HIL05214 Researching Possibilities” Reflections on ...

HIL05214 – Hildebrand AARE 2005: Researching Possibilities… 1

HIL05214"Researching Possibilities”

Reflections on creative dissent while producing constructive solutions

Gaell M. Hildebrand

Monash [email protected]

Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) conference,Parramatta, 2005, November.

Abstract

This is my personal perspective on a collaborative writing/learning journey of eleven Monashand Melbourne academics who formed a team to create an interactive CD-ROM to supportpostgraduate researchers. The philosophical and epistemological histories of the individualswere diverse - a strength for this project as we found when we engaged in debating thepedagogy of learning to research. In the act of creatively dissenting we learned from each otheras we came to better understand our differing knowledges/stances on useful tactics and tools,productive methods and methodologies, and a spectrum of theoretical positionings. I reflect hereon my role in leading the team that produced the design/text/form of “Researching Possibilities”.In arguing about big questions, like the What, Why, Where, When, Who and How of doingresearch - which now act as entry level questions for the student-researchers - and smallquestions, like why particular colours are appropriate for the visual images of the building blocksmetaphor we negotiated to use, the team developed a sense of unity that in the early stagesseemed unimaginable. I show how the creative energy generated through emergent tensionsand dissent was juxtaposed into complexifying questions and pragmatic options in the CD-ROMitself.

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My story – My biases

In writing this tale I have been conscious of trying to avoid the trap that Swidler warnspractitioners like myself of: presenting ourselves as “heroes of our own tales” (Swidler 2001).Certainly I am aware that sometimes I have been more of a villain than a hero – e.g. in notmeeting deadlines that we had set for trialing the CD etc.

My intention is that this paper will shed some light on the process of working with a team ofhighly experienced educational researchers who brought their own philosophical stances,paradigmatic positions and personal beliefs about priorities for learning to research to the task.As one colleague remarked, getting a bunch of academics to agree on research methodologymatters is “like herding cats”. This particular group of academics came from two institutions in acollaborative technology grant whose purposes it was to facilitate cross-institutional conversationthat would produce a tangible outcome that would directly impact on students’ learning.

The context of this paper is a project, funded jointly by Monash University and The University ofMelbourne, that aimed to “create an interactive multimedia CD-ROM for learning how toundertake high quality research in education and related social sciences such as leadership,knowledge management, youth studies, workplace training, etc.” (Hildebrand and Clarke 2003a,


p.3). The project was funded by the Melbourne/Monash Committee for Collaboration inEducational Technology. Both universities offer a range of research methodology courses from aspectrum of traditions and paradigms and we felt that it was important that the project teamreflected that diversity. Both Education Faculties are offering more on-line work for their researchhigher degree students, an increasing number of whom are studying off-campus andincreasingly off-shore. This CD-ROM was intended to enhance the capacity of those students towork productively with better quality support (Hildebrand and Clarke 2003a, p. 4).

Hence the need for a large team of academics who currently teach in these courses. In this waythe collaboration would, we believed, create a more cohesive program for both universities andfacilitate communication within and across university staff on both sites. In working together thestaff team shared expertise in using interactive e-learning materials in ways that enriched thelearning processes in the package over-all. Each university staff team brought complementaryskills and knowledge-bases to the Project Team and this produced a better quality final productthan would be achieved through either university alone.

We still do have large teams of staff teaching research methodology. But our teams havechanged, as have our courses – a concern as the ‘buy-in’ of newer staff may, understandably,not be as great as the original team members, as they were not in “the writing teams” and haveno personal involvement or investment in the product. In any context would that have beendifferent? I think not – staff are always in a state of flux, changing teaching loads, shiftingpriorities in how they spend their time. But few academics like to be told to use a particularresource – and certainly not one that is distanced to them, being ‘owned’ (produced) bycolleagues, who may, or may often not, share philosophical, epistemological or pedagogicalstances.

This paper tells one version – my perspective – of the story of a collaborative design/writingjourney. In this story I take on the “multiple “Is” notion of Connelly and Clandinin (1990)sometimes using my voice as “I the researcher”, at other times “I the teacher of researchmethodology”, or “I the team co-leader”, or “I the writer”. These shifting perspectives, even fromone person, were multiplied by the team members each also operating from “multiple I” positionsas we worked our way through what matters in doing research.

Working as a Team

As I worked with my Melbourne counterpart, David Clarke, in proposing the initial concept, wefelt that there was a need to engage a large number of academics from our two universities inthe project as each university had a team of staff working in the pedagogy of researchmethodology coursework subjects/units. Thus, the team for the multimedia CD-ROM projecteventually became a team of eleven people.

The philosophical and epistemological histories of the individuals in this team were diverse - astrength for such a project – yet this did create tensions and debates that at times seemed tocircle around the same issues. In getting such a diverse group of academics to work together,we decided that creating some space for whole team meetings was important as well as time forsmall task teams to work on the writing of the specific sections of the CD-ROM. The expectationon team members was that they will attend bi-monthly meetings and share their “content”production in the intervening period. Consensus would be reached on directions to take andways to structure the final product so that it met the needs of on-campus and off-campusstudents in both Faculties.


My original plan was for each person to be a contributing member of at least two writing teamsand to lead one team, with one of the overall project leaders being on each team. My initialmessage to the project team members stated that:

The bold person (metaphorically?) coordinates the initial Task Team meeting – then eachteam makes its own arrangements as to how it “works” (e.g. rotating chair? alternate venues?agenda-setting?).

In practice most teams were led by the “bold” person, who pushed the team to meet deadlines -or as closely as was possible for a large group of busy academics. The actual teams that wecreated are below, in Table 1. Some teams seemed to feel that their work was more sharplydefined and/or delimited and powered along, producing material quite quickly. Other teams feltthat their work was so large – and overwhelming? – that their contributions were slower, lessCD-ready, and more complex to define and generate.

Table 1: Task Team Model

Team No. Focus of Contribution Bold = initial

team leader

1 Quantitative methods A, J, F2 Critical reading/Lit review B, F, I3 Qualitative methods 1 - (e.g. narrative, visual, etc) E, T, C, I4 Qualitative methods 2 - (e.g. interviews, etc) J, P, E, I5 Multimedia development & overall CD cohesion O, F, T, I6 Methodological decisions, epistemologies & big picture

questionsZ, P, F, B, I

7 Editing/Review E, I8 Designing Research proposals (ethics, pragmatics, etc) C, F, Z, I9 Whole package all of us

The initial discussions in the whole team centred on what should be the “content” of the packageand how should it be presented for learning purposes. At an early meeting of the whole team -while the proposal was still in its preparation stage – I presented the following view, which wasreadily agreed with by the team.

My view accords with Clough and Nutbrown (2002) that social research is:• Persuasive• Purposive• Positional i.e. the researcher’s standpoint matters• Political - in that it brings about change in policy, practice, professional learning,or stimulates further research.

Opening this discussion seemed to create a space where we were able to discuss the differingpositions we each held – from strongly quantitative/positivist (or was it post-positivist?) to post-structural feminist – and to seek common ground that enabled the beginnings of trust in eachother to develop.

“All research sets out with specific purposes from a particular position, and aims to persuadereaders of the significance of the claims; these claims are always broadly political” (Clough andNutbrown, 2002: 14).


Several people in the team began to offer up their ‘favourite’ readings to the team so thatclarifying our own positioning was less reliant on argument in the team meetings and moreinformed by authors from perspectives we had not read before. Not all of us were in a placewhere we were able to undertake additional reading, and that meant that some “speed bumps”(Weis and Fine, 2000) were struck and sometimes these pushed us off course as we had torevisit ideas that we had previously agreed, when someone came to a meeting without doing thereading from the meeting they’d missed, etc.

What is the CD-ROM aiming to do for research students?

In the original full application we argued that the CD-ROMwill be used to enable research methodology students to:- be more critical readers of others’ research;- examine taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of research and of knowledgeproduction;- confidently use specialist research concepts and terminology, knowing the distinctionsbetween key terms;- competently make critical decisions that shape the design and processes involved inundertaking social research;- argue why their methodological decisions are appropriate to address their own researchproblem in its context;- competently apply appropriate research tools and techniques to support defensibleresearch in their context;- communicate and disseminate the findings of their research to a spectrum ofaudiences using appropriate writing genres. (Hildebrand and Clarke, 2003b, p.4)

The scope of the task we had set ourselves only became clearer to me once we tried to organisethe materials so that students could achieve these aims. In seeking to achieve all these aims forone package of material – no matter how cleverly constructed – was to deny the notion of “slowlearning” that Guy Claxton (1998) articulates. In our context it was denial of the slow, deepleaning of methodological matters that is undergone by most thesis candidates as they worktheir way through the puzzles that confront them, over the entire course of planning andconducting their research study. We have struggled with how to incorporate the notion of theiterative nature of research into the CD – returning to themes and issues several times, as we doourselves when engaging in research.

Who is Researching Possibilities for?

As we worked our way through “what” should be on the CD-ROM, we also began to askourselves other questions such as “who”, exactly, are we intending to use this package? In thisway we developed a series of questions for ourselves, that in an epiphanical moment during onemeeting became the organising questions for the students on the CD itself. We realised that aswe needed to ask ourselves the what, why, who, how, where, when questions, so did studentsseek answers to these questions as they worked through the process of designing and doingtheir own research. Thus a structure for organisng the ‘content’ of the CD emerged from theprocess we were going through as a team in designing and writing it.

The “who will use the CD” question was resolved as being:• students undertaking research training in education and related fields in the social sciences –Honours and Masters thesis students, initially (e.g. youth studies, leadership, workplace training,


counselling, knowledge management …)• core methodology units/subjects – and some non-core optional modules (for all higher degreethesis students, including international & ESL students)• both on & off-campus• offered in 3 semesters, and at• both at Monash and Melbourne universities.

The “who” question on the CD became “who does research?” and led us to consider a broaderrange of people in a variety of contexts than we had previously been thinking about.

Why will Researching Possibilities improve the quality of research?

In asking ourselves “why are we producing this package?” the team opened up a space toconsider why we were teaching research, in the ways we were. The team’s conversations havestimulated debate and critique of our current methodology and methods coursework curriculumand pedagogy and how we can best support our beginning researchers. This collaborative self-critique amongst academics from a spectrum of research traditions continued as we developedand created the product.

The “why” question to structure the CD turned into thinking about such questions as ““Why dopeople do research?” and “Why am I researching this - in this way?”

What should the “content” be?

My early position on the nature and thrust of the CD-ROM was spelt out in responding to anearly email query from T1:

This should not be just another intro methodology text on CD. But it should providescaffolding for those trying to puddle their way through the methodology quagmire andtrying to produce a research proposal that is feasible and manageable. It also should be of ahigh enough level of sophistication that experienced researchers might want to dip into itfor re-framing their ways of thinking, critiquing their own practices...

This was a lofty intention that we have struggled to realise. Opening up a discussion of what”should be on the CD became a pathway to engaging with ideas of positionings on the researchprocess - and facets to explore - with the team members. As Michael Crotty (1998) puts it, whenwe consider our research design process we need to ask questions such as:

• What methods do we propose to use?• What methodology governs our choice and use of methods?• What theoretical perspective lies behind the methodology in questions?• What epistemology informs this theoretical perspective? (Crotty, 1998, p. 2)

Sharing readings, such as Crotty, with each other, enabled the team to begin to have someshared understandings that led to a sense of trust in each others’ expertise gradually continuingto be built. We developed the following schema, in Figure 1, to represent what ought to be the“content” of the CD-ROM, after discussing Crotty’s chapter, adding the “tactics/advice” spacebecause we wanted to include things about ethics clearance, writing a research proposal etcthat wasn’t the focus of Crotty’s work.

1 Each team member has been allocated a letter code in this paper, with myself as “I”


As we worked our way through the “what” and “how” and why” of the CD we had to address theissue of language. Some team members, myself included, were adamant that language mattersas it shapes our understandings. For example, some team members used some terms, like“methods” and “methodology” interchangeably, as synonyms and we needed to talk through thisso that we became more careful to distinguish, for example, between “methods” and“methodologies” as distinct placeholders for separate ideas. In that sense we all had to becomesharper in our use of language, to learn new terminology and concepts, in order to be able toopen our students’ eyes so that they could, as urged by Richard Rorty, “move beyondentrenched vocabularies to embrace the possibility of new thinking” (Allen 2003, p. 20). For thisto happen, we realized that we, too, had to open our minds to new conceptual and theoreticallanguage, to embrace new possibilities in teaching about the act of doing research.

Figure 1: Early Interacting Aspects

What does Researching Possibilities now incorporate?

After much thought, debate and research into the curriculum and pedagogy of learning toresearch we finally built these aspects into the CD-ROM. The full picture of learning to researchentails explorations at the multiple levels of:

• tactics (advice from academics and fellow thesis students) - such as how to conduct qualityinterviews or how to build in confidentiality (usually necessary for ethical clearance in the socialsciences); the development of specific research skills: e.g. critically reviewing research, multipleresearch designs, asking answerable questions, data generation & analysis techniques, writingin a range of genres …• methods and tools - how to design, use & critique. Such as how to write good questionnaireitems; how to use data matrices for analysis; ways to code interview transcripts; or how to

Methodologies

Methods

Tactics/Advice

Theoretical

Perspectives

Epistemologies


undertake critical discourse analysis;• methodologies - exploring contrasting and complementary paradigms and theirappropriateness for investigating particular problems - such as action research, ethnography,experimental research, narrative inquiry;• theoretical frames – a spectrum of philosophical perspectives that inform the research andhow these stances shape the research direction and outcomes - such as positivism,interpretivism, feminism, postmodernism, etc; theoretical and conceptual frameworks arescaffolded through activities e.g. compare & contrast charts, Venn diagrams, concept maps, roll-over/pop-up glossary.• epistemologies - models of knowing and critiques of them - such as objectivism andconstructivism, etc.

The CD-ROM now incorporates integrated interactive learning activities: e.g. refining researchquestions, practising skills (e.g. transcript coding, visual data analysis), completing checklists &action planners, resolving ethical dilemmas, using proposal audit tools, etc.

There are tensions in this categorisation of the full picture - for example it is common forstudents to want to only operate at the first two dot point levels, above, while academicsteaching research processes think that all levels should be addressed. While the student willhave freedom to use the package as they choose, delving deeper into those aspects ofparticular importance to them, the jigsaw metaphor will assist staff in classes (or through theonline programs) encourage students to use components drawn from the whole package.

We argued that the research learning of our students would be improved because of theinteractive nature built into both faculties research methodology courses (e.g. integrated activelearning tasks, links to web-sites, self-assessment tasks …) and the provision for diversity,complexity and depth (that no other single resource in the field currently does this).

While it was seductive to see how engineers and functional linguists had built their interactivedevices into their own multimedia packages, it became harder to imagine being able to do thiswhen we discussed the realities of the multiplicities and complexities of social research. Blackand white answers in research methodologies are rare – even dangerous – we concluded.

Integrated with the “content”, we intended to build in:“* links to video clips of local and international researchers explaining their thinking behindcritical aspects of the research process - difficulties they encounter and the means they use toresolve dilemmas (for use in & out of class);* hot-links to a glossary of social and educational research concepts and terminology todemystify this language;* animated sequences that provide clear visual explanations of the key concepts such as criticaldifferences between methodological approaches, design issues, data collection and analysistools, validity, generalisability, etc.* interactive sequences where students sequence elements to demonstrate their grasp ofprocess and concepts; deconstruct and critique research questions and journal articles; practiceusing common data analysis tools; and investigate common and distinct features and stumblingblocks in educational and social research, etc;* diagnostic categorisation of features and aspects of research to decide what kind of actionsmight be appropriate and what consequences may follow those decisions in particular contextsusing specific research traditions;* models of how to do useful tasks, such as drawing concept maps of theoretical or conceptualframeworks, that students can use to clarify their own thinking;


* illustrative examples that will require students to observe, analyse, predict, justify and reflect ondesignated aspects of research and apply their developing ideas to their own thesis project.”(Hildebrand and Clarke 2003b, p. 4)

Some of these proved plain impractical – getting good quality video links in the time available tous, but most of these features are present.

Table 2: Initial Intentions and Reactive Reflections

Intentions Reactive reflections

“The comprehensive range of methodologies explored and

critiqued will include: quantitative research including

surveys; mixed-method research; interpretative studies using

qualitative techniques drawn from ethnography,

phenomenology and grounded theory; case study; models

that draw on feminist, critical and post-structural theory;

narrative inquiry and discourse analysis; and practitioner

research such as action research and self-study. The content

will incorporate:

• detailed descriptions of each methodological approach,

including the purposes, processes and debates that have

emerged within each research tradition;

• the distinctions and connections between different

methodological paradigms and their appropriateness for

different types of research questions and contexts;

• approaches to undertaking critical literature reviews that

draw on a range of methodological stances;

• strategies and dilemmas that arise when formulating

research proposals including the construction of research

questions and/or hypotheses and developing manageable

time-lines;

• methods, tools and practical design mechanisms that can be

used to generate quality data through common devices such

as interviews, observations, surveys, document analysis,

video-stimulated recall, etc.

• investigation into how questions of validity and

trustworthiness are resolved in each methodological type;

• ethical issues and strategies to minimise dilemmas and risks

(with links to both universities’ ethics sites);

• a range of skills in data analysis techniques e.g. statistical

packages to discourse analysis;

• issues in writing research in education and related social

sciences and support strategies for getting published;

• a glossary of key concepts, hot-linked throughout the text.”

(Hildebrand and Clarke 2003a, p.3)

What were we thinking? Were wegoing to replace ALL those textswe all used – our personalfavourites – with one CD-ROM? Ascreen-based medium that by itsvery nature cannot be too text-dense?

How could we climb our MtEverest in a one-year projectthat many others had failed toclimb over many years? “Thedistinctions and connectionsbetween different methodologicalparadigms” … who among us canmap with certainty thesedistinctions, connections andcontradictions?

Why did we pretend that wecould build certainty andrationality to a field that cannotbe so tamed? Did we think wecould get away with mis-representing the complex fieldwe were trying to map, making itseem so simple to do?

One theme that did emerge through these team meetings was that the CD-ROM should beeclectic, offering a range of tools, tactics, theoretical ideas, etc. that could be drawn on by ourresearch students. This fits with the notion of research as bricolage, and the “researcher asbricoleur”:


“employing … methodological research strategies as they are needed in the unfoldingcontext of the research situation”.“pushing new conceptual terrain… eclectic process raises numerous issues thatresearchers must deal with in order to maintain theoretical coherence and epistemologicalinnovation. Such multidisciplinarity demands a new level of research self-consciousness…”“the bricolage highlights the relationship between a researchers’ ways of seeing and thesocial location of his or her personal history.”(Kincheloe and Berry 2004, p.1-2)

This CD-ROM was intended to demonstrate the bricolage of research – and to draw on the toolsand experiences of the writing/design team to produce a high quality learning experience for ourstudents. The team itself struggled with our own “research self-consciousness” with somemembers having previously given more thought to their own positionings than others.

From the Pragmatics of the CD-ROM design to Changing Metaphors

In making what initially seemed like simple decisions, we found the enactment of what we knewtheoretically - that as all texts send messages beyond the conscious intentions of thewriter/designer - and we had to struggle with choices available to us. The initial tile for the CD-ROM was: “RE-search! Researching Education- strategies ethics actions resources critiqueshypotheticals”.

One example of pragmatics not being so simple, was the choice of metaphor we would use torepresent the structure of the whole package. We were conscious that the metaphor could - andwould – be used as a signifier of our collective stance on methodological possibilities,perspectives, problems, processes and decisions. We originally chose the pragmatic metaphorof a jigsaw because it had been used in a 1999 Melbourne University CD-Rom calledResearching Education (Clarke et al) – aimed at undergraduate students doing small researchprojects.

“We will use a ‘jigsaw piece’ metaphor as a navigation tool and as a guide to completing themethodology picture” we had said in our application for funds (Hildebrand and Clarke, 2003b p.3). The “jigsaw” metaphor seemed workable until we began to push the meanings that it couldinfer. For example, that beginning - or indeed anyone’s, research could be ever said tocomplete a ‘picture’; that there was a ‘correct’ picture that the puzzle pieces would create; andthat the research methodology can be a ‘finished’ image. Working through the tensions thejigsaw created for others – including students – meant that a more flexible structure might bebetter to use. Wee found that the intended metaphorical structure could not be delivered if it iscounter-intuitive to other research pedagogues. Debating these, and related, ideas behind themetaphor resulted in us abandoning the jigsaw and choosing the building block metaphorinstead (see Appendix A, the current version of the title screen). This allowed us to signal that all


research methodology work is always in a state of construction, different for each researcher,moveable as the research unfolds and built from basic elements of a range of aspects, that donot suit all research inquiries.

The new building block metaphor implies that research is always in a state of flux/construction,always changeable and never complete. It also implies that there are multiple means of reachinga destination from through a research design and construction process – and that eachperson’s construction will depend on their own decisions. Yet even the colours used for theopening screen image provoked debate (see Appendix A). Do we want strong, primary colours –what does that signal to you? – or softer shades that a more subtle and variable in hue – morenuanced. Everything sends messages, that may be counter to our intentions – and seeminglyinnocuous decisions became political debates.

Current Form and Framing

The Researching Possibilities CD-ROM is now structured through:• the building blocks metaphor: as both a navigation tool and also as a guide toconstructing research (i.e. not just developing practical skills but also understanding andcritiquing the theoretical issues, being reflexive…)• activities and images: problem scenarios as invitations to inquire and critique;illustrative research projects to follow through each stage; advice from a diverse groupof researchers (various levels of expertise and experience);• an e-Notepad to help build a Research Proposal and Methodology chapter• content with hot links: to activities, glossary, digitised papers, web-sites(e.g. e-Journals, software, human research ethics web-pages at both universities, ActionResearch sites, etc.)

After a year or so, we came to agree on the six top-level questions (with accompanyingdistinct building block images) that currently shape the CD-ROM.

These questions/building blocks are :• What is research?• Why do research?• Where does research happen?• When is research done?• Who does research?• How do I research?


Each of these questions are broken down into sub-questions that can be navigatedthrough – or skipped as required – so that deeper levels are reached.For example, “How” is unpacked as:

• How do I design my research?(and down further to:How do I prepare my research proposal?How do I review the literature? etc…)

• How do I write up my research?• How do I analyse my evidence/data?etc…

Time Matters

We included this promise in our initial expression of interest: “The final materials will becompleted for use in 2005 at both universities.” (Hildebrand and Clarke 2003a, p. 3) Oh,how naïve I was! We were! The materials are still in the pre-production phase!

At the time of putting in the application for funding we had no idea how big and time-consuming a task we were setting ourselves. Compounding this was “life” or “work”intervening – with new roles for some of us, and other research getting more highlyprioritised – so that expected time allocations to the project per week were unable to befulfilled. My advice to others embarking on such a project would be: double the time youthink you will need – and then add some. Talk takes time. Time to talk is critical to buildtrust, share expertise, approach each other from our ‘bunkers’ of research traditions andmeet on common ground. While we could have driven the pace more quickly we neededto stay in the “messy” stage of debate before we could crystallise common foundationsfor the package. If we had rushed into producing material we would have never resolvedsome of the tensions and dilemmas that arose. Having said that, it is clear that a seriesof tensions emerged – and remain.

Emergent Tensions

In working through this experience, I found myself constantly tugged to and fro by thetensions that emerged. On the one hand I had the responsibility to lead the whole team,on the other I had my personal positions and prejudices to contend with.

Pedagogies and curriculum for learning to research - both for our face-to-face classesand for those students who are learning off-campus and/or online - were often the hottopic of discussion at the team meetings – whether of the whole team or the small task-focussed writing teams. Through providing space for these curriculum and pedagogydebates to range we were able to spark creatively off each others’ thinking to generate arichness that would have been hard to reproduce in an individual or email mode. Ourarguments often shifted between thinking from our “experts” positioning to the “novice”perspective of our students – a test that we came back to repeatedly to ground ourthinking.


Table 3: Oversimplifying some tensions

Process/learning experience Product/destination

• space for rethinking• time for debate/critique• academics’ oughts• drawing on the collective wisdom ofexperts• curriculum & pedagogy• complexity• challenging beyond

- the “pop-up-problematising person”• becoming a researcher

• moving to a product• meeting deadlines• students’ needs/wants• building individual expertise of beginners

• learning & assessment• simplicity• pragmatic needs - just give me the tips,traps and shortcuts• submitting my thesis

A little more elaboration of the tensions can be portrayed through the following to-ingand fro-ing.

Tensions between:

• moving forward to a the completion of the“product”, the CD-ROM

and staying in the process long enough to feel thattensions have been identified, if not resolved.

• creating space and time for thoughtful debateand collegial-critique

and meeting deadlines that meant that the productwould be out-of-time-and-place by the time it wasproduced.

• the ethereality and ephemerality of insightsand epiphanies voiced by team members whotook time out to collectively reflect on andanalyse possibilities for researching

and the dreadful predictability of “standard”methodology texts that speak with dogmaticauthority and solid-sounding practical advice forearly researchers.

• drawing on the expertise and wisdom of highlyesteemed colleagues

and seeking to meet the grounded concerns ofbeginning thesis students.

• focusing on this group of on-campus students- from diverse international contexts and arange of professional fields

and those off-campus students, whose needs differeven though they too are from diverse internationalcontexts and a range of professional fields.


• feeling the need to construct multiple optionsand pathways for beginning researchersand also provide stimulus and challenge that would engage and extend experiencedresearchers.

In reaching the constructive solution of the CD-ROM package, we needed to find waysto work with each other, give credit for our expertise across a spectrum of philosophical,pedagogical and methodological stances, and use the dissent as a positive force to buildthe tensions into the way the CD-ROM itself was formed. The text/form of the“Researching Possibilities” CD-ROM that will be trialed in 2006, grew from the wholeteam meetings as much as from the small task teams that wrote much of the ‘content’.For example it was in a meeting of the whole team that we began the discussion aboutthe What, Why, Where, When, Who and How of doing research. Only there did we“click” that if we had those questions our beginning students might also find it aworthwhile pathway into researching. The energy that produced these six broad entrylevel questions – that give the CD-ROM its over-arching structure - was often generatedthrough emergent tensions and dissent as we worked through the multiple positions ofthe team members to juxtapose a series of thought-provoking questions with a range ofpragmatic options to assist new researchers.

Our attempt to maintain the integrity and agency of individual team members, while alsobringing a sense of coherence to the overall CD-ROM, was eventually worked up into aproduct, based on a building block metaphor, that has a “pop-up problematising person”(image yet to be agreed) asking complexifying questions of the new researcher, as weasked them of each other, along the way. Questions such as “why do you value diverseperspectives?” and “when will you think about epistemological questions?” and “what ifyour participants are too similar in their perspectives?” These questions sometimesemerged in our meetings, while we struggled to engage with each others’ perspectives,at other times they were deliberatively generated as we wrote, individually or in pairs ortrios. In that sense the CD-ROM, with its vignettes of both new researchers andourselves struggling with the challenging questions researchers confront, is more than a“how to” of research methodology, although it is that, as well. It opens up and makestransparent some of the complex, creative and constructive questions we face and theproductive act was a learning experience as much for us as writers/designers, as it(hopefully) will be for our research students.

As Stephen Brookfield argues, it might serve our interests better to consider thata critically reflective stance towards our practice is healthily ironic, a necessaryhedge against an overconfident belief that we have captured the one universaltruth about good practice. [It]…makes us mistrustful of grand theories …Werealize the contextuality of all practice and the limitations of universaltemplates…One consequence of this realization is that we learn humilityregarding the possibility of our ever “getting it right,” of ever attaining a peerlessstate of perfect grace as practitioners (Brookfield 2000, 46-47).

The Researching Possibilities CD-ROM is the start of a journey, not a destination. It is away of opening up a dialogic space for Masters students – and other beginning


researchers – to make important methodological decisions about their work that willhave consequences for the change projects and social action they may engage in asresearchers. Now, I hope that the CD-ROM may, at best, become a bridge – a transitionpoint where billy-goats gruff lie in waiting to alarm the (alert) novice researcher. It cannever be the definitive answer… To hope for such a wonder-text (multi-modal interactiveor not) is to believe in the tooth fairy. While I went into this project expecting to produceTHE ultimate package, I am a little wiser now.

REFERENCES:

Allen, J. (2003) A question of language, in M. Pryke, G. Rose & S. Whatmore (Eds) Using SocialTheory: Thinking through research. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage and OpenUniversity Press.

Atkinson, T., and Claxton, G. (Eds.) (2000)The Intuitive Practitioner: On The Value of NotAlways Knowing What One Is Doing. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Brookfield, S. D. (2000) The concept of critically reflective practice. In A. W. Wilson and E.Hayes, (Eds.) Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education, 33-49.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Claxton, G. (1998). Hare brain, Tortoise mind. London: Fourth Estate.Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry.

Educational Researcher, 19 (5), pp. 2-14.Crotty, M. (1998). The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and perspective in the

research process. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.Hildebrand, G.M. and Clarke, D.J. (2003a) Expression of Interest in a Project Grant titled “RE-

search! Researching Education: strategies, ethics, actions, resources, critiques,hypotheticals - creating a CD-ROM to support post-graduate thesis students”.Submission to the Melbourne-Monash Committee for Collaboration in EducationalTechnologies.

Hildebrand, G.M. and Clarke, D.J. (2003b) Full Application for a Project Grant titled “RE-search!Researching Education: strategies, ethics, actions, resources, critiques, hypotheticals -creating a CD-ROM to support post-graduate thesis students”. Submission to theMelbourne-Monash Committee for Collaboration in Educational Technologies.

Hildebrand, G.M., Clarke, D.J. with Doecke, B., Forgasz, H., Hurworth, R., Joseph, C., MaRhea,Z., Moss, J., Mulcahy, D., Tsolidis, G. with support from Pigdon,K. (2006) ResearchingPossibilities: A resource for researchers in education and other social sciences,Melbourne: Monash University and The University of Melbourne. Forthcoming.

Kincheloe, J. L. & Berry, K. S. (2004) Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research:Conceptualising the bricolage. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Swidler, S. A. (2001). Heroes of our own tales: Presentation of self in conversation and story. InC. M. Clark (Ed.), Talking shop: Authentic conversation and teacher learning. New York:Teachers College Press.

Weis, L., & Fine, M. (Eds.). (2000). Speed bumps: A student-friendly guide to qualitativeresearch. New York: Teachers College Press.


Appendix A – The current Title and Metaphor

Title: Researching PossibilitiesMetaphor: (playful) building blocks


Appendix B – Sample Screen

Note: Icons/Menu in view on each screenResearch Journal/Notepad – saveable on students’ own hard drive.

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Notepad andResearchProposalMenu icons in view

HIL05214 Researching Possibilities” Reflections on ...

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Transcript of HIL05214 Researching Possibilities” Reflections on ...