Research and the Theoretical Field - Pauldowling.me

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53 production. The organisation of productions as collections of performances and repertoires as collections of productions is, in the way that I have described it, a strongly institutionalised structure and it is easy to see where any particular performance or production stands within it. Members of theatre companies will have acquired competencies that will enable them to review performances and productions in a more or less consistent way—at the very least, they will have some common technical terms in the language that they use in discussing them. We might refer to this competence as a language or mode of interrogation of theatrical performances and productions. In this chapter, I want to think of research in the same kind of way. In particular, I want to think of the language of research methods that we are developing in the MRes as a competence that serves as a mode of interrogation (see Brown & Dowling, 1998) of research performances. Of course, research performances do not always fit quite so neatly into the kind of structure that I’ve outlined for theatrical performances. In general, it is the distinctiveness of each research performance—its originality—rather than its place in a series of similars that tends to be foregrounded. We might think of the problematic that the researcher establishes in their literature review as a kind of ‘repertoire’, then the individual performance stands as a contribution to this repertoire. Individual researchers or teams may develop a consistency of approach that might be thought of as a mode of production, then each performance stands as a contribution to this and the particular mode of production stands as a contribution to the repertoire, which is the problematic. But these metaphors probably should be pushed much further than this. The key point is that each research performance, whilst of necessity having something unique about it, is also seen as contributing to something bigger than itself that is of interest not just to the researcher, but to a field of researchers and quite possibly others as well (as we shall explore in Chapter 6). The question for this chapter is, how does research establish this generalisability I have described (in the introduction to Chapter 2) the theoretical field of research as being concerned with general claims and debates; and the empirical field as consisting of local instances of practice and experience. The theoretical space of a research performance is, as I suggested in the introduction to Chapter 4, in a sense the ‘known universe’ of the research—a universe that may be known in advance or on completion of the research and to very many or very few people, but is ‘known’ at some point by someone. Of necessity, this theoretical space must be capable of describing more than the very particular setting of any given research performance. Theory, in other words, is one assurance of generalisability. But is is not a sufficient guarantor of generalisability or, at least, not of productive generalisability. Otherwise there would be no way of choosing between theories, no way of discarding incompetent work. My claim, of course, is that it is the mode of interrogation that is being presented on this MRes that constitutes this competence. It is the subjection of a research performance to this mode of interrogation that constitutes a critical review in terms of the practice of research. It is important to recognise that ‘critical’ does not necessarily mean negative and certainly not destructive (unless it’s really warranted). ‘Critical’, in this context, means RESEARCH & THE THEORETICAL FIELD
54 opening up to scrutiny on the basis of the principles of research practice, the mode of interrogation in order to explore the extent to which the performance has value beyond itself, to assess its generalisability. Such a review may implicate a very wide range of methodological concepts. Take sampling, for instance. There are many ways in which the sampling strategies that have been deployed may impose on the generalisability of the research. One is the impact of random sampling error on the accuracy of quantitative research— there is a brief discussion of this below. However, the choice of sampling strategy can influence generalisability in a variety of ways. Nicholson et al (1998)—briefly discussed in the introduction to the last chapter—chose to focus on primary age children. Now the size of their sample—crucial in the measure of random sampling error—is almost irrelevant to the question, ‘to what extent and in what ways does their research generalise to other phases of education, or to children of any age in different sociocultural settings or even to primary age children in 2006’ In Brown & Dowling (1998) we go into some detail on the ways in which particular choices taken in research performance relating to a range of methodological concepts might serve to enhance or delimit generalisability. Here want to look at just three key terms in the mode of interrogation. Now it is important to reassert that there is a wide range of modes of research and generalisability does not work in the same way in all modes. As I have indicated, research in the natural sciences is probably the most strongly institutionalised field, so I’ll start there. Let’s have another look at the question introduced in the last chapter, from Babbedge et al (2005): ‘Can a photometric redshift code reliably determine dust extinction’ Now, despite an ancient BSc in physics (including a course in astrophysics, as I recall, and read at the same institution as the principal author of this paper), I cannot claim to have a very clear idea of what this research is about. Nevertheless, its title and abstract (see the introduction to Chapter 4) together with a Google search 4 give us some clues. It seems that physicists can infer a good deal about the stellar evolutionary history of a galaxy from its intrinsic spectral energy distribution (SED), that is, by the intensity of light transmitted by it at different frequencies. However, dust in the galaxy absorbs and reflects some of this light; this effect is called ‘dust extinction’. Essentially, physicists need to be able to correct for dust extinction in order to determine the SED. Unfortunately, it seems to have proven difficult to devise simple methods to measure dust extinction. Babbedge et al have produced a performance that explores the potential in terms of ‘accuracy’ and ‘reliability’ of using photometrics for this purpose. Even in the absence of a great deal of competence in the field, it’s fairly easy to see who might be interested in this research and this group would certainly include those interested in researching the formation and evolution of galaxies. The key to the nature and extent of their interest is going to be in these terms, ‘accuracy’ and ‘reliability’ and in a third term not mentioned here, ‘validity’. 4 See, for example, http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/mxt/research.html. RESEARCH & THE THEORETICAL FIELD
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Master of Research (Online) Researc
Page 4 and 5: 3 Introduction Only theoretical obj
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Page 8 and 9: 7 one or two hours of work, but thi
Page 10 and 11: 9 • the term ‘problematic’ (c
Page 12 and 13: 11 Your examination essay should me
Page 14 and 15: 13 Chapter 1 Towards Theory Week 1
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Page 18 and 19: 17 literary modes or, as is usually
Page 20 and 21: 19 Chapter 2 The Theoretical and Em
Page 22 and 23: 21 Introduction: The Theoretical an
Page 24 and 25: 23 Having made a start in the field
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Page 34 and 35: 33 a performance of Shakespeare’s
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Page 38 and 39: 37 Bakhtin) are really theoretical
Page 40 and 41: 39 Essentially, this is the second
Page 42 and 43: 41 Chapter 4 Generating a Question
Page 44 and 45: 43 problematic—cleared a space—
Page 46 and 47: 45 measurement protocol (Balmer/pho
Page 48 and 49: 47 Douglas’s ‘cultural theory
Page 50 and 51: 49 3. reversing the order of the so
Page 52 and 53: 51 e. Practical issues (such as acc
Page 56 and 57: 55 Babbedge et al report that ‘th
Page 58 and 59: 57 He is referring to research by a
Page 60 and 61: 59 Answer the following questions i
Page 62 and 63: 61 Introduction: The use-value of r
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Page 68 and 69: 67 This is precisely because of the
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Page 82 and 83: 81 Postings to Board B17, Philosoph
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Page 94 and 95: 93 Further Reading Basset, E. H. an
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103 Bernstein, B. B. (2000). Pedago
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105 Geertz, C. (1973 (2000 Edn)). T
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107 and academically able students:
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109 Discussion Boards Week B0 Gener
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111 Week 7 Week 6 Week 5 Week 4 Exp
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