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On 12/15/08 12:31 PM, "Chris Rust" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > 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. I actually presented an argument for something close to this (and to Terry's suggestion, I think) in my thesis which spent some time trying to identify the sources of a few methodological issues in design studies. "A methodological approach to design research has been demonstratively argued in this thesis: that the purpose of the study should be the principal resource for choices of method and approach; that the researcher should proceed with caution as to how data is used as evidence of the phenomenon of interest; that the researcheršs decisions in this regard are what reveal the epistemological assumptions that must be invoked to support his/her use of data as evidence of the phenomena; and that the legitimacy of the data collected in response to the purpose of the study (and its subsequent use in the account) should be the principal criteria for evaluating any study." (from my abstract). This isn't the silver bullet for methodological issues, but I developed this out of a personal frustration with what might be termed the 'paradigm wars'. By this I mean the pressure research students feel to identify their research singularly within an existing philosophical or methodological school, and the (problematic) assumption that once you have chosen sides, issues of method and methodology (and ontology and epistemology) simply fall out from that choice. The "I'm a hermeneutic phenomenologist so I'm doing in-depth interviews; I'm a positivist so I'm collecting quantitative survey data; I'm a constructivist so I'm doing reflexive analysis"-type approach that I found intimidating and seems inescapable to novice researchers. Are we really supposed to learn enough about positivism, phenomenology, pragmatism, epistemological realism, materialism etc. etc. to make an intelligent and informed choice, when we really just want to know whether a questionnaire is going to help us do our PhD? The point of the approach I tried to develop above was to suggest that epistemology is something we all do in practice (scientific or ordinary), when we take certain evidence as more convincing than other, or sufficient for this purpose, or this action, or when we think we have illuminated a phenomenon by going about "getting data" about in certain ways. The point is to make explicit, and to be explicitly aware of, what we as researchers have done in order to claim what we are claiming. I teach a subject on research methods to design students, and the following is the one quote I repeat to my students ad nauseam: "The rationality of any research enterprise is guaranteed not by some set of established procedures, but by a sensitivity to the nature of the claims being made, the burden of proof those claims impose, and the kind of evidence that can support those claims." (Jacobs, 1988 p.442) Different standards suffice to convince for different purposes; but this is not something we need to feel we have to stipulate a priori, once and for all. I think this is close to what Terry was advocating, though I'm not exactly sure. I'd appreciate any thoughts on how this strikes people, since I've spent a lot of time thinking about these things for design, but not (as yet) as much time as I should have talking to others about them. All the best, Ben Jacobs, S. (1988). Evidence and inference in conversation analysis. In J. A. Anderson (Ed.), Communication Yearbook (Vol. 11, pp. 433-443). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Matthews, B. (2004). Studying design: an interpretive and empirical investigation of design activity. Unpublished PhD, University of Queensland, Brisbane. -- Ben Matthews Associate Professor Mads Clausen Institute University of Southern Denmark +45 6550 1675 [log in to unmask]