Hi Gio,
You might find "The Routledge Companion to Design Research" book that my colleague, Dr Joyce Yee, and I put together recently useful in attempting to address your questions.
In particular, I think Parts 2, 3, and 4 of the book that deal with "How do we Embark on Design Research?", "Formulating Research Questions", "Asking Questions", "How do we Communicate Design Research?", "Writing for Your Audience", and "Publicizing Your Research" would be of use.
I would draw your attention to a few of the chapter contributions in the book that should help you. These are Ranulph Glanville's chapter "The Sometimes Uncomfortable Marriages of Design and Research", Meredith Davis' chapter "What Is a Research Question in Design?", and Rachael Luck's chapter "Towards the formulation of a research question: Guidance through the glass bead game of research design". There are others of course, but these 3 chapters seem most relevant to the issues you raise in your email.
The book provides a comprehensive account of design research, celebrating the plurality of design research and the wide range of conceptual, methodological, technological and theoretical approaches evident in design research today. It comprises 39 original chapters from contributors around the world from a vast array of disciplines and is broken down into 5 parts:
Part 1: What is Design Research? The Nature and Process of Design Research; The Purpose of Design Research; Research Approaches
Part 2: How do we Embark on Design Research? Formulating Research Questions; Conducting a Literature Search and Review; Developing a Research Plan
Part 3: How do we Conduct Design Research? Asking Questions; Data Collection Methods; Analysing Information; Ethical Issues
Part 4: How do we Communicate Design Research? Writing Techniques; Writing for Your Audience; Publicising Your Research.
Part 5: Examples of Design Research? How We Embark on Design Research; How We Conduct Design Research; How We Communicate Design Research?
I hope this helps.
If you need more just get in touch.
Best,
Paul
Paul Rodgers
Professor of Design Issues
Co-Director of Northumbria - Sunderland AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training
Northumbria University, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences
City Campus East, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST
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Recent Books:
Research Methods for Product Design
Product Design
New Book:
The Routledge Companion to Design Research
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Gio Contreras [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 March 2016 01:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Advice with PhD Thesis
Dear members of the list,
Regards, my name is Giovanni (Gio), I am currently in my 3rd year of a PhD in design education at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The reason for my message is to ask you for your advice.
We held a 'Winter School' back in January this year where (for the first time), we (students) had to present our research. The audience was integrated by ourselves and we also got special guests, who came precisely to give us with advice/thoughts regarding our PhD research/presentation.
The topic of my research is (more or less): "the future instruction of digital technologies in industrial/product design education (college-level undergrad)." I have been looking at things like; what kind of courses do design schools offer/teach, what do students and teachers understand by different technology concepts like 'digital design, what's the level of proficiency with digital design tools that students acquire through school, and which sources do they actually learn from.
Long story short; after my presentation, part of the feedback I got, was that ‘the bigger story is missing.’ And I can see why, in my presentation I talked about my journey (and struggle) to determine a research question that satisfied me, and how, in that process I ended up ‘changing’ my research question(s) three times: I started with the intention of ‘measuring the effects of CAD’ on the capacity of student’s to come up with innovative solutions,’ (something I stayed way from when I felt that any research into creativity would be unadvisable for a novice researcher), then I decided to focus more on ‘is CAD teaching in design schools outdated?’ which eventually led me to what I thought was a better question: ‘what kind of digital literacies should product design students have in the future to be successful in their professional practice,’ and ultimately this led me to the question: ‘should schools actually continue to teach this type of technology courses in front of the increasing number of quality online courses available?’
If I think about the papers I have written during my studies here so far, the common denominator is that they all have had to do with education; a fewer were more specifically about technology in education, and even a fewer more with technology in design education. I made a paper about informal learning, another about disruptive technologies in design education, another about computer programming in design, another about institutional autonomy and for-profit education, another about computational creativity in design education, another about creativity (one of the first) and I’m working on another about doctoral studies in design education. Why not all of them about a more specific topic? Well, I think in part it was because I was not clear about the direction I was going, as I mentioned before. The other, is because there are some issues with the program, but that’s something not worth to discuss at the moment.
The point is, that I feel as if I have been going in circles, wandering around something that is there, but, somehow I haven't been able to identify it or, articulate it with clarity.
The suggestion(s) I got from several of the more senior professors who were there during my session was that, perhaps I could ‘see myself from the top’ and kind of ‘look at the big picture’ so I could take something out of that journey of mine, like for instance translate it into some sort of model that would allow us to think about digital technologies in design education or something like that.
The other was that, by doing so, I could, see where I am going, or what is the direction that this is going (‘the big picture’ I guess). Or, like one of the professors said; to think of it like; ‘if this is the journey, what is the question?’ I guess it is like; ‘if these are the acts, what’s the name of the play?’
Apparently this is not entirely uncommon. That same professor said that, he 'had seen theses like that.'
So, my questions/request for advice are:
1. Does it come to mind/do you know of, any thesis(es) example(s) that somehow 'followed' this approach where the research question(s)/concerns (the "name of the play" if you will) came-up or became clear at the end of the studies?
2. Is there any literature, that you would suggest, and which discusses methods or theories that support/illustrate this approach (where the 'main issue' is not identified until the end)?
I will very much appreciate any feedback suggestions that you may have.
Thanks a lot in advance!
B.R.
Gio.
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