Report R5.2 On Entering Doctoral Research Seminar Leader: Jacob D. Vakkayil jacobdvakkayil[at]yahoo.com The seminar started with an exercise aimed at helping doctoral scholars reflect on the considerations that shaped their decision to enter into the programme. Doctoral programmes call for commitment and undivided concentration for a considerable period of time. Thus the decision to embark on it is often made by evaluating its value in achieving one’s long-term objectives. Doctoral-level education often attracts mature individuals with a few years of experience in their own respective fields. Thus, an analysis of its pros and cons and a consideration of its comparative merits in terms of other abandoned opportunities are also part of the process of this initial decision making. Having made the initial decision to join a particular programme, the scholars face a further set of options associated with a particular institution and academic environment. This involves strategies to be adopted in working effectively with others within a doctoral community and dealing with the expectations of this community, the institution, and the wider society. In this connection the ideas of “role taking” and “role making” (Pareek, 1993) were presented. Roles denote sets of significant expectations and there are a number of processes associated with the formation and development of roles in social situations. The idea of role taking denotes how a person responds to expectations by adhering to an existing role specification. Thus the person takes a fully formed role. In contrast, others might seek to influence the very processes of role formation and development. Here, the person proactively makes the role, leading to the formation of a new set of expectations. By drawing from his experiences, the seminar leader illustrated how the various decisions outlined above are invariably influenced by pre-doctoral experiences of the researcher. This is also true of subsequent choices in selecting a research topic and adopting a particular research methodology. There is a wide variety of approaches possible here, and this is especially true of a multi-disciplinary field such as management. However, some concerns that lie at the root of any serious intellectual pursuit are also relevant for doctoral research. These relate to certain basic philosophical considerations regarding the nature of knowledge and the issues associated with the production of new knowledge. As a process that produces new knowledge, research is particularly concerned with the idea of justification of knowledge. This is attempted on many grounds. Often, the idea of “correspondence” is suggested as a justification device. Here, the correctness of a proposition is evaluated on the basis of its correspondence with a “real” referent. Plato’s metaphor of the cave exemplifies this approach. He illustrated knowledge and ignorance by putting forth the image of persons who were trapped in a cave all their lives. Their knowledge of the outside world was through shadows in the cave and they considered these as real. If one of them escaped and were able to observe the things outside that caused these shadows, others would be unlikely to accept this new information as true. To avoid this mistake, he suggested the existence of real entities beyond those perceived by our senses. Another commonly employed ground for justification is the idea of “coherence." This evaluates the correctness of a proposition by comparing it with a set of accepted propositions in a framework. Thus any new knowledge claim would need to demonstrate how it is in agreement with prior established knowledge. A third criterion employed for justification come from the idea of “pragmatism.” Here, a proposition’s value is evaluated on the basis of how useful it is in achieving certain objectives or producing some desirable results. It should also be emphasised that contrary to a popular idea concerning research, “method” is not sufficient ground for justification. In other words, strict adherence to certain pre-specified steps do not guarantee the quality of the resultant knowledge. This is also true of principles of logic applied in evaluating the correctness of theoretical propositions. These only ensure that certain fallacies are avoided in the reasoning process and mere conformity with these logical principles does not guarantee that the results are justified. Researchers typically formulate the grounds for justifying new knowledge based on their disciplinary affiliations and the preferred modes of research associated within those disciplines. The seminar leader pointed out that the researcher’s personal orientations are also important in this. One consequence of this affirmation is a need to be alive to the particularities of human nature in this enterprise. Here, a conceptualisation put forth by the philosopher Francis Bacon might be helpful. He cautioned of dangers to the pursuit of knowledge by drawing attention to certain “idols” that could act as hindrances in this effort. He differentiated various types of such idols. These stem from the characteristics of the individual, the society and the human race, the peculiarities of language and associated communication, and the rigidity of established frameworks and systems. An awareness of these might help doctoral scholars avoid fallacies that arise from an unreflective pursuit of knowledge. References Pareek, U. (1993). Making organizational roles effective. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Vakkayil, J. D. (2007). A portrait of the researcher as a boundary crosser. Journal of Research Practice, 3(1), Article M11. Retrieved July 6, 2007, from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/61/78
Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home |
