Dear Peter,
There's a lot to like and much with which I agree in your post, but I'm
going to take issue with one sentence. I'd like to suggest that you use
the word "positivist" more carefully. Many people who use such terms as
basic, applied, and clinical are not "postivists" in the confused sense with
which this term is often bandied about.
And then, another group of people recognize that "positive" research
is simply "positive" because it posits something we can investigate or
test rather than "normative" research that prescribes.
It's not clear to me that using these frames requires us "to bend our
purposes to fit completely different institutional traditions."
There are many kinds of questions one may ask with respect to the issues
we deal with, and that means that the methods and frames we use are
equally varied.
Yours,
Ken
Peter Jones wrote"
--snip--
I don't use basic, applied,
and clinical research as distinctions in design or innovation research
because these are drawn from a positivist scientific epistemology that
requires us to bend our purposes to fit completely different institutional
traditions.
--snip--
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