I must admit that this on the whole is a very sad discussion. One: does PhD damage design and Two: does design understand what PhD is!?
A discussion about education and processes rather than design itself as a field of activism in society. I must admit that very many are over excited about PhD issues rather than what design is as a social function. This is sad and has nothing to do with how designers are active in developing new horizons for design as a social tool.
But great to see it for many to understand better how PhD programs are changing and damaging good design activity and maybe the best result is to stop using the word 'design' for one's work.
Dori


Professor Halldór Gíslason,
Oslo National Academy of the Arts,
Oslo, Maputo, Reykjavik,
Personal Website: http://www.dorigislason.com/
Work Website:
http://www.khiodesign.com/
Academy Website:
http://www.khio.no/

On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:57 AM, Ken Friedman wrote:

> 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—