Dear Teena,

Thanks for your reponse. Perhaps the point was not entirely clear. This
is not simply a qualitative dimension. It is a qualitative dimension
with respect to research.

The dimension you describe here seems to be pedagogical. This is an
important dimension that involves educating individuals rather than
contributing to the body of knowledge of a field. This is not a matter
of research scale, but a different scale entirely.

My comments have focused on research and the role of the PhD with
respect to research.

The kinds of dialog you describe are important, but they do not involve
research; these kinds of dialog take place within all fields: this is
the domain of reflective practice, and one must reflect on the practice
of research as well as on the practice of design.

Some years back, an outraged design student exploded during a
presentation I was giving on research methods. He asked if I’d rather
solve the methodological problem I had been describing or end world
hunger.

If I could choose between solving a problem in research methodology and
ending world hunger, I would end world hunger. I don’t have that
choice, and confusing the two issues doesn’t help.

To say that dialogue and reflection are important in educating design
students is reasonable. To say that dialogue and reflection are a
research activity is not.

One does not need a PhD to engage in dialogue and reflection. Many who
have a PhD engage in dialog and reflection in teaching and in conducting
research. Dialogue and reflection help people to think and work better.
This is often more valuable than publishing a journal article. It is
nevertheless not a research activity.

Yours,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
39214 6078 | Faculty 

--

Teena Clerke wrote:

—snip—

I too describe what you call a qualitative dimension, but suggest
however, that how we evaluate the ‘performance’ of ‘great’
scholars might be a matter of scale. That is, there are many design
scholars who influence how people think and do on a daily basis through
their varied practices, but whose influence escapes acknowledgement
through quantitative audit systems that measure research output alone,
or some other quantitative measure of graduate outcomes – people who
teach in first year subjects for example, and casual or visiting
academics who are not required to publish written articles. 

Drawing on my own experience, I have had many teachers, some of whom
are students, who have, sometimes unwittingly, introduced me to new
thinking and new ways of doing through classroom dialogue. I am
suggesting that these intimate exchanges, while much more difficult to
account for, might be AS valuable as, rather than MORE valuable than,
articles published in scholarly journals. The idea of dialogue extends
to informal corridor chat at scholarly conferences and elsewhere, and
while obviously there are many instances where classrooms and
conferences generate very little that is new or interesting, again, I
argue that it is a matter of scale. 

—snip—