[NLA] : Divergent Research Traditions

[George E. Demetrion]

David and others:

Do you have 50 pages?  Only kidding--sort of.

I'm working on a project where this is discussed in depth, but can only
post here a few comments.

At issue is less the desirability of evidence.  No one's going to dispute
that, though with one caveat, theoretical discussions are valuable in
their own right in clarifying certain issues and providing additional
ways of looking at matters that would otherwise be closed.  Whatever
limitations there are with Freire, he provided a major contribition in at
lewast three ways:

a)  He provided an alternative angle of vision to the then dominant
United Nations model of nation-building where literacy rates were viewed
as one of the thresholds leading to modenization in the "underdeveloped"
world.

b)  He helped to raised the level of voices of the illiterate to a
critical mass making such articulation a critical focus of literacy
campaigns.

c)  He drew out (however one may disagree or not with the specifics) the
invariable connection between the pedagogical and political, stated in
other terms (Foucault) an invariablke correlation about how knowledge is
defined through the exercise (or lack theof) of political power.

Thus, whatever the limitations in Freire's vision, his work provided
another way of seeing reality which opened up new information, new data,
new realities, which hence has become the subject of much critical
investigation.  Theory in itself can play an important role in helping to
better understand (and perhaps even to change) what is and what comes to
be defined as "reality."  That is no small matter.

In the technical language of John Dewey, both "the facts" and theory are
viewed as *propositions* rather than ends.  That is, they provide data in
the inquiry process in moving from problems identified *toward* problems
resolved in the quest to achieve what Dewey refers to as  "warranted
assertabilities," temporary resolutions subject to further investigation
and the raising of additional problems.  The quest in a Deweyan research
project is to achieve these temporary states through a working through of
the data (the facts and the various hypotheses that stimulate inquiry and
experimentation).  

This is very much a scientific methodology, but as Catherine notes, does
not posit a false polarity between "objective facts" and "subjective"
speculation.  Rather, both are viewed as "propositions" in providing data
toward the resolution of problems. Thus our extensive case-study
documentation on the learning experiences of students is part of the
essential data and should not be reduced as the merely anecdotal or as
secondary to the "surer" knowledge which numbers provide. Neither should
it be uncritically celebrated with its meaning being self-evidently
assumed, at least if we are talking about research.  But there are
divserse research traditions, including that of practitioner-based
inquiry, and that is the point.   In short, the difference between
positivistic research traditions and one based on a pragmatic
epistemology (theory of knowing which I am emphasizing in this message as
one subset of qualittaive research,  is at least three-fold:

a)  It does not assume a polarity between the objective and subjective. 
Rather, a pragmatic research orientation  views the facts and theories as
gist for additional inquiry.  One or the other is not viewed as
inherently superior, but as datum in moving the inquiry process forward
toward proximate resolution.  Here Dewey follows the 5 steps of the
traditional scientific method, but does not view "the facts" as superior
to interpretation, but as interactional in facilitating inquiry.

b)  The pragmatic research tradition is inherently value laden in the
very identification of certain research questions over others and what is
viewed as the good--in Deweyan language, the warranted assertabilities
that do emerge as a result of such inquiry.  That is, in language Dewey
uses, there is an invariably "existential" component to research projects
reflecting the world view, values, and areas of interest of the
researcher.

c) In a technical sense, positivistic research is not designed to change
reality, but to describe it from the objective (some say antiseptic)
angle of the "disinterested" scientist, which Dewey refers to as a
"spectral" view of science.  On a pragmatic research project, "the knower
and the known" are invariably connected, which is not the same as saying
that this is "mere" subjectivity.  

Moreover, there is a science that gives shape to pragmatic epistemology
(Dewey, 1938, Logic).  This seeks to interpret the traditional 5-step
scientific method through the prism of human (finite) experience and
knowledge, not leading to truth (though the best that we can know based
on all of the availaible information), but to admittedly contestable 
warranted assertions subject to counterargument, additional information,
new questions, issues, and problems.  While reasonable stability can be
gained through such research, there is no god's eye assumed that assumes
objectivity over "merely" human interpretation.  

The argument here rather, is that human interpretation is part of the
data, though needs to comport with more the more "factual" information.
(I place "factual" in quotes because interpretation, too, is a fact
(datum)  at the level at which it is expressed, where both "facts" and
"interpretation" serve as "propositions" in moving the inquiry process
forward based on the value system upon which it is established. 

 The conceit of the current USDoE research orientation is their assuming
the posture,on the one hand of objectivity through "evidence-based"
scientific principles, while their strategic plan is laden with human and
political (hence, subjective) values and certain unfounded,
unarticulated, non- evidence-based assumptions about the "faddism" and
the ideology of educational scholarship which it wants the
positivistic-oriented scientists to monitor.

Rather than foundational truth based on a rigid scientific methodology
that shuts at least as much out as it purports to disclose, a pragmatic
research project based on the principle of "coherence (another post
needed here), "fit, attunement, and systematic connection ...become the
determinate criteria for assessing the acceptability of claims, the
monitors of cognitive adequacy"  N. Rescher's (2001) Philosophical
Reasoning:  A Study in the Methodology of Phiosophizing. (p.
194).epistemology.

Research traditions are contestable, and they are as much (if not more)
about values than they are about "right" methodologies, which, it is
srgued, is a subset of the former.

More needs to be said.  Let's hear from others.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com



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