TO ADD: Books-CrottyBlaikieHammersley

 Crotty (1998) Epistemology bears mightily on the way we go about our research, such as is there objective truth that we need to identify, and can identify, or are there just humanly fashioned ways of seeing things whose processes we need to explore and which we can only come to understand through a similar process of meaning making, and this making of meaning a subjective act essentially independent of the object, or do both subjective and object contribute to the construction of meaning (p.9)

Ontology is the study of being. It is concerned with ‘what is’ with the nature of existence, with the structure of reality as such. Introducing it to our framework, it would sit alongside epistemology informing our theoretical perspective, for each theoretical perspective embodies a certain way of understanding what is (ontology) as well as a certain way of understanding what it means to know (epistemology) (p.10).

Blaikie (1993,p.6) acknowledges that the root definition of ontology is the science or study of being. He takes ontology to mean the claims or assumptions that a particular approach to social enquiry makes about the nature of social reality (p.6). This refers to the theoretical perspective and how one views the world.

We typically start with a real life issue that needs to be addressed, a problem that needs to be solved, a question that needs to be answered, we then plan our research in terms of that issue, problem or question (p.13).

What is the aim and the objectives of our research? What strategy seems likely to provide what we are looking for? What does that strategy direct us to do to achieve our aims and objectives? In this way our research question, incorporating the purposes of our research, leads us to our methodology and methods (p.13).

In the end we want outcomes that merit respect and we want the observers of our research to recognise it as sound research and our conclusions need to stand up p.13).

On some understandings of research (and of truth) this will mean that we are after objective, valid and generalisable conclusions as the outcome of the research. On other understandings this is never realisable. Human knowledge is not like like, at best outcomes will be suggestive rather than conclusive, they will be plausible, perhaps even convincing ways of seeing things, just not one true way of seeing things (p.13).

Constructionism is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context (p.42).

In the constructionist view, as the world suggests, meaning is not discovered but constructed (p.42).

What constructionism drives home unambiguously is that there is no true or valid interpretation (p.47).

The distinction between social constructivism and constructionism is that constructivism suggests that each one’s way of making sense of the world is as valid and worthy of respect as any other, thereby tending to scotch any hint of critical spirit. Constructionism emphasises the hold our culture has on us, it shapes the way in which we see things and gives us a quite definite view of the world (p.58). 

Constructionism has also been likened to sedimentation, where layers of interpretation get placed upon one another building upon theoretical deposits already in place (p.59) and by and large shape our thinking and behaviour throughout our lives (p.78).

A positive approach would follow the methods of the natural sciences and, by way of allegedly value-free, detached observation, seek to identify universal features of human hood, society and history that offer explanation and hence control and predictability. The interpretivist approach to the contrary, looks for culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life world (p.67).

Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) proposes that natural reality and social reality are in themselves different kinds of reality and their investigation therefore requires different methods (p.67).

BLAIKIE

The root definition of ontology is the science or study of being. Ontology refers to the claims or assumptions that a particular approach to social enquiry makes about the nature of social reality. Claims about what exists, what it looks like, what units make it up and how these interact with each other (p.6).

Epistemology refers to the claims or assumptions made about the ways in which it is possible to gain knowledge of this reality, whatever it is understood to be, claims about how what exists maybe known. An epistemology is a theory of knowledge, it presents a view and a justification for what can be regarded as knowledge, what can be known and what criteria such knowledge must satisfy in order to be called knowledge rather than beliefs (p.7).

Interpretivism has a central tenet that there is a fundamental difference between the subject matters of the natural and social sciences (p.36).

A natural scientist makes choices about what is relevant to the problem under investigation, the study of social phenomena, requires an understanding of the social world which people have constructed and which they reproduce through their continuing activities. However people are constantly involved in interpreting their world, social situations, other peoples behaviour, their own behaviour and natural and humanly created objects. They develop meanings for their activities together, and they have ideas about what is relevant for making sense of these activities, in short the social world is already interpreted before the social scientist arrives (p.36).

Interpretivism entails an ontology in which social reality is regarded as the product of processes by which social actors together negotiate the meanings for actions and situations, it is a complex of socially constructed meanings (p.96).

The epistemology of Interpretivism sees knowledge as derived from everyday concepts and meanings. The social researcher enters the everyday social world to grasp the socially constructed meanings, and then reconstructs these meanings in social scientific language. At one level, these latter accounts are regarded as redescriptions of everyday accounts, at another level they are developed into theories (p.96).

Positivism cannot account for the way in which social reality is constructed and maintained, or how people interpret their own actions and the actions of others. Interpretivism requires that this everyday reality must be discovered and described as the first and essential step in any social investigation (p.101).

In any social situation there may be multiple realities (p.203).

Social enquiry has a range or purposes such as exploration, description, understanding, explanation, change and evaluation. At the most basic level, it is concerned with exploring some social phenomenon that is not well understood, possibly to inform further stages of an investigation (p.203).

HAMMERSLEY BOOK:

Hargreaves (p.4) research in both education and medicine are profoundly people-centred professions.

Hammersley (p.25) At one time it was widely assumed that educational practice could, and should, be based on scientific theory, with using techniques whose appropriateness had been determined by the results of scientific investigation (O’Connor, 1957; Dunkin and Biddle, 1974). However, much recent work on the nature of teaching by philosophers, psychologists and sociologists has emphasised the extent to which it is practical rather than technical in character (p.25).

Bassey (p.143) the outcomes of teaching depend upon so many variables (in other words contexts are so complicated) that attempts to formulate testable hypotheses about effective teaching are rarely worthwhile. This is why qualitative work within a teaching paradigm if favoured by many educational researchers in their attempts to advance knowledge and wisdom about classroom practice and management procedure. Yet when the concern is to provide knowledge for policy makers, it is quantitative work in a positive paradigm that is often required and appropriate.

Bassey (year; p.145) refers to Simon (1978, p.5) in his presidential address to the British Educational Research Association in 1977, expressed a view that: the focus of educational research must be education, and that it’s overall function is to assist teachers, administrators, indeed all concerned in the field, to improve the quality of the educational process, and in doing so, enhance the quality of life.

Bassey (p.146) refers to Stenhouse (p.152) stating that the most promising means of improving teaching is by grounding educational research (and thus theory) in the realities of teachers’ everyday experience.

Bassey (p.148) Action research is cyclical, because striving for improvement is seen by many practitioners (teachers, teacher-managers, administrators etc) as an ongoing professional commitment. (P.149) Because they are ‘insiders’ action researchers are involved emotively as well as cognitively in their enquiries and so it is important to them that their research judgements and decisions are open to challenge. To this end action researchers have embraced the concept of the ‘critical friend’ to critically examine a colleague’s action research procedures and findings.

Kemmis (p.172) the ‘objects’ of educational action research are educational practices.

Kemmis (p.172) practical problems are problems about what to do…their solution is only found in doing something. In this sense the significance of practices can only be established in context.

Kemmis (p.173) the action researcher will monitor the action, the circumstances under which it occurs and it’s consequences and then retrospectively reconstruct an interpretation of the action in context, as a basis for future action. Knowledge achieved in this way informs and refines both specific planning in relation to the practice being considered and the practitioners general practical theory. The interpretations of other participants in the situation will be relevant in the process of reconstruction, they maybe treated as the perspectives of relevant others, in which case they can inform collaborative reconstruction and contribute to the discourse of a community of practitioners.

Kemmis (p.173) if it is practitioners who can research their own practice, a problem seems to arise about whether the practitioner can understand his or her own praxis in an undistorted way, whether understandings reached will be biased, idiosyncratic (some would say subjective), or systematically distorted by ideology.

Kemmis (p.174) studies of teaching and learning undertaken collaboratively by students and teachers have helped them to revise their working relationships so as to achieve their joint aspirations more completely.

Kemmis (p.175) what distinguishes action research as a method, is it’s based on a spiral of self reflection (a spiral of cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting). It is essentially participatory in the sense that it involves participants reflecting on practices and expresses a commitment to the improvement of practices.

Kemmis (p.179) interpretive research sees education as a historical process and as a lived experience for those involved in educational processes and institutions. It’s form of reasoning is practical and it aims to transform the consciousness of practitioners and, by doing so, to give them grounds upon which to reform their own practices.

Many qualitative researchers actively reject generalisability as a goal. For example Denzin (1983, p.133) writes, the interpretivist rejects generalisation as a goal and never aims to draw randomly selected samples of human experience. For the interpretivist every instance of social interaction, if thickly described (Geertz, 1973), represents a slice from the life world that is the proper subject matter for interpretive enquiry…every topic…must be seen as carrying its own logic, sense of order, structure, and meaning.

Schofield (p.182) not all researchers in the qualitative tradition reject generalisation so strongly, many give it very low priority or see it as essentially irrelevant to their goals.

Denzin, N. K (1983) ‘Interpretive interactionism’, in G. Morgan (ed), Beyond Method Strategies for Social Research. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 129-146

ADD SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM