Methodological stance and research approach

With a starting position developed from the literature review, the research was not neutral or un-biased when compared to the traditional grounded theory research from a positivist viewpoint. There, the researcher is similarities and differences between academic and practitioner views on design thinking were revealed in the findings of the literature review. The different viewpoints between academia and practice highlighted the difficulty when articulating the meaning of design thinking. In order to successfully articulate its meaning; the researcher would need to understand the social contexts that the viewpoints emerged from. These contexts were important as they could be factors that shaped the differences in academic and practitioner viewpoints. Therefore, it would be impossible to accurately articulate design thinking’s meaning without fully understanding those contexts.

As a result, the research carried out for this PhD was from a constructivist viewpoint. The constructivist grounded theory acknowledges the researcher as an active instrument in the research, therefore allowing the researcher to interact with the participants to create new knowledge (Charmaz, 2000: 510). It also encourages the participants to share their

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experience in their terms; hence, creating the knowledge exchange atmosphere required. The research conducted in this PhD used existing work from academia and practice as a foundation. Therefore, to identify the data that would further the articulation and understanding of design thinking as well as generating new knowledge, an atmosphere that encouraged knowledge exchange was required. This atmosphere would encourage the participants to express their viewpoints freely; doing so would allow the data to emerge from its natural contexts. This would provide opportunities for the research to understand the similarities or differences behind participants’ viewpoints, as a result, clarify and catalogue them to generate new knowledge to add to the existing body of work related to design thinking.

With the methodological stance chosen the next decision to be made was whether qualitative or quantitative data is required for this thesis. Table 10 presents the differences between the two types of data:

Paradigm/ Perspectives Qualitative data Quantitative data What does the data

Subjective or objective Subjective Objective

Should the researcher

interact with the data? Yes No

Types of data collected Valid: real, rich, deep data Reliable: hard and replicable data

Flexible or fixed? Flexible Fixed

Table 10 The differences between qualitative and quantitative data, table adapted from Oakley (1999: 156).

Qualitative research focuses on collecting and analysing information in as many forms as possible. The information gathered is mainly non-numeric and the information tends to be used to focus on exploring in as much detail as possible. Qualitative research aims to create depth with the data rather than quantity or breadth, therefore, the sample size required for this type of research is also smaller. Quantitative research on the other hand focuses on large and representative data sets; in quantitative

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research it usually concentrates on numeric information (Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006: 64).

The following objectives were set for this research:

1. Articulate the meanings and understandings of design thinking since the 1960s.

2. Clarify if design thinking is thinking done by designers.

3. Explore the relationship between academic and practitioner application and understanding of design thinking

With the research objectives set, qualitative research would be the most suitable way of conducting the research. Quantitative research would not be a suitable way to conduct the research as it focuses on numerical information. However the nature of the objectives, using objective one: to articulate and understand the meaning of design thinking since the 1960s as an example, quantitative research would not be suitable as numeric data would not provide the necessary rich deep data required to achieve the objective. Similarly for the other two objectives, quantitative research would not be appropriate because these objectives would require a deep understanding and explore the ‘insider’ perspective (Blaxter et al, 2006: 65) in order to fulfil them.

One of the benefits of this methodology is that it gives the research a flexible approach to use a variety of data collection methods during the research along with a systematic structure to the research (Charmaz, 2006: 2). By employing this methodology the researcher was able to build a systematic research structure that can house the different data collection methods that are planned to be used during the research. As Robson (2002: 166) pointed out a ‘good’ flexible research structure allows rigorous data collection via different methods, therefore, producing rich qualitative data. Furthermore it also maximises the chances of the researcher reaching out to the participants as various data collection methods could be used. The structure also provides guidelines for the

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researcher when it comes to designing the research instrument to ensure the data collection methods generate the same type of data.

Along with the rich qualitative data that it could generate, the methodology allows the researcher to discover ideas or concepts that can be used to create hypotheses from the field that can be used to generate theory (Robson, 2002: 191). This is particularly appealing for this study as it allows the researcher to constantly evolve the initial theory and research instrument content throughout the duration of the PhD to integrate and gather the most up to date information.

With the research following the protocols of a constructivist grounded theory approach and generating knowledge with qualitative data; it has been acknowledged that the research conducted would have a certain degree of bias. The bias within the research conducted would likely occurred through the researcher’s prolonged involvement with participants and fieldwork (Robson, 2011: 157) in order to gather useful data to generate new knowledge. The biases occurred in the research will be discussed further in the relevant chapters of this thesis.