How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

experiential Understanding 65
And a few general comments: The purpose of qualitative research
is usually not to reach general social science understandings but understandings
about a particular situation. By understanding better the complexity
of the situation, we should contribute to setting policy and professional
practice.
We should look both for the general and the particular—as David
Hamilton did (in Chapter 2) with the case of the chairs—but each of
those aims wants to eat up all the budget. Good instruments are very
expensive to develop. Good observations and interviews take lots of
time. The things we want most to do leave little time for the rest.
Some people will say that collecting “experiences” is not real
research and cannot help science. As Bent Flyvbjerg (2001) said, “They
are wrong.”
How is making professional insight more complex much different
from building science? Experiential research can help a practi tioner
reconsider— during action—what needs to be paid attention to. New
experience changes intuition. Formal knowledge can do the same, sometimes
better. Professionals need both reason and intuition, criterial
thinking and experiential thinking.
One of the epistemological strengths of experiential research is
the belief that how activities work (activities such as campaigning and
therapy) is situational. What the campaigner or therapist is doing is
influenced by culture, the home environments of the people they work
with, the conditions of the meeting place, and the personalities involved.
Describing these describes how things work.
Experiential researchers sometimes use case studies to probe the
meanings of situations and to report to readers the complexity of personal
performance. Some of us try to extend to readers a vicarious experience
of the activities, thus a better opportunity to decide in their own
way how things work.
In experiential research there is a need for participants and outsiders
to interpret what is going on. So the researchers present vignettes,
pictures, dialogues for discussion, verification, and interpretation—
seeking alternative meanings. What first appears as a subjective account
of happenings—when triangulated and reasoned through by respected
others—can become a trusted part of the report.
I have been talking about what all of you do every day, seeking to
understand things, criterially and experientially. Doing formal research
requires both, too. And each can be done with sensitivity and discipline.