Initial thoughts about Constructivist Grounded Theory

The more I consider my own perspectives of reality and the way that researchers acquire knowledge of reality, the more I lean towards Grounded Theory as part of my Ph.D. research design. Grounded Theory, regardless of its flavour, is a research methodology that guides the researcher into constructing a theory of a phenomenon from an interpretation of the data itself using a series of codes, concepts and categories. It is a method of abstract and conceptual thinking where theory is built from these codes, concepts and categories and relies on logical, reasonable interpretations of the data and extensive documentation (in my case, the Ph.D. thesis and probably some part of the appendices).

Grounded Theory was originally a marriage between two different perspectives of reality from two different sociologists: Barney Glaser and his stance on Positivism, and Anseim Strauss and his stance on a more interpretivist approach, and eventually because of these differing stances they both professionally separated and promoted their own versions of Grounded Theory in a series of their respective publications. However, despite various flavours of Grounded Theory the variety that is currently receiving a lot of attention from me, and therefore selected as the preferred flavour of Grounded Theory, is Constructivist Grounded Theory, whose Philosophical roots lie in Pragmatism and Relativism and is developed by a student of Glaser and Strauss called Kathy Charmaz.

I first came across Constructivist Grounded Theory right at the beginning of the Ph.D. over a year ago but had not given it much thought at the time: what attracted me initially at the beginning was the term “constructivism,” which immediately suggests that some sort of marriage between the researcher, the participants, and the construction of reality. Now that I have gone back to re-examining my research design, Constructivist Grounded Theory is my favourite type of Grounded Theory so far. There are arguments made by various authors, particularly Glaser, that suggests that Constructivist Grounded Theory goes against the principles behind the development of Grounded Theory, but it can also be suggested that Grounded Theory was originally conceived at the time when Positivism and Realism were the dominant philosophies of research. Constructivist Grounded Theory was developed in the 1990s at a time when Social Science research paradigms began to lean more towards Constructivism, Interpretivism and Relativism based Philosophies.

I shall be using Constructivist Grounded Theory as part of my research design to build a new theory of the phenomenon being investigated, primarily because of the social constructivist orientation and also because it encourages the development of a literature review prior to data collection whereas the other varieties of Grounded Theory advocates the development of a literature review after the data collection and analysis and I do not really agree with that perspective.

Alex Darracott : 15 Oct 2015 12:48 |  Tags: Design Methodology |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More ontological and epistemological considerations

I am beginning to reject the notion of an objective reality and the notion that researchers should be as objective as possible when considering their research design. That probably caught your attention, so I shall rephrase that: I am beginning to reject the notion that most people can reach objective truth of reality; objective reality exists, but in ideological form rather than a realised form that is easily accessible. I suggest that everything that we know about reality, the way we come to know reality and the processes involved in developing our knowledge and understanding of reality is subjective, contextual, temporary and situated. Objective truth and the development of objective knowledge of this reality is impossible to attain because no human being can possess the totality of human knowledge and if any human being were capable of doing so, the total amount of all knowledge that exists and can be known is nowhere near as much as what is yet to be known. What is yet to be known could be described as being infinite: we simply cannot predict what we could know in the future, both on a personal level and on a wider, social, communal, global level.

I am therefore beginning to come to understand and believe that there is more to our role as junior and senior researchers than passively standing “objectively” aside, observing reality and collecting data of this reality and its behaviours using whatever data collection techniques we choose and analysing this data using whatever analytical models and methods we choose. There appears to be arguments, especially in the Social Science areas, that support the notion that the researcher’s perspectives, beliefs of reality, perspectives of knowledge and of knowledge acquirement and development influence the design of the research.

I have held a constructivist perspective for many years: I believe that we as individuals construct our own reality and have our own ways of acquiring knowledge of this reality. Cognitive Constructivism, advocated by Piaget, explains this from an individualist perspective whilst Social Constructivism, with its roots in Vygotskian theory, involves the construction of meaning and awareness of this reality within a social setting and is a very common Philosophical perspective of researching social learning. A sense of building a common consensus of objective meaning and knowledge of reality could be possible within a social learning setting but this could also be classed as subjective because the group would only be working with firstly the amount of knowledge and awareness that currently exists within the group, and the amount of extra awareness and knowledge that is obtained throughout that group’s timeframe of existence.

The following questions I have been thinking about and might consider developing answers and arguments for within the Ph.D. thesis:

Could a researcher, even within a Social Science discipline, really be objective?

Is a researcher drawn towards research methodologies more so because that methodology and methods match their framework of perceptions, beliefs, perspectives, values and attitudes of and towards reality?

Are we as individuals within our society really be able to reach or understand objective truth about reality, or will people forever be led by their own preconceptions, perspectives, values and attitudes of and towards reality?

What should be the extent or role of a researcher’s subjective framework of beliefs of reality play on their role of being a researcher and the development of their research design?

Alex Darracott : 15 Oct 2015 12:44 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Grounded Theory? Mixed Methods? Both? Current ponderings!

In a blog post yesterday I suggested that my research was going to be based on a Grounded Theory approach using Mixed Methods methodology. After spending till after midnight yesterday reading up on the subject and from what I have been reading this evening I can safely assume that I was talking complete nonsense. Well, possibly, but that's the beauty of learning: you think about things, and you develop your ideas and approaches based on your continuous learning and thinking, and the beauty of having a blog such as this is that the thinking, learning and development of ideas can be documented! So, where is my thinking at the moment? Methodologically speaking I can push the research in a couple of different ways: use a pure Grounded Theory approach, or used a Mixed Methods approach using Grounded Theory to explore qualitative data. That’s where my current thinking is: I know for sure that other types such an Ethnographic study, a Phenomenological study, an Action Research study, a Narrative Research study and so on are not appropriate for the aims of this research, and that is to develop a new theory that explains the relationship between constructs of a phenomenon of investigation.

I could use Grounded Theory and use quantitative and qualitative data to generate a new theory that explains this relationship among constructs, or I could develop a Mixed Methods study that initially uses Grounded Theory to develop a theory from qualitative data, and then collect and analyse quantitative data to experiment with this new theory. But I’m not sure at this time if I want to actually implement such a research design because the goal is to create a new theory and not to create and then experiment with the new theory: I’m not sure that there is enough time to create such a massive study and then having to write about everything that there is unless I am allowed to hand in a thesis that is a couple of hundred thousand words!

I’m quite happy that I’m really thinking about this because it shows engagement not just with the phenomenon of investigation but with the research methodology and the extent to which I can develop and push research methodologies and methods to really explore and acquire knowledge of that phenomenon. This refers to what I could class as the Philosophy of Research Methods and thinking about the research methods at this level includes the following questions in relation to my own research:

What extent could Mixed Methods methodology with Grounded Theory explore reality and the relationship between the constructs of the phenomenon that is being investigated?

What impact would the different Mixed Methods approaches have on the findings, and therefore on the development of the theory?

Comparing a pure Grounded Theory approach to a Mixed Methods approach, which method could really assist with contributing towards theoretical development?

What extent could Grounded Theory be pushed to explore the behaviour of a phenomenon of investigation?

Could Grounded Theory represent a more authentic reality and therefore provide the basis of a more convincing explanation of reality than Mixed Methods? Or vice versa?

The current contention is, I shall be using multiple methods within either methodology (Grounded Theory and Mixed Methods are known as methodologies although different authors have classed differently but they all have essentially the same meaning) so determining the answers to the questions asked might in part be answered by the way in which each methodology handles the multiple methods that I shall be using.

So, a lot of thinking to do! I shall be exploring both Mixed Methods and Grounded Theory methodologies over the next few weeks to really find out which would be most suitable for the aim of my research and the questions that I want to explore.

This shall also prove to be interesting for the Upgrade process because in the report and presentation a line of reasoning needs to be given as to why a certain methodology has been selected over other methodologies. Therefore, comparing Grounded Theory with Mixed Methods methodologies in the context of my research should provide plenty of material to work with!

Alex Darracott : 11 Oct 2015 00:18 |  Tags: Design Groundedtheory Methodology Mixedmethods Philosophy |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Weekly ramblings: opportunities and getting settled on methodologies and methods!

Open Doors!

A big opportunity might have opened up during the past week regarding publication of a second research paper! This is because of the positive feedback I had regarding the second assignment of the Advanced Research Methods course that I did as part of the first year of the Ph.D. with regards to the literature that I had critically analysed and explained the need for the questionnaire instrument that I am developing.

The supervisor was pleased that I had explored the literature and offered a unique perspective, and in my opinion that opens the door now to convert and extend relevant discussions for the conference paper at next year’s Warwick University conference early in the Summer. Still early days as to the exact directions this shall take, but my initial thinking is the conference paper shall extend relevant discussions on the survey instrument that I am developing.

Deciding on the methodology!

The following quote from the research methodology book “Qualitative Research Designs: Selection and Implementation” sums up the sheer amount of approaches to qualitative research

“The qualitative researcher faces a baffling array of options for conducting qualitative research”

Phenomenology, Ethnography, Case Study, Grounded Theory, and Participant Research are all different types of qualitative methodologies, with the additional different types and variants of each qualitative methodology. Not only this, but there are also various quantitative research methodologies around and also there are mixed methods approaches where a variety of different methods are used to provide a richer set of data, as well as the many different Philosophical perspectives of research (mostly relating to ontological and epistemological perspectives of reality). To the junior researcher, it can turn into a baffling mixture therefore they need to carefully construct their questions and understand their own mind and perspectives of reality before they really tackle the selection of methodology and methods. Many research textbooks emphasise the relationship between perspectives of reality, methodology, methods, and research questions therefore all of this needs very careful consideration from the very beginning and the only real way this is going to be understood is to start reading and keep reading! Questions shall change as reading progresses and therefore it might be likely that methods shall change: I know that I have changed my research questions several times to explore the same phenomenon and probably will change some of the questions in the future with the aim of increasing compatibility between questions asked and methodology selected. The key thing to remember is never believe that this is a once only process: this is a continuous process during the early stages of the Ph.D. as the reading and your thinking progresses and develops.

With my own methodological considerations, I have always liked the idea of Mixed Methods research design to explore the phenomenon of investigation even before starting the Ph.D. and this is something that I have stuck with. I had also very early decided on using surveys as an approach to collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, but also required a pure qualitative method to analyse any interview transcripts or discussion transcripts. Following the reading of various chapters of research methodology books, I have now settled on Grounded Theory. This was fairly easy to decide once I started to compare different qualitative research designs as I have an interpretivist, constructivist perspective of reality and Grounded Theory is compatible with these perspectives.

However, I have not yet decided on the way that survey data is going to be analysed and also have not worked out the way in which cross comparative analysis shall also take place. That is going to take a little while to build (and hopefully another research paper!)

So is that it then? Now that I’ve settled on the majority of the data collection and analysis methods can I just get on with it? Not at all: this is only just the beginning!

What’s next? The following lists some of the activities during the next year or so as part of the upgrade process:

• Develop extensive understanding about the flavours and approaches of Grounded Theory methodology

  
  

• Complete the questionnaire method if possible in time for showcasing at the conference via a conference paper early next year

  
  

• More extensive learning on Mixed Methods methodology: its many flavours and approaches to collecting and analysing data and choose that which is most relevant

  
  

• Develop substantial argumentation that supports the overall research design, the relationships between selected methods, the way they have been integrated, and why certain methods and methodology have been selected over other methods and methodology

  
  

• Panic

  
  

• Drink strong coffee

  
  

• Chant some mumble jumble telling myself that everything will be alright

  
  

• Explore and choose most relevant quantitative data analysis methods

  
  

• Remember why I’m doing a Ph.D.

  
  

• Plan, Design and Develop quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques

  
  

• Figure out in what way this organised chaos of a research design is supposed to work

  
  

• Panic again

  
  

• Drink strong coffee again

  
  

• Chant yet more mumble jumble

  
  

Sounds like a plan! Thanks for reading and shall post up more musings soon!

Alex Darracott : 09 Oct 2015 23:02 |  Tags: Design Methodology Opportunities Reflection |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Discussing the Upgrade Process

The preliminary year (as I call it) of the part time Ph.D. has been completed and in all it has been a success, so it’s now time to move onto the Upgrade Process. The Upgrade Process is a key part of the earlier stages of the part time Ph.D. up to the early part of year three, or a time that is decided before the research data actually commences. The upgrade process is a formal, major, key opportunity to receive constructive feedback on the proposed research questions, methodology, general design and methods of the research; gives practice for the major Viva assessment at the conclusion of the Ph.D. and also is the stage where it is determined whether or not a Ph.D. candidate can transition from Master of Philosophy to Doctor of Philosophy.

It goes without saying therefore that it is going to be an extremely busy time, but thankfully as I have been reading through the Upgrade Process materials I realise that I have been working towards completing this process from the beginning because I have been continuously thinking about my methodology and methods. I have more or less settled on a general ontological perspective, a research methodology and the methods that shall be used to collect and analyse the data, so it is simply (or not so simply) a case of learning about them more extensively and develop convincing arguments as to their suitability over other research methodologies and methods. The materials that shall be completed during this process therefore include:

• A completed first draft of the literature review

• A completed first draft of the methodology chapter

• A completed Upgrade report

• A completed Upgrade presentation

• A completed and approved Ethics form

• Optionally: a conference paper and a published research paper

The culmination of the Upgrade process is the Upgrade presentation where I am expected to present an overview of my proposed methods, methodology, research questions, key issues and concepts (and so on) followed by a serious of questions from the expert assessment panel, which could take a fair amount of time. The result of the presentation, the Upgrade paper and assessment of all other documentation shall lead to either of the following outcomes:

• Expert panel agree to upgrade from Masters of Philosophy to Doctor of Philosophy

• Expert panel request a resubmission of the Upgrade paper so that upgrade can be reconsidered

• Expert panel agree that the project is suitable for Master of Philosophy level

• Expert panel advise that the project will not result in a research degree

According to the University materials, it is common for the expert panel to request a resubmission and some Ph.D. candidates have felt rather deflated at that point because they perceive it as some sort of a failure, but the advice is to treat this as a positive learning experience and practice for the main VIVA examination.

What do I feel about that? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m hoping that I don’t fail! I don’t think I will fail because I know that I will put all my effort into the Upgrade paper to ensure that I do upgrade successfully from Master of Philosophy to Doctor of Philosophy. Does it really matter to me if I do get upgraded? I would love to, and I will do everything that I can to be upgraded. My ideas and directions have not been criticised so far: the feedback has been generally positive and have been told that I am onto something.

I know that I will put as much effort as I can into being upgraded, and I know this because I have genuine passion and enjoyment of writing, the research process, of exploring and developing my own ideas and pushing this as far as I can, as well as having a genuine interest in research methods within Education.  I believe that this shall drive and maintain my motivation and enthusiasm over the next four years. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy; it won’t, and quite frankly, I would be a little disappointed if it were easy. I continuously want to improve and develop myself personally and professionally, and the Ph.D. offers the brilliant opportunity to do just that.

A decade ago I never thought it would be possible for me to have a published research paper, a Master’s Degree, and be working towards a Ph.D. Twenty years ago, I never thought I was capable of doing an undergraduate Degree! Sometimes, you just have to take that leap into the unknown and believe that you have what it takes to achieve and to be that success that you want to be, and have the faith that you have what it takes to achieve and enjoy the journey, and if other people feel inspired and encouraged by the journey that you take then that in part makes it all worth it!

Enjoy the Ph.D. ride!

Alex Darracott : 07 Oct 2015 14:19 |  Tags: Upgrade |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Reflection of the first year of the Ph.D!

The first year of the Ph.D. has been fun! The year has been dominated by the Advanced Research Methods course that contained a couple of assignments and plenty of course materials that introduced many research methods and research Philosophies, and encouraged thinking about these in the context of own research. Obviously the course was not an extensive introduction, but rather brief introduction given the complexities of research methods and the extensive argumentation and potential uses of each method. It was a brief introduction because it would be impossible to cover every aspect of each research method (textbooks have been written for specific research methods) and also impossible to cover every possible argumentation for and against each method (for which there are countless, and more arguments can be development: it’s really a limitless area). The course assignments were enjoyable and I feel that the development of particular research methods progressed well, and the assignments laid the foundations of some of the argumentation and reasoning that I shall be exploring further in the thesis. The course therefore has had an important part to play in forming the structure of the thesis, particularly the earlier chapters, early in the process of the Ph.D.

The research conference attended earlier this year was also part of the course and I enjoyed the experience of developing and presenting a conference poster. It built my confidence in the general methodology that I am developing and where I am going with the research itself. I even had nice complements from those who were in their second years and beyond on their own Ph.Ds. I was going to write a conference paper for this conference, but didn’t feel confident enough to have produced a substantial, well informed paper, so decided to go with the conference poster. At next year’s annual post graduate conference at Warwick University I certainly plan to write a conference paper as my confidence in my own research methods and the development of these methods have increased and shall increase further in the future. Currently, the conference paper shall focus on the survey method that has been written about in the second Advanced Research Methods assignment. I could write about my entire methodology and methods but I don’t believe that given the time between now and next year’s conference I’ll be able to get everything completed to that point. Perhaps something to think about for the 2017 research conference? If the conference paper and presentation are well received and if the supervisor recommends it, I would like to convert the conference paper into a publishable research paper and submit it to a respectable research journal.

A key awareness that has been developed during the past year is the fact that in Social Sciences the aim is not to find the “wrong” or “right” answer, but to develop a strong argument. If an argument is effective enough, then an idea or use of a research method can be considered acceptable; not the right or wrong answer, but an acceptable argumentation based on its strength through the use of appropriate evidence and reasoning. Not a lot of people really like the idea of something being acceptable based on the strength of argumentation and reasoning rather than it being a straight black or white yes or no answer, but I like this kind of investigation!

That’s about the main points of the year: lots of other little successes have happened but to detail them all here would be like writing a thesis! I am excited about the second year, it’s going to be an extremely interesting year of wonder, of argumentation development, lots and lots of reading, and lots of lots of thinking and writing! It will be a challenge, but I’m ready for it. The annual conference next year at Warwick University is going to be a challenge as it will really be the first time that I expose the intricacies and specifics of a research method (not the findings from that method yet: the research is still in developmental stage) to the public. Not only this, but I shall be entering what is known as the Upgrade process: this is a process where I prove the worth and value of my research through writing and sending in a four thousand word report, and present my proposed methods and methodology to an expert panel before actually doing the research. When this Update report is handed in and when the presentation is needs to be agreed with my supervisor but I’m suspecting towards the end of next year or early the year after.

Been an excellent first year and if I do have any regular readers out there (hello!) hoping you have enjoyed my academic ramblings. I shall try to keep the blog more updated during the next year as ideas come to me, but obviously I need to focus on the Ph.D. documentation which during the next year shall include: the Upgrade report, a conference paper, a possible research paper, and the early Literature Review and Methodological chapters of the thesis, as well as beginning to develop the methods themselves!

Thank you all for reading during the first year!

Alex Darracott : 07 Sep 2015 17:52 |  Tags: Reflections |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Managing notes for the literature review: general advice and some of my experiences so far

As has been mentioned in previous blog posts, the literature review is a serious piece of work that needs careful planning, arranging, thinking, considering and probably piles upon piles of written notes that have been stored in various places that you probably shall not remember when coming to writing your literature review! As with anything else, what you write will depend on your discipline and your research topic, but regardless it is important to have an effective management system where you can access your notes easily and efficiently, and arrange these notes in a way that does not interrupt your flow of thinking and writing when it comes to writing your literature review. Obviously, whatever extensive amount of notes you have you are not likely to have an extensive set of notes to complete the literature review because there shall always be something else to consider as you are writing. I find that when I am writing I have new ideas come to me that are worth exploring further: this is fine, it does not interrupt the flow of writing as I note down the ideas and explore at a later time when I come out of that mode of thinking and writing.

Regardless of the research topic and the discipline it’s likely that separate sets of literature shall be explored: with mine, philosophical, theoretical and empirical sets of literature are being explored, and each command a separate set of extensive notes. As I have indicated in an earlier blog post, I am following a Theory-Practice approach to the review therefore I shall be writing about philosophical and theoretical literature first, followed by empirical. This way, I can more easily be able to associate and compare empirical findings with philosophical and theoretical discussions and evidence the need of my research and reason the findings of problems in that way. Again, it depends on what you prefer to do: you might prefer to explore empirical findings first and then match findings with philosophical and theoretical literature, and that can be just as effective. Also, you wouldn’t have to necessarily construct your notes following a set pattern of philosophical and theoretical discussions to empirical findings: you can mix it all up as much as you want it just depends on what works for you! Just make sure that you keep a separate set of extensive notes for each set of literature and make sure you manage these notes effectively. Keep things simple, and keep things logical because when it comes to writing the literature review you want to make sure that you can access your notes easily and quickly and in that logical order so that you don’t have to go searching around and forgetting where you are.

As for my own management system, my extensive notes are kept in a display book that contains about twenty plastic wallets, with each wallet relating to a particular “theme” of a particular set of literature, beginning with philosophical themes moving to empirical themes. As an example, a philosophical “theme” could be the ideas of a Philosopher, or the ideas of several Philosophers that relate to a particular phenomenon. Another example could be that empirical findings could relate to the effectiveness of a teaching method upon a particular set of learners, or the way that a particular set of learners perceive a particular teaching method. Both of these are different empirical themes that can have their own separate places inside whatever management organisation you choose to have.

Simplicity of access and logical orderings are keys to developing a simple yet effective management system of these extensive notes. Remember, you don’t need a chaotic, complicated management system as there shall be enough chaos and disorders as you produce your first set of notes!

Alex Darracott : 02 Sep 2015 12:28 |  Tags: Dissertation Litmanagement Litreview Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current thoughts on the structure and layout of the literature review

As has been mentioned in a previous post, a literature review is not an annotated bibliography nor is it some set of unconnected narratives, neither is it a part of the thesis that can be written in a single setting: it is an evolving, ever developing chapter of a thesis that needs to be kept up to date, which shall evidence a couple of key characteristics: that you have gone to great lengths to prove the need of your work, and that as a researcher you have been able to keep up to date. Remember to take notes of the ways that you have been keeping up to date with the latest research papers and reflect on these methods. As with all thesis chapters it is likely to stretch to several thousand words, probably over ten, perhaps twenty, thousand words depending on your research topic and discipline. Given that my thesis is based on a Social Science discipline, I’m expecting the literature review to be between fifteen and twenty thousand words; however, it’s important to remember that quality should always come before quantity. It’s alright to aim for ten thousand, twenty thousand, or whatever words you want but they must be meaningful.

Either way, the literature review commands an order of reasoned and elaborated discussion that enables logical orderings of discussion and development of argumentation, so that reasoning can be easily tracked with efficiency and convenience throughout the literature review. Although this shall take time to achieve, what will assist from the beginning is thinking about the structure of the literature review because setting a structure will assist in documenting the general areas that the literature review, and ultimately the entire thesis, shall cover. Every researcher will structure their literature review differently, so what is going to be detailed next is based on my own ideas and preferences.

I like to discuss theory first; practice second. What is practice without theory? Indeed, what is theory without practice? In my opinion (and not every person shall agree with this: that’s fine) practice without theory or a certain Philosophy is a directionless venture without any real aims or objectives and no desire to progress or move society (or anything else) forward. A theory less practice simply becomes nothing more than a mechanistic, automatic process void of dynamism and unpredictability that makes theory led practices that bit more exciting. Theory without practice (or experimentation) however becomes stagnant and unmovable, and theoretical work must be able to be moveable either through experimenting with a theory to prove or disprove various aspects, or to generate a new theory. Theory feeds into practice, and practice provides feedback to particular theories; theory and practice are separate fields, but are interconnected.

I am currently structuring the literature review to reflect my mode of thinking about the relationship between theory and practice. I am structuring it so that I discuss the philosophical and theoretical aspects of the research areas first, which involves detailing and critiquing each relevant philosophical perspective and theory and interconnecting them, then following this moving into the area of empirical literature: the “practice” aspect of research literature, if you want to view it that way. When I move into the empirical literature I shall then connect the empirical findings with philosophical and theoretical discussions: this is the “feeding back” that I talked about earlier. Constructing the literature review at this point does not prove or disprove the actual correctness of existing theories: I would be merely identifying philosophical and theoretical areas that have been appropriately covered and therefore begin to evidence the need to explore areas that have not been appropriately covered or areas that have not been considered at all with the existing theories and discussions. Of course, the reverse could also be true: you could use philosophical and theoretical discussions to identify problems with empirical findings. Or, sometimes you would not have to refer to any empirical literature in this manner in order to find out problems with existing philosophical and theoretical discussions.

It really is limitless and it really depends on your project and the way you structure your literature review. You need to do what works for you and what words for the research within the context that you choose to set it. Just make sure that you provide sound reasoning and sound argumentation on why you have structured the literature review the way that you have done, and make sure that everything reads logically.

Alex Darracott : 02 Sep 2015 12:22 |  Tags: Dissertation Litreview Methodology Research Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

My current literature review journey

The literature review is an extensive early thesis chapter to write: it’s not simply a list of books and research papers that you have read and it’s most certainly not an annotated bibliography but an extensive, detailed analysis and synthesis of existing literature. The objectives of the literature review are: contextualise your research, provide appropriate theoretical and logical grounding for the research, analyse literature, synthesis and connect literature findings, identify and present gaps in the literature, and give the opportunity to present a developed argumentation for the need of the research: its research questions, the general themes to explore, the methods, and overall methodology along with the assumptions that you are making. The chapter structure and contents will obviously differ from research to research and it has to be up to you in agreement with your supervisor to confirm a structure that is most relevant.

Having already started the Literature Review, it has been found that the process for collecting, analysing, evaluating and storing literature to be used in the thesis is more advanced that what is expected for a typical Master’s Thesis. For a start, at Master’s Degree level you are not expected to document to a significant detail your search methods or the way that you have evaluated literature for relevance to research, but at Ph.D. level you are expected to document this process to a fairly detailed level. Knowing and documenting the whole process of literature search, identification, selection and evaluation is also important for the Upgrade assessment where you need to prove the worth of your research through a several thousand words report and presentation so those of you who are just starting your Ph.D. might be worth keeping that in mind when you begin your literature searching.

The best advice that I can give at this time is start writing notes about what you read very early in the process (if you have not started your Ph.D. but are in the process of applying you should have already started your reading anyway, so keep written notes) and this includes what search terms you use, what sources you have used to gather your literature, your mechanism of evaluating literature for relevance, and your storage procedures. All this takes time to document properly, so make sure you have an effective systematic process in place early so that you’re not spending lots of time later trying to find out and remember everything! Detailing all your search methods, evaluation criteria, and so on, shall inform your Ph.D. supervisor and the assessment committee of where you obtained your literature, and that your ideas and research have not been built on an ad hoc, informal basis. Again this is important for the Upgrade process.

The journey towards a competed literature review is therefore different for each Ph.D. candidate and therefore it depends on the context of the research and the research methodology, as from what I have been reading so far each research methodology influences the design of the literature review so it is quite important to be able to as best as possible decide on your research methodology early so that the literature review can be appropriate for the methodology.

Not only that but there are also various types of literature reviews that can be written, from the less structured narrative synthesis up to the advanced and structured critical interpretive synthesis and all points in between. I’ve been considering critical interpretive synthesis for quite some time but because I’ve decided upon a particular research methodology I don’t believe that a critical interpretive synthesis shall work properly but is something that I shall be needing to investigate further in the next few weeks. However, regardless of the type of literature review I shall be writing I do like the rigorous structure of literature searching and evaluating that is used by critical interpretive synthesis so I have adopted that for my own research.

So, what advice can I give so far during this relatively early journey in the literature review construction process? It must not be considered as a slap dash list of unconnected narration of existing literature: this is a serious piece of writing that shall take months to construct (actually, it should be an ongoing and ever developing document throughout your time on your Ph.D. as a role of a researcher is to keep constantly up to date therefore it should be your role as a Ph.D. candidate to ensure that your literature review is as up to date as possible upon thesis submission) and is the chapter that proves the need and worth of your research. Remember, there is no other person who knows your ideas and research better than yourself, but you need to communicate these ideas and the need for these ideas effectively, and the literature review provides you with this opportunity to do so. If you get the literature review wrong then it’s not going to tally up with the rest of the thesis and it won’t be easy to refer back to it and explain the way that it acts as an input to the rest of the thesis. Get to know the types of literature reviews that you can write early and try to align the type of literature review with the research methodology. Get this right and start thinking about this from the very beginning if not before you actually start your Ph.D.

This is an ongoing process with my own journey and is something that will be seriously considered during the next few weeks, months (er, years) now that the first year introductory research modules have now been completed.

Happy reading and writing!

Alex Darracott : 01 Sep 2015 15:20 |  Tags: Dissertation Litreview Research Thesis Upgrade |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current thoughts about Educational Research

Having just completed the first year of the Ph.D. I have had a fair amount of time to think about what Educational Research is really all about and what Educational research actually means. You can read through a dozen (and more!) textbooks on the subject and you’ll be greeted with an assortment of definitions and goals of Educational Research. Read through the vast empirical literature and you’ll find a vast quantity of different areas of teaching and learning explored using a variety of different methods and methodologies, all led by the intentions, aspirations, desires, and even agendas of the researchers.

To define Educational Research after the first year of the Ph.D. is not quite easy and any attempts on my part will obviously be driven by my own interests and research passions, but in any case currently I view Educational Research as a set of Psychological, Sociological, Anthropological, and Philosophical methods and theories that are used to explore the relationship between Learners, their Psyche, and the applications and approaches that they use for their learning with the aim of better understanding learning processes within a variety of learning environments. At primary and secondary school, and probably also at College level, this can be expanded to include the teacher or tutor and their teaching or tutoring processes.

The more I explore Educational Research the more expansive the field is realised and that it’s a continuously growing field of research and practice; however, I must keep focus of my own research interests and therefore explore Educational Research within the context of my own areas of interests. Even then, I’m only just scratching the surface here as not only are there many methods and approaches to Educational Research, but near enough limitless debates and discussions about using these methods and approaches to explore constructs of a particular research area, and more contributions to these discussions and debates can occur as well as ways in which methods and approaches can be used for different purposes.

In what way should Educational Research be performed? There shall never be a general agreement or consensus as to the most ideal way that Educational Research should be carried out because near enough every researcher carries a set of assumptions regarding the way that knowledge of reality can be or should be obtained, which impacts on their preferred research orientation therefore it really depends on their Ontological and Epistemological assumptions of reality. For me personally, I do not view Educational Research as a Scientific endeavour; I view it as a Social Scientific endeavour, because I believe that to investigate all aspects of Education using a Scientific method would be too restrictive and would give too narrow a focus when analysing data and dealing with the research subjects in general. Quantitative data and methods dominate Scientific research, but I do not believe that it should dominate Educational Research because teaching and learning and the ways to make this more effective cannot be expressed in just quantitative data alone: there is a need for qualitative approaches and data as well. Some people perceive Science and the Scientific Methods as the be all in answering everything and whilst I respect that, I don’t agree with the view that it can answer everything and this is something that I will be expressing more in my thesis.

Like I said, I’m only just scratching the surface here and so far along my Ph.D. journey. I have chosen my methods, general approach, and methodology and shall be developing arguments that support their selection and use within my research. Will my methodology and methods change? Not likely: I’m settled on these now; I always have been, but needed to read more to understand the constructs that needs to be explored and these I am also beginning to settle upon.

With that, and because there are so many definitions and approaches to Educational Research, the best advice I can give any person doing a Ph.D. in Education is to really explore the methodological literature and select the method or methods that best answer the questions that you have formed from the problems that you have identified.

There is no right or wrong answer: just know what you are going to do, what methods you are going to use, and develop arguments that support your selection.

Happy research!

Alex Darracott : 01 Sep 2015 14:17 |  Tags: Education Epistemology Ontology Research |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem