Report R1.1 What is Research? Seminar Leader: D. P. Dash, XIMB, Bhubaneswar dpdash[at]ximb.ac.in This was the first Research Training Seminar held at XIMB as a part of the doctoral-level FPM curriculum. The participants were quite eager to see the way it is going to start and the direction it is going to take. The facilitator Dr. D. P. Dash welcomed the participants and requested for a self-introduction by the participants. The first question was to describe the structure of the seminar. The answer was: There is no clear structure or steps to follow. But, to aid the process of discussion, we may use the guide text (which was circulated earlier). So it started! What is Research? Before getting into the text, various individual notions on research were expressed. Is it the same as searching again for something we have already lost, or is it about trying to know the unknown? An attempt to answer this started with a suggestion: At a basic level, research is about generalizing some conclusions through the analysis of a large number of observations. Still, there are many things, which cannot be observed so easily because they change with place and time. For example, the qualities observed in a leader. It is difficult to list the qualities that are essential to ascertain if someone is a leader. Also many observations about leadership qualities are contradictory. Another question arose: Suppose we investigated (researched!) for something (may be a conclusion or generalization) and found it to be absent. Can we consider it as a work of research because we concluded that it is not there! Is there a last word on what to consider as research and what not to? It seemed, even this can be taken as research under certain conditions (e.g., in a sponsored project). Whether there can be a ‘last word’ or not has to be answered through this seminar series. Another question came up: Is research work the same as preparing a PhD thesis? You tried to prove something but at the end could not. Can you submit it as a PhD thesis? Again the answer seemed to be relative, e.g., relative to the design of PhD programmes. Yet another question emerged: What is more useful: the research or the researcher? Has there been a research on what is research? It turned out that such questions connect with a large area of discussion, involving knowledge production, methodology, demarcation, accumulation, inquiry systems, etc. At this stage, the discussion turned to the guide text. The Hawking chapter suggests that people have notions about the structure of the universe (their individual ‘world pictures’). One such world picture involves the idea that the world is flat and it rests on the back of a giant tortoise, which is itself on the back of another tortoise, etc., all the way down. Another such world picture is that of the theory of super-strings. He also describes how such world pictures have gradually changed. At any stage, there are several world pictures within the reckoning. This led us to discuss what is truth. Truth becomes more complex if we are dealing with changing realities. For example, it would be difficult to ascertain the height of Mt. Everest if it is a changing (moving) mountain, which, some say, it is! The other sentences about truth that came up are: Is truth worth seeking? How true is this sentence: "Truth is what it is." The last paragraph of the conclusion contained Hawking’s view on the task of philosophers in analysing the world picture. He describes that philosophy has been ‘reduced’ to the task of analysing only the languages used, as the other branches of knowledge have become too specialised for it to handle. He says: ‘What a comedown in the tradition of philosophy!’ Of course, it may be an ascent in the tradition of philosophy, rather than a comedown. What looks like an ascent can also be a comedown from another perspective. There can also be a perspective in which the ideas of down or up, false or true, etc., may have no fixed meaning. This was reflected in the discussion on modernism and post-modernism. This generated some lively discussion on truth, power, and research. The idea emerged that research may not be one fixed type of activity. Different types of activity may still be distinguishable as research, depending upon some common expectations and traditions concerning research. One common expectation from research is that it should not restrict participation and it should create an opportunity for the participants to revise their viewpoints through the contribution of each other. This leads to the view that, in everyday life, we go about the chores of living (including acting, observing, thinking, deciding, communicating, problem-solving, etc.) until we hit a dead-end, become curious, or simply get tired. That is when we long for sharing our stories with others and benefit from others’ stories too. It is this kind of sharing and benefiting that research ought to promote. A framework was suggested to identify some common traditions of research. The framework speaks of five basic elements typically involved in research (DP would like to thank Prof. Gerard de Zeeuw for this understanding of research): Starting Material (Input): This is what constitutes the basic material upon which research operates. For example, inputs may be observations, experiences (in the form of reports, stories, etc.), perceptions, etc. Different research approaches may start with different inputs. Relationships (Comparison): The inputs are then compared among themselves, especially from the point of view of clarifying whether some inputs are related to each other. Different kinds of relationship are considered, although the relationship commonly used is this: whether the inputs ‘belong together’ in some sense. (For example, some auditory perceptions, i.e., sounds, may belong together in the sense that they constitute a fine melody or raga.) Structuring Device (Criterion): There is also a choice in deciding what structuring device or criteria should be adopted in deciding the type of relatedness to be searched for. To illustrate: Some experiences may be related by being the experiences of the same person in visiting different places or they may be related by being the experiences of different persons visiting the same place. Rules of Communication (Language): Research also involves some transfer of results. This requires rules of communication. These rules or conventions render the results of the structuring (see above) communicable to the relevant publics (see below). The vocabulary of variables, with the rules of linear algebra, is a common choice in research, although it need not be. Other choices can involve other vocabularies and rules. Examples of other rules: fuzzy set theory and calculus of indication (see the online article: Virtual Logic--The Calculus of Indication, by Louis H. Kauffman, available at: http://www.imprint.co.uk/C&HK/vol5/v5-1_kauffman.htm), etc. Relevant Users (Public): It is sometimes assumed that research results are meant for everyone, present or future. However, this may not happen easily; different publics may get different meanings/values from the same research. Besides, episodes of research are organised with the purpose of benefiting specific users (e.g., sponsors). Various user segments are becoming aware of their role in the research process. For researchers, this opens up the question: Whom should this research serve and how? This opens up choices. Depending upon the choices made in the above five areas, we arrive at different approaches to research. In other words, given a specific approach to research (e.g., positivism, constructivism, realism, etc.), it should be possible to indicate the choices that produce the specific approach. Reference Hawking, S. 1988. A brief history of time: From the big bang to black holes. New York: Bantam. [Chapter 11, "Conclusion"]
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