THE RESEARCH PROCESS

My experiences of action learning and of my project have broadened my perspective of research. However I think it is pertinent to ask the question What were my views of research before starting my PhD? This is of benefit in order for the reader to understand the change in perspective I have experienced as a result of my learning. I will therefore explain the theoretical framework within which I was operating before and some of the reasons for this.

1.6.1 Why was I a Positivist ?

At the start of the action learning programme I was a positivist (Cohen and Manion 1994 p 9). I can say this now that I have spent time exploring research approaches yet at the time I did not realise that I was. My first exposure to the term was when at school through a Monty Python sketch. In it two people were in a general knowledge contest with one being asked simple questions and the other extraordinarily hard ones. One of these being about logical positivism and Cartesian dualism. I laughed at the contrasting complexity but never understood what the terms meant. Later on when I undertook research for my higher radiography qualification the focus was on the methods that could be used to undertake research and not on the underpinning philosophy or alternative paradigms. Even when studying for my MSc which was in Behavioural Biology and Healthcare the emphasis was on combining different research approaches to behaviour although they were largely measurement techniques. Topics studied included genetics, biological rhythms, sleep, ethology, neurotransmitters and statistics with a small section on quantitative and qualitative methods. Interestingly a Police statistician who told us not to believe any of the police statistics because they were subject to manipulation, taught the research and statistics module. My dissertation was an investigation of the personality differences between groups of radiographers using a validated and commercially available personality

questionnaire, the Saville and Holdsworth Concept Model, which was analysed using inferential statistics. So even though this could be described as a social science qualification positivism was the implicit and commanding message.

Reflecting on another possible influential source of my positivism I thought about the effect of my being a radiographer. In health the medical model is the dominant way of thinking. There is one “truth” which is known or can be discovered by using a hypothetico- deductive approach, coming up with a statement that you believe might be true and testing it out, and empirical study, by using your observations of data to look for patterns. This domination by the medical profession has affected all health care professions but particularly radiography. My profession has been controlled by radiologists, qualified doctors specialising in the study of diagnosing from images, for many years. (Some of this history is presented on chapter 2.) This may have contributed to my positivist stance, as might my early school life.

My educational experiences at school also exhibited characteristics of positivism. There was a focus on knowledge as a fixed entity. This was reinforced when studying the sciences as the experimentation and hypothesis generation led to something already known and in the textbook. I do not remember any philosophy being taught prior to being introduced to science in order to explain the underpinning ideas. There was an implicit acceptance in the teaching system that there was “one truth” that we could discover. As Chalmers (1982) put it:

“..knowledge is treated as something outside rather than inside the minds or brains of individuals.”

Teachers had all the knowledge and you were expected to learn it. Rarely did I hear a teacher say “We do not know the answer to that yet.” There was also an obsession with regurgitating this knowledge to pass the exam. Objectivity was a prized skill in the sciences. There was no alternative way of thinking allowed as it could not be catered for at a busy school which had to produce as many children with “O” or “A” level exam passes as possible.

Reflecting on this question, I realise the power this research paradigm had on me at the time. Positivism was more than just a research paradigm it was a way of thinking and affected my beliefs, values and the way I interact with others. The notion of “one truth” which exists out there was an interesting one. It led me to believe that knowledge and theory was discovered by scientists or teachers and passed on to mere mortals like myself. This developed within me a reliance on authority as these individuals or institutions had the knowledge that I needed and could provide it for me at times when I did not know the answers myself. This is a form of social control.

Positivism encouraged me to focus on knowledge and theory put it on a pedestal. Society at large tends towards this valuing of knowledge. One only has to look at the number of game shows on television. “Who wants to be a millionaire?” (ITV production 2000) offers 1 million pounds to anyone who can answer 16 general knowledge questions. Even the traditional highbrow programme “University Challenge” (BBC2 production) is largely knowledge based, as was “Mastermind” (BBC1 production). This would suggest that society views clever people as those who are able to remember facts.

Accounts of important theories such as the theory of relativity are often presented in the form of dehumanised statements that seem to bear little resemblance to what is important for human relationships. If there is “one truth” what does this mean for interpersonal relationships? At a personal level I interpreted this notion of truth as there being only one right or wrong. I believe this has had an impact on the way I relate to other people. I saw others who had a different view to me as being either right in which case I was wrong and would need to change my thoughts or as wrong in which case I would need to persuade them of my view because I was “right”. This fuelled by my competitiveness hampered my interpersonal and intrapersonal development.

This way of thinking also affected the way I supervised BSc and MSc student projects. I valued the use of inferential statistics in research as being the “proper way” of researching and gave little credibility to qualitative research. I rationalised this by thinking that you could not trust the subjects nor researchers to tell the truth therefore you needed to use statistics to “prove” that new knowledge existed. Therefore I steered students into doing quantitative research and perpetuated the thinking that I had been subjected to. I was also unaware of what qualitative research was and had never undertaken any.

It is quite frightening now to think that such a powerful and pervading way of thinking was subconscious. I had learnt it not by Revans’s “sober and deliberate action” but by taking on the implicit beliefs of the culture and narrow learning that I had been exposed to.

Before summarising this first chapter I will explain the reason for embarking on an Mphil/PhD programme in action learning at what was then called the Revans Centre for Action Learning and Research and make explicit the aims and objectives of my project as it was planned in October 1997.

When considering whether to undertake this programme I was encouraged to read "A guide to learning independently" by Marshall and Rowland (1981). This encourages the reader to reflect on several questions such as, what are the positive aspects of your study skills? what worries you most about the course? It emerged from this that I was questioning whether I had the intellectual capacity to undertake a PhD, that I was afraid of failing and that I was afraid of the effect on the quality of my current teaching work of undertaking this qualification in tandem with my work. I had concerns over my memory and my relationships with colleagues as they would have to cover some of my duties. In spite of these concerns I still went ahead.

I decided I would like to develop my research and research supervision skills having had only a few papers to my name and supervised only one MSc dissertation student. My research experience had essentially been in the area of “hard” science research in radiography and in behavioural biology where I looked at true experimental research and evaluative research of equipment and procedures. Yet I now had an opportunity to move into an unknown area, that of educational research. This form of “soft” science research presented a different set of problems to the researcher and the research techniques that could be employed were new to me. In addition to this I was moving to a higher level of research where I needed to be researching to produce new knowledge. This required me to develop new skills and presented new challenges.

At this time I was interested in problem-based learning and interprofessional education. These were topics I was considering researching for my thesis. Although I gave it some thought I eventually chose not to look at problem-based learning as I felt that there had already been a lot of research in this area and I didn’t have any ideas as to what aspect I could focus on. Interestingly reflecting upon this now I realise that I had not done a

thorough literature search and really tried to apply myself to investigate the research that had been done. Multiprofessional education seemed to have been less researched in Oct 1997 and so I decided to look at this. This major decision had actually been more of an intuitive one than an objective one yet I felt that it was the right way to go.

The initial project outline is in appendix 1. This has evolved as I have learned more about the subject and myself. The aims were revised and broadened to include some personal goals after the interim report. These were to improve

 my research skills

 my ability to supervise research at MSc and PhD level.

 as a teacher and as a person.

After the phase one evaluation I refined the project aims and presented my final plans to my set on the 2nd February 2000 (appendix 11).