This is what this list is all about. PhD student posts tentative query,
clarity (and key connections), offers to help others. Lovely to watch this
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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>