On 12/15/08 12:31 PM, "Chris Rust" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> In a way the
> typical PhD thesis undermines this by putting the methodology chapter
> near the front and I have encouraged some students to change this. By
> all means have a discussion about methodology early on but show your
> methodology emerging in the practice of your research and complete the
> explanation in your conclusions.
I actually presented an argument for something close to this (and to Terry's
suggestion, I think) in my thesis which spent some time trying to identify
the sources of a few methodological issues in design studies.
"A methodological approach to design research has been demonstratively
argued in this thesis: that the purpose of the study should be the principal
resource for choices of method and approach; that the researcher should
proceed with caution as to how data is used as evidence of the phenomenon of
interest; that the researcheršs decisions in this regard are what reveal the
epistemological assumptions that must be invoked to support his/her use of
data as evidence of the phenomena; and that the legitimacy of the data
collected in response to the purpose of the study (and its subsequent use in
the account) should be the principal criteria for evaluating any study."
(from my abstract).
This isn't the silver bullet for methodological issues, but I developed this
out of a personal frustration with what might be termed the 'paradigm wars'.
By this I mean the pressure research students feel to identify their
research singularly within an existing philosophical or methodological
school, and the (problematic) assumption that once you have chosen sides,
issues of method and methodology (and ontology and epistemology) simply fall
out from that choice. The "I'm a hermeneutic phenomenologist so I'm doing
in-depth interviews; I'm a positivist so I'm collecting quantitative survey
data; I'm a constructivist so I'm doing reflexive analysis"-type approach
that I found intimidating and seems inescapable to novice researchers. Are
we really supposed to learn enough about positivism, phenomenology,
pragmatism, epistemological realism, materialism etc. etc. to make an
intelligent and informed choice, when we really just want to know whether a
questionnaire is going to help us do our PhD?
The point of the approach I tried to develop above was to suggest that
epistemology is something we all do in practice (scientific or ordinary),
when we take certain evidence as more convincing than other, or sufficient
for this purpose, or this action, or when we think we have illuminated a
phenomenon by going about "getting data" about in certain ways. The point is
to make explicit, and to be explicitly aware of, what we as researchers have
done in order to claim what we are claiming. I teach a subject on research
methods to design students, and the following is the one quote I repeat to
my students ad nauseam:
"The rationality of any research enterprise is guaranteed not by some set of
established procedures, but by a sensitivity to the nature of the claims
being made, the burden of proof those claims impose, and the kind of
evidence that can support those claims." (Jacobs, 1988 p.442)
Different standards suffice to convince for different purposes; but this is
not something we need to feel we have to stipulate a priori, once and for
all.
I think this is close to what Terry was advocating, though I'm not exactly
sure. I'd appreciate any thoughts on how this strikes people, since I've
spent a lot of time thinking about these things for design, but not (as yet)
as much time as I should have talking to others about them.
All the best,
Ben
Jacobs, S. (1988). Evidence and inference in conversation analysis. In J. A.
Anderson (Ed.), Communication Yearbook (Vol. 11, pp. 433-443). Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
Matthews, B. (2004). Studying design: an interpretive and empirical
investigation of design activity. Unpublished PhD, University of Queensland,
Brisbane.
--
Ben Matthews
Associate Professor
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
+45 6550 1675
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