dear chris,
i agree with your definitions.

i think a method is a practice that can be repeated with similar success.
a methodology is the logic of methods, a study, systematization, or
exploration of different kinds of methods, including reflection on which is
applicable and why they are successful. it borders epistemology as said in
an earlier contribution to this thread.

i am sympathetic with the beginning of this thread, that students should
consider new practices in their work but without loosing sight on the
methods readily available.  there is always room for improvement and
innovation, but there are also proven methods.

i would say that any profession, such as of design, lives and fails with the
methods it can teach to its students, and systematically apply to a variety
of its problems.  demanding that everyone develop his or her own methods
undermines design as a professions. any new method should be evaluated for
whether it produces what it promises, repeatedly and reliably.  this is how
scientific methods has grown science to be respectable and this is how
design can grow as well.

klaus    

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris
Rust
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 6:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Methods/Methodology

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