Methodology and approach

In general, the approach in this work has developed rather organically, beginning with interactions during studies, and then maturing into initial research inquiries alongside the work on assisting in the initiation of the CS program, before actually applying to the doctoral school and initiating research. Later on, findings from the interviews, alongside other studies and interactions, fed into the development of the inquiry and the gradual initiation of the analytical phases of assessment.

The assessment combines various types of data (both qualitative and

quantitative) under a shared lens for assessment that utilizes understanding from various theories introduced from the field (and through interviews). The method of analysis consists of thematic coding, familiar to most qualitative research.

Overall, together with the theoretical insights presented in the next section, these ingredients form the main theoretic and methodological lens for this research.

A case study with personal involvement

I was introduced to the contextual setting of this research during my MA studies in 2007, when I attended one of the courses preceding the CS minor (Sustainable Urban and Industrial Design; see section 3.1.2). After graduation, I worked as an assistant in the university’s environment program and then as a research

assistant in an EU-funded project for learning sustainable design. In Spring 2009, before the initiation of the CS minor, I also had the opportunity to work as an assistant in these preparations. Having already recognized a similar focus of interest in future work, I realized that CS would act as a good case to assess interprofessional design action and learning for sustainability. In 2010, my proposal for the doctoral research was accepted.

Robert Yin (2009, p. 18) defines a case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life

context.” According to Yin (2009), one important phase in such a study process is to use propositions that are tested on data to identify similarities in constructs through pattern matching. In case study as a methodology, a distinction can also be made with a single case study and a multiple case study. According to Yin (2009, pp. 47-49), single case studies can be used to test theory, or if the case is

“extreme” or “typical,” “revelatory” or “longitudinal.” In the case of this research, theory is constructed and tested in a longitudinal research process, also involving a revelatory nuance (in connection with progressing interaction in CS, or with the research inquiry itself).

Another methodological approach taken forth in developing the approach was the grounded theory method (GTM), in which the inquiry evolves through encounters in data and connects to various components of interest that emerge in the process of research; “all is data” (Glaser, 1998, p. 9), including theories and personal reflections.⁸¹ In GTM, similarly to the case study as a method,

propositions are tested on data. While a similar process of pattern matching is

81 In GTM there is also a variety of views on the process, and in respect to many of them, this re-search can be only loosely interpreted as GTM.

undertaken in GTM, the scope of the reflection reaches further from the data to include theories and their conceptual elements. GTM helped to connect the various elements of the inquiry into one process, and the findings to one framework.

Grounded theory methodology

GTM is an approach to research originally defined by Glaser and Strauss, in their seminal work The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967), as “the discovery of theory from data” (p. 2). GTM “was designed to open up a space for the development of new, contextualized theories” (Willig, 2013, p. 69). GTM produces theories that are “grounded” in the data, “specific to the context in which they had been developed” (Willig, 2013, p. 69). Grounded theory as theory “is the end-product of this process,” providing “an explanatory framework with which to understand the phenomenon under investigation” (Willig, 2013, p. 70).

In GTM, “all is data” from the “briefest of comment to the lengthiest interview, written words in a magazine, books and newspapers, documents, observations, biases of self and others” (Glaser, 1998, p. 9). The three basic elements of theory generation in GTM are sampling data, coding data, and writing memos (Glaser, 1978). Its research approach is built upon two key concepts: constant

comparison and theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Similarly, in this research, the development of the structure and the identification of the units of analysis have taken place in the course of the work, and each step taken in the data gathering has refined and iterated the approach for the next one.

Furthermore, my analysis has been based on the interplay between various materials, findings, and researcher’s field notes. This work was not, however, guided by GTM methodology from its beginning; nor was GTM followed robustly in the data assessment.

However, as my research combines perspectives from several discourses, the assessment of the case is very fitting to the scope GTM. In respect to GTM, although there have been a lot of violations of the Glaserian methodology (Glaser, 1978), several key ingredients are in their proper place. Hence, I perceive GTM as a valuable ingredient in my toolbox for both data assessment and the overall structuring of my approach. Perhaps the GTM methodology defies the positivist logic — or even the constructivist's — but it seems fully compatible with reflective and thus dialectic reasoning in CHAT and with translations in networks as in ANT, and with the postmodern understanding of fluidity in science and discourse in general. This perspective understands knowledge as a result of a progressive but sometimes also abrupt development, and its quality as somewhat larger than simply matters of fact and fiction.

Grounded theory is used as an inductive method to structure the inquiry along the areas of interest identified as the research has progressed. Although not that rigorously, in this work GTM is visible in how the results of the data gathering have contributed to the inquiry itself (for example, interview topics): on the way, the inquiry that was based on CHAT constructs was expanded with concepts of interest emerging from studies in PT and ANT, such as translation and

hybridization used as constructs of interest in interaction between phases of activity. Furthermore, the three phases of CS interaction have themselves

emerged as new concepts, albeit similar to existing models, and in parallel to the approach to the interprofessional design process in general (see Chapter 2).

However, in utilizing CHAT as the main guiding theory — although the process of research has in many ways also been unorthodox for a CHAT process — this work distances itself from GTM as it would be rigorously performed (with no guiding theory at all).

Mixed methods for organizational practice research

The theoretical and methodological approach taken forward in this research can also be described as a multilevel research approach, a fitting approach to study hierarchically nested social systems such as can be perceived to exist in

education (Hofstede, 1995; Hüttner & van der Eeden, 1995). As discussed, in this research the systems of focus relate to learning, teaching, and management, with different motivations to involve themselves in CS activities. In many respects, this understanding also resulted from the data itself. Consequently, in assessing data, this research utilizes mixed methods research, referring to a research mixing qualitative and quantitative data, several methodologies, and also possibly several theoretical paradigms (see, for example, Johnson & Christensen, 2014).

According to Johnson & Onwuegbuzie (2004), mixed methods research can be perceived as a “natural complement to traditional qualitative and quantitative research” (p. 14). The two major types of assessment in mixed methods research are mixed-model designs and mixed-method designs, the former focusing on constructing analysis “by mixing qualitative and quantitative approaches within and across the stages of research,” the latter on “the inclusion of a quantitative phase and a qualitative phase in an overall research study” (Johnson &

Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p.19).

A crucial feature of mixed methods research “is its methodological pluralism or eclecticism” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 14). Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004, p. 16) link mixed methods to pragmatism as its “philosophical partner.”

In their view, the pragmatic approach manages to transcend the idealist and materialist research discourses. According to the authors, “taking a pragmatic and balanced or pluralist position will help improve communication among

researchers” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 16). With the academic context as a focus of research action, they conclude how mixed methods research has

“a great potential to promote a shared responsibility in the quest for attaining accountability for educational quality” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 24).

Synthesizing an integrated approach

Activity theory (CHAT) follows the constructivist approach taken in ANT, but takes it to describe activity through a rather positivist, simplified model. It thus

acknowledges both intentional action (subject and object) and human abilities (limitations, social dimensions), as well as rules, communities, and tools (similar to a positivist process) as simple and self-evident concepts, whereas ANT

emphasizes full symmetry — to “employ the same analytical and descriptive framework when faced with either a human, a text or a machine” (Cressmann, 2009, p. 3) — for all the components equally. However, CHAT should not be understood as a philosophical stance, but rather as a tool for modelling

interaction. Still, the CHAT approach remains sufficiently constructive and flexible, as activity systems and their addressed components are not fixed, but always on the move. Their movement and meaning are frozen in time for assessment and development activities.

In contemporary discourse on interprofessional practice, the interplay between artifacts and human collaborators is discussed, and while different models exist, the early ideas on progressive education in Dewey’s work underline how new knowledge is emerging through the interaction between the two elements (see section 2.3.1). However, to take into account the complexities in contemporary knowledge-building activities, artifacts may call for further interpretation.

Similarly, in the CHAT view, a “specifically human type of consciousness is needed” to make sense of “associations between heterogenous entities” and to create “new assemblies of materials and humans” (Miettinen, 1999, p. 177). In this view, the ANT approach becomes contested in “decision-making […] under uncertainty and complexity,” as this process emphasizes the separation between

“intangible […] information which is inert, passive and classified as non-human”

and “human agents who are active and capable of making complicated decisions”

(Lopes, 2011, p. 311).

In his research focusing on decision-making under uncertainty, Lopes (2011) utilizes ANT objects in assessing the interview data and in structuring new theoretical constructs through a GTM process. In his work, the GTM process produces main categories that link with ANT conceptualizations of inscription, translation, and punctualizations (see section 2.1.1). Similarly, in CHAT both the contributed information and the artifacts used in the collaborative process are in focus, but a distinction is made between human actors and their environment.

In developing the inquiry for this research, the focus is on an activity where a group of actors undertake an exercise of collaborative framing and re-framing (as in Ylirisku, 2013) and utilize processes such as translation between epistemic approaches and perceptions of the activity. The development of artifacts, tools, and instruments (to support the process of design and as outputs of interaction) is an essential part of collaborative design activity. In this respect, CHAT offers the main components of the inquiry.