ken,



i don't know why you are so insistent that morphologically, "research" does not consist of the prefix "re" and the word stem "search." you said that the english "research" comes from the french "recherche" which my dictionary breaks down into the very same two components "re-cherche," searching repeatedly.



true, the interpretation of the compound "research" connotes carefulness, thoroughness, proceeding methodically, being systematic, or leaving nothing out. however, accomplishing this always means attending to data repeatedly until one is sure one has understood them, or found a satisfactory answer to one's research question.



recognizing research as re-search has the advantage of focusing the reader on what researchers actually do.  the words "inquiry" and "investigation" are less descriptive of the process of handling facts -- but all of them require looking into some kind of available data or recorded observations.



i do not want to continue struggling with you on this issue. neither of us were there when the word "research" was first used in english, and what their first users had in mind. i am more interested in understanding what is done when engaging in research. i suggest that all scientific research provides explanations, theories or predictions that are based on evidence in the form of data and their systematic analysis.  when scientific researchers apply for grants, they need to be explicit about at least 5 components: 



(1)  an interesting research question that is presumed to be answerable with the help of not yet available data, for example, whether a medication has the alleged side effects, how old an excavated set of bones are, which of say 3 human-computer interfaces are better (by specified criteria), whether a theory or hypothesis is valid 



(2)  a review of available literature on how the research question has been handled by other researcher and what the proposed research would add to that literature



(3)  the proposed method of generating pertinent data, be it by controlled experiments, opinion surveys, literature searches -- addressing problems of sample sizes, reliability, observer biases



(4)  the proposed methods of analyzing the data, for example, by variance analysis, factor analysis, comparative measurements, ...



(5)  criteria to be employed for taking the findings as an acceptable answer to the research question: statistical significance of the findings, the validity of the answers offered 



These 5 components are common, if you examine published research results, you find them addressed.  they all require careful generation and analysis of data, systematic going through facts, measuring and correlating the objects made available for the study. (to me that careful handling of data is well captured by the interpretation of "re-search" but you don't agree with me and i don't think agreement is necessary to understand what scientific research entails).



clearly, what i have described as scientific research aims at explanations, not innovation, at describing what is, not what could be. it is based on data that a researcher needs to generate, find, or be given.  data are not about the future that designers are interested in but about what happened.  this is not to say that researchers look only backward.  they generalize what was found in the data. but generalizing what happened in the past renders designers the servants of what happened in the past, unable to do their job of intervening in undesirable conditions to generate new and better measures. 



design research -- however that will be come to defined -- to be useful to designers will have to develop its own vocabulary -- search for and evaluate solutions, work with stakeholder's conceptions, find compelling arguments for the possibilities of futures that do not yet exist. i do not see much consensus on that yet.  This vocabulary cannot be borrowed from the natural sciences which would stifle designers' ability to go beyond what exists in data, in the past, and due to institutions that have an interest in the status quo and in curbing the designers creativity.



klaus       









-----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: Saturday, August 14, 2010 6:32 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: The word "research"



Dear Jude,



Thanks for your reply. The processes and issues you raise are indeed

one form of design research. My post focused exclusively on the

etymology and meaning of the word "research." These meanings embrace any

activity that constitutes "1: careful or diligent search, 2: studious

inquiry or examination; especially: investigation or experimentation

aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted

theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of

such new or revised theories or laws 3: the collecting of information

about a particular subject.” To research is to "search or investigate

exhaustively," 



Some forms of research clearly involve re-search, searching again. This

applies to the processes you describe. Some forms of research involve

looking backward -- history, archeology, evolutionary biology, and

etymology are examples of research focused on the past. But the word

itself means none of these things. These are limited cases of the word.

Each form of research is bounded and limited by its focus and methods.

Research as a noun or verb describes a large range of activities. My

post wasn't an attempt to describe, limit, accept, or reject any form of

research -- it was simply an effort to analyze the word while clearing

up a common confusion by explaining one thing that the word "research"

doesn't mean.



While the word "research" does not mean "to search again," some _forms_

of research do entail searching again. I have no criticism at all of

your interesting and articulate post. It offers a good description. 



Most research methods and processes -- like most thought processes --

require us to think back through our past efforts as well as thinking

forward toward the goals and future states we seek. This applies to

research in which our future state involves finding the solution or

answer to a question or problem, as much as to forms of professional

research in which the future state involves creating something new and

preferred. We've got to think through our processes and our evolving

understandings along the way, and this includes our own steps in the

research process. In this sense, nearly all research requires moving our

thoughts back and forth in some time frame.



I'll come back to some of these issues when I try to meet Klaus's

challenge. For now, thanks again for a robust and detailed description

of several forms of research.



Warm wishes,



Ken



Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS

Professor

Dean



Swinburne Design

Swinburne University of Technology

Melbourne, Australia

  

-- 

 

CHUA Soo Meng Jude wrote:



--snip--



I have for the longest time wondered why "research" is called

"re-search", and now I know it is not that.  But I think there's some

sense in doing "design research" in precisely this "re-search" sense: as

a kind of retracing of one's design-ing.  There are I think perhaps two

ways to look at it, depending on one's account of what design thinking

or design epistemology is.



If we have a notion of design epistemology that is a science, like a

series of analytic propositions or laws or such like that can be

carefully worked out (like Herbert Simon perhaps), then design re-search

makes sense, because design re-search here means going back again and

again to rework one's design science  (as one would for instance, go

back again and again to refine one's inductive scientific hypothesis or

deductive philosophical scientia, like Simon going back to rework his

decision making heuristics (e.g, detailing how and why one should

satisfice rather than optimize) or rules (e.g., James March detailing

rules to follow or strategies to improve design relevant decision

making) so that one arrives at the most defensible one, which can guide

future designing.  



--snip--