Dear Teena,
First, I’ve changed the header to this part of the thread. This part
of the conversation has shifted. This topic is quite different to the
thread that asks whether the PhD poses a threat to design education.
Here. You are discussing the relationship between dialogue, reflection,
and research.
Research is a practice. In a previous post, I stated that we need
dialogue and reflection within all of our practices. Clearly, something
one hears in one part of any life activity may shed valuable light on
anything else we may be doing. It sounds to me as though you were
conducting a reflective conversation in respect to research, so
developing added language and new skills is to be expected. It would be
foolish to suggest that reflection and dialogue on research are not part
of the research activity, and I made no such suggestion.
It is not necessary to get into the entire discourse of the
hermeneutical spiral, double-loop learning, and how it is that dialogue
and reflection contribute to practice – ANY practice, including
research.
I’ve been careful to distinguish here among the different kinds of
practices to which you referred – research, professional practice,
teaching, and writing. They are inter-related and they all feed each
other, but they’re not the same thing. I confess to a bit of
perplexity and modest irritation at the way you’ve reframed my
statements to suggest the claim on my part that there are no relations
among these four aspects of scholarship and academic work. They are all
related one to the other in every field of university-based professional
practice. I’m also puzzled that you’ve overlooked what I thought
were an evident position – while I have not until now explicitly
stated my use of the underlying frame of the hermeneutical spiral and
double-loop learning, they are implicit in everything I’ve written. I
have not excluded the relation of the parts to a whole, merely stated
that they are different.
Over the years, I’ve heard some awfully silly claims regarding
research in the field of design. These claims include – and these are
quoted statements – “Design is about quality, therefore all design
research must be qualitative.” “Reflective practice leads to better
design, and reflective practice is our research method.” “The only
purpose of design research it to contribute to improved practice. Any
other kind of research belongs in another field.” These kinds of
statements are silly because they are totalizing and because they refuse
to recognize the multiple legitimate purposes of research in any field
of professional practice, design among them.
The immaturity of our field as a research field is an important reason
for epistemological clarity. In this case, methodological sensitivity
requires that we be clear about the distinctions between research and
other activities, and it requires that we understand and value the
contribution that other activities make in contributing to research.
Dialogue and reflection on research contribute to research. In this
sense, one can argue that there is a gray zone in which one may either
look on these as part of the research process or argue that they are
important to all practices including research without being in their own
right a research process. The substantive issues are nearly the same.
What I would take care with is the notion that reflection or dialog on
design are research processes, though reflection on design may well
contribute to research involving design. Otherwise, we’d come into the
confused state that has long plagued us in which anyone who designs and
thinks reflectively on design in any way could be said to be doing
research. That’s what I argue is not the case.
Epistemological clarity and methodological sensitivity are vital to
serious research. Whether or not the PhD is a threat to design education
– the topic of the earlier thread – we need to be clear about what
we are doing when we engage in research.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
39214 6078 | Faculty
--
Teena Clerke wrote:
—snip—
practice. While I don’t have space to explain what this is (reference
below), our discussion gave me some language to talk about what was
previously unspeakable in the thesis chapter I am currently writing.
According to Ken’s argument, this is discussion and reflection rather
than a research activity, yet my epistemological position suggests that
data and analysis are co-constructions generated through dialogue
between two or more people and the material environment. Thus this
particular dialogic interaction, as one of many in which I have engaged
over the past six years of my doctorate, contributes to both research
contexts in which I am engaged AS research activity.
—snip—
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