I did appreciate how Dowling and Brown (2010) explained the process of how a researcher typically narrows down the empirical field of research and described the complexities in gathering data and recording observations in Chapter 2 of their book ‘Doing Research/Reading Research’. I’ve always thought that doing educational research is a lot of hard and time-consuming work but what I didn’t realise is that despite all the hard work and overcoming the different levels of complications, the researcher’s finding can still be open to inaccuracies and misinterpretations in the end.
I assume every researcher’s goal is to collect their relevant data in its most objective and accurate form. But according to Dowling and Brown, there is a paradox that exist between any observer and the information they are collecting. The mere fact that there is an observer in a room will affect the behaviour of any subject(s) being observed.
A logical way to draw uninhibited behaviour from subjects is for the researcher to intentionally become a participant in the research experience. However, Dowling and Brown mentioned another level of complexity in this situation which they refer to as the epistemological paradox. Here the researcher has to make the information gathered through personal participation in the research activity impartial and objectified to convert them into viable data which creates the said paradox. This approach therefore doesn’t necessarily provide the clearest view of the empirical field.
With this in mind, it is common for researchers to use the methodologial triangulation approach which simply means the use of two or more methods to approach the same problem (Dowling and Brown, 2010 p.7) . Surely, using this approach should be able to address the paradoxical issue?
This approach reminds me of the old fable of the elephant and the three blind men, wherein each of the blind men were asked by the King to feel a distinct part of the elephant and find out what it was. They did what they were told and compared notes but in the end found themselves in complete disagreement simply because they insisted that their assumption was the correct one. Had they put their assumptions together, they would have made the right conclusion that it was actually an elephant. I would have thought that the methodological triangulation approach would have the same value in education research. But according to Dowling and Brown, this is not necessarily the case, because the empirical field in a learning environment is not clearly defined as the ‘elephant’ in the story. This method only provides different perspective of the empirical field, but does not completely overcome the paradox.
Reading this chapter has helped me realize what researchers in education have to go through to be able to provide the most comprehensive and near-accurate answers to different issues and problems in teaching and learning. But at the same time, it has made me more critical of how they were able to find those answers.
Reference:
Dowling, P. & Brown (2010). Doing Research/Reading Research: Re-interrogating Education, Second Edition. UK, Routeledge pp. 6-17.
