What is Research

The Lecture;
What is Research?
The age of enlightenment
Process of rationality and reason.
Enlightenment= period in 18th century when scientific/philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds.
Secularisation
Reason rather than metaphysics
Belief in a unified scientific method (scientism)
Positivism

The two cultures and the scientific revolution;
C.P.Snow (1959)

Positivism;

• Research should always leave to positive knowable definite outcome.
• Facts with a capital F.
• Separation of fact from value (value freedom).
• Objectivity.
• Measurement rather than argument.
• The facts speak for themselves.
• Causation.
• Separation and control of variables.

Approaches to Research;

• Empiricism
• Quantitative Research
• Qualitative Research
• Subjectivism

Mothodology;
Method - a way of proceeding about something in a systematic or logic manner.
Methodology - The science of method, employed in a particular activity.

Some Methodologies;

• Historical 
• Sociological
• Feminism
• Gender studies
• Communication theories
• Marxism
• Postmodernist
• Data Collection

Espistemology

The Hermeneutic circle;

Source

• Developed by Heidegger
• Interpretations is a process designed to clarify an experience and assign meaning to it.
• The is aided by the hermeneutic circle which involves looking at different perspectives on events and relating individual components.

Three overlapping levels of interpretation;

Source

• Behind the text
• In/Through the text
• In front of the text

What research do you need to undertake regarding who your creativity is for?

Who is your research for?