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Sukanta Majumdar wrote: > Dear Ken & All, > > - When you talk about methods and methodology, do you talk about the basic character of the problem/s? > - If you understand the character of the problem/s, do you feel of talking about 'class theoretical' and 'field theoretical'? > - If classify the theoretical, do you determine what are the methods possible within that theoretical? > - And then justify particularly which method will you adopt, and which you will not adopt with proper reason......... I would like to see this in a much more open way. Methods can include anything that anybody has done before or that you might decide might be useful to you. There is no point where you absolutely must not adopt a specific course of action because it doesn't fit your theoretical framework. And that's partly because, unless you are operating in an area where the precedents are very strong (eg most clinical trials) you cannot claim to have a complete theoretical framework, or methodology, for for any ambitious research until you have completed the work. 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. So methodology has two practical meanings. You can discuss it as a general issue, the question of methods, and that is often the first way that students encounter it, hence the tendency to see it as a planning or selecting activity. But there is also the question of a specific methodology for your work, as has been explained already by Ken and others - the theoretical framework that justifies your work in its own context, not some general context. There is a wider issue here about how documents skew our mental framework. Gedenryd points this out - how Pappus of Alexandria came up with the first theoretical model of how mathematicians work by assuming that their creative thinking followed the same pattern as their proofs. He was studying the product rather than the activity, despite being a mathematician himself. Actually for us in design, and any field that is seeking to define itself as well as advance its knowledge, methodology can have three meanings. My colleague and student, Simon Bowen, has coined the expression "methodology squared" to describe the problem of research that sets out to produce a methodology for practice or other research. The methods of the research in hand may be very similar to those of the future practice but the methodology will be very different. best wishes from Sheffield Chris ............................o^o Professor Chris Rust Head of Art and Design Research Centre Sheffield Hallam University, S1 2NU, UK +44 114 225 6772 [log in to unmask] www.chrisrust.net Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. - H. G. Wells