1. What is Research?
10th May 2009
Just a few months ago, on (my previous website, which died!) - at
www.rebc.cc - I offered the definition that research is no more and no less than "...blokes and birds trying to make
sense of stuff..." At the time, that was a 'therapeutic definition', designed to counteract the pseudo-science of some
elements within the counselling and therapy community who seek certainty via positivistic science.
However, the problem for our positivistic colleagues is that philosophy has for a very long time grappled with the
problem of 'the search for certain knowledge' (or absolute truth). Plato grappled with it, and lost. He concluded
that we had to 'go inside (the soul)', and 'rise to a higher level' to be informed by the 'universal Forms'. Only the universal
forms - the perfect form of beauty, the perfect form of justice, the perfect horse, the perfect human, and so on - were real.
All the normal perceptions of normal (non philosophical) people were merely distorted impressions
formed by our imperfect perceptual apparatus.
In other words, the sceptics had won the war of
words regarding the impossibility of "seeing perfectly" what is "out there" to be "seen".
Phenomena were created by the perceiver!
Hence "blokes and birds trying
to make sense of stuff". However, the downside of my definition is this: Is it the case that any man or woman who
is trying to make sense of stuff is just as accurate, valid and reliable as any other? For example, if the person has
had no formal education in a discipline, can they - by "muddling through" - compete with the interpretations
and truth claims of a man or woman who has been educated in that particular discipline? Clearly not. The
person on the number 47 bus, opining about the nature of politics, is not as justified in their view as the person who has
spent ten years studying political philosophy and 'political science'. And it seems to take at least 5,000 hours, and
probably more than 10,000 hours, to reach professional competence in any major discipline.
That
was the limitation of my 'debunking definition'. So now I want to present the 'other side' of a fuller definition. This one
comes from John McLeod:
According to McLeod (1994: 4-5), there are six aspects to the definition
of research:
“I. The concept of critical inquiry. Research grows out of
the primary human tendency to need to learn, to know, to solve problems. These impulses are fundamentally critical; the need
to know is the counterpoint to the sense that what is known is not quite right.
“2. Research
as a process of inquiry. Any research involves a series of steps or stages. Knowledge must be constructed.
There is a cyclical process of observation, reflection and experimentation.
“3. Research
is systematic. … any investigation takes place within a theoretical system of concepts or constructs.
… research involves the application of a set of methods or principles, the purpose of which is to achieve knowledge
that is as valid and truthful as possible.
“4. The products of research are propositions
or statements.
…
“5. Research findings
are judged according to criteria of validity, truthfulness or authenticity.
To make a claim that a statement is based on research is to imply that it is in some way more valid or accurate than a statement
based on personal opinion.
…
“6. Research is communicated
to interested others; it takes place within a research community. No single research study has much meaning
in isolation. Research studies provide the individual pieces that fit together to create the complex mosaic of the
literature of a topic”.
Source: Mcleod, John (1994/2003) Doing Counselling
Research, London: Sage.
I will return to this subject later...
Sunday
10th May 2009
~~~
PS: Thursday 8th March 2012: I have now had time
to work on this subject some more, and I have created a new page, on *Counselling Research*, HERE!
~~~
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
See the Site Map***
~~~