ATTACHMENT TO ASSIGNMENT 1 RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE IN EDUCATION

Dianne Allen, 2000 Attachment associated with Assignment Research Perspectives: http://www.scribd.com/doc/63436502 Summary 1 of the major research perspectives:

Research perspective:

Empirical-analytic
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positivist sciences Habermas work based social existence as technical interests 3

Elements of research emphasis and activity: Nature of world being researched: (ontology/ categories)

The best way of knowing that world: (note evaluative aspect of best) (epistemology)

The place of the researcher:

Relationship of researcher and researched:

Assumptions made about how knowledge is to be produced: (epistemological assumptions) Determinist = every event has a cause Non-random (ie involving regularities) but not all Heisenbergs principle of uncertainty & chaos theory Commonly agreed upon perceptions of the world capable of being renegotiated in a social context: Ptolemy & Copernicus; Newtons theory of gravity, Einsteins theory of relativity, etc Able to be represented in theories Multiseriate having more than one layer Logic inference, deduction, induction, abduction? Logic (and mathematical formularies) can take us beyond commonsense into predicting beyond our current knowledge Confirmation testing theories Standardised operationally defined procedures Replaceable observations Empirical Parsimonious explanations sparing, simple in Athanasous words Independent Objective External Experimenter or observer Ethical standards Independent and non-introspective

Research perspective:

Interpretive
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Elements of research emphasis and activity: Nature of world being researched:

Humanities, arts, history, law, language and communication Habermas communicative interaction based social experience as practical interests 5 The best way of knowing that world:

The place of the researcher:

Social critical theory

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Relationship of researcher and researched: Nature of world being researched:

Habermas Socially constructed power as emancipatory interests 7

The best way of knowing that world: The place of the researcher:

Feminist Post structural

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Relationship of researcher and researched: Nature of world being researched:

Habermas Socially constructed power as emancipatory interests

The best way of knowing that world: The place of the researcher:

Assumptions made about how knowledge is to be produced: (epistemological assumptions) Constructed: Variety of disciplinary constructs Social Cultural Negotiated Observation Understanding Questioning Theorising Negotiated meaning, sometimes privileging the past of the senior; more recently privileging the contribution of the recognised expert Standardised process of argument certain criteria need to be met, but can be varied according to approach to be consistent with approach Observer Participant Interpreter Analyst Potential former of new meanings inventor Interactive Participatory Collaborative All knowledge of the nature of the world is constructed and that construction is Subject to critique: Total range of constructs Values, beliefs, etc informing those constructs Immanent critique Ideology critique Critical reflection External observer and internal participant Interpreter Analyst Critic Self-reflexive Assisting others to be self-reflexive Assisting others to interpret, analyse and critique World as described and understood by others and distorted by unrecognised play of power (for the feminist perspective the play of power is in the area of gender formation and subjugation) An out-and-out post-structuralist would disown this categorising as yet another power-play, rejecting the binary approaches to categories (fundamentally U and non-U), and inclusion and exclusion Immanent critique at level of power Ideology critique at level of power Critical reflection External observer and internal participant Interpreter Analyst Critic

Research perspective:

Elements of research emphasis and activity: Relationship of researcher and researched:

Assumptions made about how knowledge is to be produced: (epistemological assumptions) Self-reflexive Assisting others to be self-reflexive Assisting others to interpret, analyse and critique

Yes, I have a predisposition for the structural approach. Also, from my experience in trying to use structural devices I also have a healthy regard for their distinct limitations. I find this approach helps in my attempts to converge disparate quanta of detail, and give me a cognitive handle on the material but it is a severely limited and limiting device. According to the Myers-Briggs Type indicator my dominant cognitive function is Intuitive (N), my auxiliary cognitive processing is Thinking (T). It helps me to have an explanation of why, of recent years, I always find it difficult to deal with masses of new information, of detail, until I can structure it in a way like this. The other dimensions of my MBTI are I introvert, deriving energy from internal activity; and J orderly and tending to value closure. I found, as I started to use this structure with the other materials in the Learning Guide and the Reading Guide, and started to explicate my position with regard to understanding these perspectives, that I also began my inevitable process of elaboration, qualification, decoration and general building of evidence in support my inductive approach. Derived from J Athanasous Section 2, Learning Guide, p.57-58; elaborations and qualifications are from my developed store of knowledge, built within science studies

Incorporated from V Jakupecs Section 4, Learning Guide, p.90, and from previous reading including Carr & Kemmis (1986)

Derived from J McIntyres Section 3, Learning Guide, p.69; elaborations and qualifications are from my own developed store of knowledge, built, amongst other things, from studies in theology and more recently from Dispute Resolution
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Incorporated from V Jakupecs Section 4, Learning Guide, p.90, and from previous reading including Carr & Kemmis (1986) This is where the structure of the first two contributions begins to take-over the information provided in the remainder of the Learning Guide; and while some of the terminology can be found in V Jakupecs Section 4, Learning Guide, p.81-111; and the major other contributors to my understanding of Critical Theory, namely Carr & Kemmis (1986) and Fook (1996), this distortion is best described as all my own work.

Incorporated from V Jakupecs Section 4, Learning Guide, p.90, and from previous reading including Carr & Kemmis (1986) This is my understanding. The material from R Ushers Section 5, Learning Guide, p.113-140, has been taken into account, as far as I am able. I may be missing something quite fundamental. As an aside, I have been interested in the concept of the binary before reading about it in the post-structuralist literature. My exploration of binary thinking owes much to deBonos critique of the Western Dialectic argumentative stance and its contribution to conflictual behaviour. So far as binary thinking is concerned my thoughts on the matter wonder about its relationship to the physiology of humanity, with its bilateral symmetry, and (usually) the dominance of use of one side over the other. Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs; left and right brain. My experience of handedness is interesting. I am predominantly right handed. But learning and becoming comfortable with a cricket bat involved me taking a left handed stance. I think the reason for this was that when I was a young child I had a paralysed muscle in my left eye which meant that it did not move up in synch or as far as the right eye could. The left handed stance gave my right-eyed, wider field of vision for the oncoming ball. Good environmental survival adaptation (for cricket playing at least).. Within the binary model there is left brain, right brain concepts: different ways of thinking. Left brain is usually associated with mathematical, analytic and linear logic. Right brain is usually associated with the more holistic, the creative, the patterns. If my natural thinking is non-linear I dont yet know how to express it in a textual way, excepting by poetry, having been well-and-truly brought up and indoctrinated into the dominant logic tradition. So far as linear and nonlinear thinking is concerned, I have been interested in this concept, and how to express the non-linear. It would seem that oriental cultural forms relate to this. Bormann (in Bormann, Ernest G. Small group communication: theory and practice. New York: Harper & Row, 1990, 3rd ed.) contrasts the analytic with the holistic. The holistic involves an alternative structure of process: the holistic/ intuitive/ creative approach with its elements of: conception; preparation; incubation; illumination and verification. The why one form of thinking, the analytic should be privileged over another, the holistic, is perhaps another expression of power, taken from the post-structuralist view. Interesting!? And perhaps more interesting that the post-structuralist uses the logical textual form to state its case!!??