read from my former mail I would be willing
to trade off rigour for relevance as long as it generates new
perspectives on our way to make more of design expressions and practices
researchable. The question and difficulty is then not only if
practitioner researchers are good enough or sloppy in their research,
but the difficulty comes also from the fields that are much harder to
investigate in a rigorous way. So we have to look into what kind of
methods and rigour we are talking about and here i wish to say a little
about hypotheses and truth....

I am a little confused about your way of using the word "true" and
hypothesis. I thought since long that "true" and "false" are terms hard
to use in many areas of design research or related fields. I would
suggest terms like valid or justified. Also the term hypothesis is
difficult in all inductive research as stated by grounded theory. A
hypothesis in the traditional sense is a pre-stated statement that is to
be verified or falsified through experiments (deduction). The term
"research question" is in my mind a more openly stated hypothesis.
Grounded theory takes a different starting point, avoiding any
preconception of the research field to avoid biasing an explorative
research. I guess a lot of research by design can go into this category
and can benefit from an explorative mode. Analyses (more or less
inspired by grounded theory) would be the methodology combined with
comparative studies or triangulated with other approaches which would
result in the desired rigour but not in a statement of "true" or
"false". The emerging theories from the analyses are the generalising
part of the process. 

Ken, I coincidentally just stumbled across some of your work from the
FLUXUS period. Great stuff!! Just out of curiosity, could you speculate
about how you might research this material historically? Can you
establish a hypothesis and verify it? Or could you speculate about it
from the research through practice point of view? Let's say you would
imagine a research by design project interlocked with your practice at
that time, how would your research design look and what kind of rigour
would be needed? How would it (looking back) influence and feed back
into that art practice and vice versa? Or would you regard these as
totally separate processes which would not benefit from being "laminar"?

Best whishes
Birger Sevaldson
Professor AHO
Oslo


-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Ken Friedman
Sent: 5. desember 2006 18:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is a PhD necessary for lectureship ? -- reply to Birger
Sevaldson


Dear Birger,

Thanks for your post.

It seems to me that the intellectual ecology of any thriving field 
needs several kinds of research.

Given the broad scope of the design field and the fact that no single 
school and no single company and no single designer can practice all 
forms of design, it is impossible to make the sweeping claim that 
there is only one kind of design research.

One of the problems that I observe in many areas of practice-linked 
design research is the inability to draw reasonable generalizations 
from otherwise excellent projects. Excellent projects may generate 
new insights, methods, and practices without sustaining 
generalizations. That is why we need several kinds of research.

More than this, the tendency of clinical research to move swiftly 
forward is another reason for more than one kind of design research. 
Clinical research often yields hypotheses that researchers present as 
truth claims. For that matter, working designers often assert that a 
product or process works when careful testing demonstrates that it 
may not work as it seems to do, and that sometimes it may not work at 
all.

Since personal passion drives good research, I agree that designers 
engaging in research may find "certain types of (design) knowledge 
[that are] only acquired or developed through research by design." 
These involve "developing new insights, methods and practices." 
Nevertheless, moving from these to generalized theories must involve 
more than "a systematic investigation involving both research by 
design and reflection This also involves testing, comparison, and 
using additional methods of ionquiry.

This is where comparative research methods and philosophy of science 
are required for a robust PhD program. This, in fact, is the 
difference between a degree in advanced professional practice and a 
PhD.

Even allowing for the possibility that a PhD might be awarded without 
these - as is the case for some PhD degrees today - these are vital 
for anyone who will go on to supervise and teach research. Unless we 
distinguish between a PhD degree that indicates the ability to do 
one's own research and a PhD that qualifies one to teach research and 
to supervise research students, the PhD must include both.

The German system does this, in effect, by requiring the 
habilitation. In the new Bologna era of 3-year PhDs, this may become 
the practice when universities and university-level design school can 
no longer be sure that a PhD indicates the ability to teach or 
supervise research students.

It is difficult to see how ALL design research can be "seamlessly 
connected to design practice and tutoring." This is possible in some 
cases. It is not the case for everyone involved in design research 
and it cannot be.

Some of us find philosophy of science valuable, and others of us are 
curious enough to believe that testing truth claims is as important 
to research as proposing hypotheses.

Since untested hypotheses remain hypotheses, even though people 
accept them as true, there is room in design research for both 
approaches.

Yours,

Ken

-- 

Prof. Ken Friedman
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo

Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen

+47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat

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