Kev

This is what this list is all about. PhD student posts tentative query,
various people (some gurus) chip in, PhD student gains confidence and
clarity (and key connections), offers to help others. Lovely to watch this
emerging!  

Trish 

 

Trish Greenhalgh

Professor of Primary Health Care and Dean for Research Impact

Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry

58 Turner St

London E1 2AB

UK

+44 20 7882 7325

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@trishgreenhalgh


 








On 19/11/2014 17:18, "Kev Harris" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Hi , 
>
>I'd just like to say thanks to those of you (specifically Ray, Trish,
>Avril and Justin) who have provided some excellent advice.
>
>If anyone (like Avril suggests) is in the same position as me I am 100%
>happy to talk (and) procrastinate about all this stuff.
>
>Finally thanks again. I cannot underestimate how amazing a resource this
>forum is for helping people like me through this area and your modesty
>and willingness to help is so greatly appreciated.
>
>:)
>
>Kev
>
>Kevin Harris
>Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
>Senior Lecturer, Sport Development and Sport Policy
>Course Leader: BA Hons Sport Coaching and Development
>Southampton Solent University
>Faculty of Business, Sport and Enterprise
>East Park Terrace
>Southampton
>SO14 0RH
>Tel: 02382 013520
>
>Follow us on Twitter: @SSUSpCoachDev
>Check out our blog: www.solentsportsdegrees.blogspot.co.uk
>Check out the Coaching Innovation Programme:http://goo.gl/de9WXc
>
>________________________________________
>From: Avril Nicoll <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 18 November 2014 07:37
>To: 'Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving
>Standards'; Kev Harris
>Subject: RE: A plea for some philosophical advice
>
>Hi Kev,
>
>Although I didn't make the conference, we met at the previous CARES event
>in Liverpool. I was interested in your project because I think realist
>evaluation is an intuitive approach for practitioners, so it's great to
>hear you are making progress.
>
>I really liked Trisha's suggestion. I also agree with Ray that it is
>'bollocks to imagine that a PhD student picks an epistemology off the
>shelf and follows it'. However, it is difficult as a PhD student to find
>a meaningful path through this, so I wanted to add my own developing
>thoughts on the same kind of muddle as you're experiencing.
>
>My background is in speech and language therapy, not a specific academic
>discipline. When I developed a proposal as part of an MRes in 2012, I had
>lapped up Ray's books and articles. I wasn't sure what to do about
>'ontology', as it seemed such a vast subject, and I wasn't clear from
>speaking to researchers how a particular choice would make a practical
>difference to what I was proposing. I found Dyson and Brown's 2006 book
>'Social Theory and Applied Health Research' very helpful, particularly
>chapter 3, 'Taking at face value and knowing better: scientific realism'.
>This gave me the confidence to omit any discussion around 'ontology', and
>instead to show how epistemology, methodology and methods were related in
>my proposal. It may depend on the examiner, but I would have thought that
>it was possible to argue this as the 'point of departure' in a very
>applied study.
>
>For the problem I want to address in my PhD, however, I found I needed to
>bring in 'ontological reasoning' in the sense of considering the
>relations between concepts such as agency, structure and culture. A
>previous thread on this list introduced me to Margaret Archer's work (via
>Denise de Souza). This has helped me think through every aspect of my
>research design, including recruitment strategies, participant
>information sheets and topic guide. I'm not at a stage where I could
>engage in academic debate about the relative merits of Archer, Bhaskar,
>Giddens etc. However I find the questions I want to ask usually involve
>problematizing what is taken for granted, so ontological reasoning would
>seem to be important. (It may of course be that I could have come to the
>same point via a different route.)
>
>I would love to know how other people are dealing with this too as it
>causes an awful lot of angst.
>
>Avril
>
>Avril Nicoll
>ESRC PhD Student
>
>NMAHP Research Unit
>Unit 13 Scion House
>University of Stirling
>FK9 4NF
>
>Twitter: @avrilnicoll
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kev Harris
>Sent: 16 November 2014 12:46
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: A plea for some philosophical advice
>
>Dear RAMESES members ,
>
>It was great to meet many of you in Liverpool at what was a great
>conference.
>
>The reason for this post centres upon a philosophical muddle I am
>currently in trying to make sense and gain clarity around the
>philosophical groundings of my PhD. Apologies if this comes across as a
>stupid message !
>
>In my MPHil viva just over a month ago I was asked to clarify the
>philosophical groundings of my PhD which involves training practitioners
>to elicit RE in their own projects and then me testing my training
>framework through an RE methodology. Immediately I moved towards realism
>or more specifically critical realism where I covered that there is a
>reality independent of our knowledge of it yet there are hidden
>mechanisms / generative causality etc etc. For me, as I am training
>practitioners to carry out RE on their own social change interventions ,
>and thus using RE myself to test my framework with the practitioners, I
>highlighted that my take on things was to explore how individuals (for
>whom) impact on and are impacted by external structures (contexts) and
>then reason against resources provided (mechanisms) which lead to certain
>behaviours and outcomes. I felt I had done a decent job in explaining
>that individuals have the capacity to change only through navigating
>their own internal dispositions and within the structural dynamics
>external to them (eg structure and agency).
>
>Then I was then asked to explain how my position (critical realist) was
>different to realist and I started to feel hot and uneasy! I basically
>did not feel comfortable with the question.
>
>Since then (and at the conference) I have been trying to establish the
>difference between realism and critical realism. I still cannot get to a
>position where I can fully distinguish between the two. In some text
>books realism is an ontological position and then an epistemological
>position.
>
>I have just started reading Ray's new book which actually states in the
>opening pages the fact that he is not critical realist per se, and that
>in the following chapter 'the seven pillars' applies different takes
>(from my interpretation) of realist thinkers / greats. Does that mean
>Pawson and Tilley's take on realistic evaluation draws upon a variety of
>different realist positions that drives their approach?
>
>Can anyone help? Am I not the only one new to this field having the same
>troubles? I think the key question is : is there anyone who could advise
>how to answer these questions in a VIVA and be able to firmly state what
>the philosophical foundations (ontological and epistemological) of their
>PhD are which then leads to the methodology of RE?
>
>Apologies again if this comes across as an 'idiots' email but that's
>certainly how I feel right now 'philosophically'!
>
>
>
>Kind Regards
>
>Kevin Harris
>Senior Fellow : Higher Education Academy Senior Lecturer Sport
>Development and Sport Policy Course Leader, BA Hons Sport Coaching and
>Development Southampton Solent University East Park Terrace
>02380 319520
>
>Follow us on Twitter: @SSUSpCoachDev
>Check out our blog: www.solentsportsdegrees.blogspot.co.uk
>Follow our You Tube channel: ssusportdev2012
>
>--
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>94% of our 2012 graduates were in work and/or further study within six
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>