Perspective

My understanding of non-positivist(qualitative) researchⁱ

 

Bal Chandra Luitel

<bcluitel at yahoo dot com>             

Kathmandu University, Nepal

&

Curtin University of Technology, Australia 

 

The world is constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed through continuous interpretive performance of humans. 'non-positivist (largely qualitative)research’ captures this interpretive phenomenon from multiple and contrary lenses. This type of research provides no room to the researcher to probe an 'anticipated result' but leads to explore layered complexities associated with the studied phenomenon. In this sense, non-positivist researchis different from positivist (largely quantitative) research in three ways. First, non-positivist researchhelps uncover multiple truths rather than a single one. Second, non-positivist research uses different sets of assumptions of knowledge claim from that of the positivist tradition. It is so because of existing epistemological pluralism in the field of knowledge traditions. Third, non-positivist traditions have rigour criteria different from the positivist one.

 

Given this situation, I have chosen to present an explanatory discourse of non-positivist researchto address a number of confusions and misinterpretations about non-positivist researchtraditions.  To me, this discourse may not be the final interpretation of non-positivist researchtraditions but a simple description of an initial practitioner. With much focus on basic issues, I have organised this discourse into three sections: beginning non-positivist research, conceptualising research methodologies and preparing write-ups.

 

Beginning Non-positivistResearch

 

My plan is to see the inner beauty of the paintings hanging over the wall. Suffocated by others’ ideas, I try to capture my positive mood and go about searching for the inner aesthetic of the non-representational painting. How to approach there? Whom to ask? Who are my respondents? Desperate me, I decide not to ask funny questions of anybody but to portray my feelings as soliloquy.          

 

Conventional researchers have been trained to specify all details at the beginning of their research. Furthermore conventionalism has also imparted its sacred knowledge to us to pretend that all research activities happened according to the plan. The plan-and-don’t-change approach to research does not seem to be viable even in the positivist traditionⁱⁱas many researchers develop better ideas later on. However, it has just become a conventionalised ritual that researchers must not change their preset objectives as the validity of their research may be in question.

 

Compared with the conventionality surrounding in positivistⁱⁱⁱ(quantitative reductionist) research, non-positivist research seems to be a complex endeavour for initial researchers and for those who situate themselves knowingly or unknowingly in the paradigm of quantitative/positivistresearch. Competing questions are ready for clarification. Howto start non-positivist research? How to formulate research questions (or objectives)? What about the research proposal? Let me explore some possible answers to these questions based on my experience as a novice non-positivist educational researcher.^iv

 

A non-positivist researcher does not believe that everything should necessarily be crystal clear at the outset. However s/he does need an orientation that her/his primary task is to 'travel' the field in order to uncover the research questions. Many non-positivist researchers start with trialling their own initial ideas in actual settings to see whether or not their problem exists. This is called a grounded approach. In this approach, the researcher tries to make sense of the phenomenon and develops possible research questions which may change later as a result of continuous and prolonged field visits.

 

Let me talk about non-positivist research questions by referring to my dilemma associated with researching Nepalese mathematics teaching and learning landscapes^v.  I found that a native approach to uncovering one’s research problem/question is to identify a dilemma, I also used my experience of the dilemma of studying and teaching under culturally dislocated mathematics curricula^vi. I uncovered my research questions through my continuous performavitity^vii of writing. In this approach, one may choose a personal dilemma and then develop a set of research questions of significance. For instance, I may choose a dilemma that my subordinates always criticise me. Primarily, this seems to be a personal problem. However, as I start to uncover various causes of their criticism during initial 'fieldwork', I may develop questions—What factors led the subordinates to criticise their boss? What different images of their boss are constructed by the subordinates?—as the opener of my inquiry.

 

Some research questions may be crystallised after an in-depth review of documents and theories^viii.Reviewingdocuments and revisiting theoretical underpinningscan be useful in policy, philosophical, pedagogical, narrative and literary research. To me, uncovering questions for research is an act of constructing significant questions. My notion of ‘significant questions’ is twofold. First, the research questions should be significant to the researcher. They should be internalised (cf. externalised) by the researcher. An awareness of belongingto a particular professional community and a sense of ownership of the research questions are also important at the point of genesisofnon-positivist research. Second, research questions should be worth exploring as they should indicate a requirement for depthful exploration to search for multipleanswers.

 

Writingobjectives is not very important in non-positivist research because complexities enshrined in the research questions may not be reduced toor delimitedby so-called measurable objectives. Therefore, preference is given to depthful research questions rather than to compressed objectives. However, non-positivist researchersdo not simply start with objectives or research questions. They may start with a problem that enables them to come up with a number of research questions.

 

Working as a non-positivist researcher, I have observed two modes of supervising research students^ix: pushing researchers into a continuous performativity mode of research or prescribing them to follow a linear path. Indeed, the choices is a matter of how research supervisors prefers to make research students to learn, how clearlysupervisors embrace the particular epistemology of non-positivistresearch, how they regard their roleas supervisor/mentor, and how they perceive the knowledge that is constructedwhile co-working with their research students. To me, a non-positivist researchsupervisor needsa dialogic quality so that s/he can allow the novice researcher to unfold multiple truths without hesitation. Perhaps, supervisors need to empower and encourage non-positivist researchstudents to explore their own research questions. Rather than the impositional epistemology of research, invitational approaches are better. Students need to be encouraged to reflect continuously upon theresearch questions, rather than to stopthinking aftertheir supervisors have ‘prescribed them’.

 

To me a non-positivist research proposal serves two purposes: 1) it serves as a basis of departure, and 2) it helps the researcher to outline his/her initial thoughts. The proposal format needs to be flexible to enable students to use different genres/texts. Even our traditional plan of research proposal that includes the headings of population, sample (and even analytical framework) does not help forthe development ofnon-positivist research proposals. Perhaps,emergent designs are more appropriate for organising anon-positivist researchproposal than the presepcified ones. To me, providing a ‘loosely defined structure’^xmay serve both purposes—orienting researchers and putting them into an open structure. This implies the fact thata non-positivist researcher himself/herself can develop a format to address the issue that s/he wants to explore.

 

Conceptualising Research Methodologies

 

Dialogues between me and I continue to uncover several new ideas embedded in my perspective of inner beauty. The dialectical interpretation goes on to stretch the continuum of me and I often demonstrating their contradictory world of interpretation.  Igauge the mood of me and me interprets that as a coercive act because the metertape tries to circumscribe ‘me’. The dialectical approach is not to answer particular questions but to uncover many contradictions embedded in my understanding.

 

Many people believe that non-positivist research entails only the textual part of the interpretive act. Indeed, this is a misconceptualisedunderstanding as non-positivist research is a crossdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary^xi and creative endeavour. Numbers are not the enemy of non-positivist research; instead non-positivist researchers can make use of numbers as a type of reality rather than the only reality. Therefore, methodologies that generate only a metonymical reality^xii are not appropriate in non-positivist research. Given this, conceptualising non-positivist research methodologies requires us to survey a number of continua^xiiiof methodological design, explore rigour criteria for non-positivist research, and talk about literature and theories in non-positivist research.

 

The methodological continua

I have used the term continuum to demonstrate my equal emphasison non-positivist and non-non-positivistmethods (however, my personal preference is omnipresent.). The term continuum helps dispel the myths of 'category' propagated by positivism which tried to curtail pluralism through its monocultural posture ofresearch epistemology. The notion of category helps embrace the perspective that research is categorising and hierarchy-making. The hierarchy between researcher and researched, ideas of powerful and powerless, researcher and supervisor, teacher and student, so-called hard knowledge and soft knowledge and so forth are invisible outputsof thelongstanding positivist tradition. To me, the notion of continuum helps to dissolve the visible and invisible hierarchies embedded in our actions and thoughts. The continua I discuss here are my crosscut of several artefacts, discourses and my own experience.

 

The idiographic-normative continuum:The continuum formed by idiographic and normative methodologies includes a number of methods that either help understand one’s ideasorgenerate norms as a product of research. To me, generating ideas requires a persistent engagement in the field, with persons and phenomena. Specifically, the methods purporting to generate ideas for in-depth understanding can be called idiographic while methods aimed at probing and generalising norms are normative. Here the name of method may not be sufficient to identify its alignment in the continuum. For instance, if a researcher uses interview as a method, then we need to look into her/his process and the interviewinstrument. Structured interviews are for norms rather than ideas. Indeed, thistype of interview isimposed in nature and does not serve the purpose of non-positivist understanding of the phenomena under study. Similarly, a researcher may hold a wrong view that structured observation helps generate actors’ multiple ideas. Therefore structured observations, which are based on checklists, do not serve the purpose of idiographic understanding of phenomena. As the idiographic methods aim to construct personal and consensual understanding of the phenomena,they require us to use emergent approach such as persistent observation, continuous reflective writing, collection of participants’ ideas, and artefacts related to the phenomenon.

 

The open-structured continuum:Starting research with a structured frame may lead us to a probing approach to research that does not serve the purpose of research as inquiry^xiv. The longstanding notion of research as following a secure path for secure results/findings is already in question. Emergence and creativity are an important part of non-positivist research. Specifically, in the field of social research including early childhood education, educational leadership, teacher education, curriculum, nursing and medical education, school improvement, social work, rural sociology^xv, it seems to me that researchers employ a trial-and-error approach and repair any losses later on. Their reporting demonstrates how they move diachronically through their open and emergent pathways. Perhaps, structured methods may delimit researchers from capturing non-static social settings. Even in the case of laboratory research, scientists have confessed that strikingly new ideas appear afterwards. Some examples of open methods are the unstructured interview, dialogue, persistent observation, hermeneutic^xvi(to some extent) and experimental ethnographies.

 

The voluntarism-deterministic continuum:Knowingly or unknowingly researchers make tacit assumptionsabout the nature of human behaviour while making a questionnaire, framing a survey, devising a methodological plan. Indeed, in non-positivistmethods it is unlikely to accept the notion of human behaviour as deterministic. Subscribing to determinism may put researchers in the cage of a worldview that purports all human actions occur in causative chains. However, non-positivist researchers align themselves with the perspective that human actions seem to be voluntary, and therefore the notion of causality masks the minutia of human actions. So, what types of method are required to capture the voluntary activities of humans? Does the existing research training of preparing a probing questionnaire, designing a structured plan and describing so called reality through only numbersenable researchers to conduct research through this cutting-edge approach to non-positivist research? Perhaps a non-positivist researcher and his/her research supervisor engage persistently to construct and use multiple methods to capture emerging human actions. Perhaps, continuous observation, reflexivity and reflectivity in writing may uncover the layered reality of human actions. On the contrary, the deterministic notion of human behaviour encourages us to probe only such behaviours that are on the surface, and that occur linearly. However, the non-linear nature of human behaviour will be in jeopardy if a very structured and probing method is followed.

 

The subjective-objective continuum: The obsolete belief that representing research texts through third person writing is a secure approach to ascertain objectivity is in question.  The emergence of relativist, postmodernist, constructivist and anti-positivist theories has superseded the Baconian thought of the linguistic coercion of self^xvii. The mask of objectivity has turned out to be a matter of observational and interpretive standpoint while the notion of subjectivity has a well fit within the perspective of multiple realities and truths. Subjectivity, therefore, does not entail the meaning of impure ideas; rather it becomes a matter of viability. In non-positivist research, researchers are to unfold multiple truths with the help of participant-centred methods. Indeed, non-positivist researchis conducted in order to seek multiple understandings of participants rather than to impose the researcher’s so-called objective understanding. Given the transformed notions of subjectivity and objectivity, non-positivist researchers need a clear idea of how they capture the meaning-making process through which they make sense of both their own and their participants’ worlds.   

 

The postmethod-method continuum: ‘No canons are required to seek the eternal bliss but only the internal mental devotion of seekers’ is a popular Hindu-Buddhist adage that encourages the seekers not only to search for knowledge but also to construct their own method(s) of searching through shravan, manan, and dhyana^xviii. Indeed, preset rituals and canons, therefore, become useless for those who can construct on their own. This analogy of self-construction of rituals and methods can also be used in non-positivist research. The concept of 'postmethod approach' is to free methods from being vulnerable because of their uncritical use. Non-positivist researchers do not only regard ‘methods as they are’ but construct and adapt according to their situatedness. 

 

Rigour criteria for non-positivistresearch

The paradigmatic shift from a singular to plural epistemological tradition^xix is very much valued in non-positivist research. Specifically, the paradigmatic shift has occurred at the time when the mechanical worldview of Westocentrism^xxhas been challenged by postmodern^xxithought. Consequently, the concept of multisciences has already been established within the discourse community of science. So what happens if I embrace multiple scientific traditions? Do I not need to change the longstanding monoscientific criteria of validity? How about establishing emerging validity criteria? To me, the traditional criteria of validity are only appropriate for a quantitative and positivist research paradigm. For non-positivist research a number of rigour criteria are used.

 

Non-positivist researchers do not use the term validity per se because the term validity entails such meaning that is aligned with the monocentric tradition. Furthermore, external validity as generalisability does not fit in social sciences, as the field is always changeable. The concept of reliability—consistent result—is appropriate in lab-based research rather than research related to human^xxii and social science. There is no single set of rigour criteria in non-positivist research; instead there are multiple sets of criteria as per the epistemological standpoint of the researcher. 

Addressing the Triple Crisis^xxiii: The issue of triple crisis is central to any research as representation, legitimacy and praxis are deeply entrenched in the epistemological subscription. The crisis of representation is always present in any research as the researcher may not be fully able to guarantee the total representation of the field in his/her texts. The crisis of representation can be addressed through autobiographic writing so that the meaning embedded in the texts may not be misrepresented as impersonal and objective knowledge. In the case of multiple voices, the researcher needs to allow polyvocality^xxiv so that multiple perspectives may help reduce the crisis of mono-representation. Similarly, the issue of representation is also related to the overall structure of the knowledge claim. Following the standard five-chapter theses representational structure may put non-positivist researchers in an inescapable crisis as the structure does not allow reporting the growth over time of the research. My focus here is on the subjective notion of time^xxv, i.e. the time of a researcher. Emergent 'structural approaches' that follow time-based representational format help reduce the crisis of representation. Furthermore, multiple genres—descriptive, interpretive, reflective, poetic and so forth—can also help reduce the crisis entrenched in the traditional impersonal genre.

 

The crisis of legitimacy is related to the notion that any form of knowledge cannot be free from power^xxvi. A non-positivist researcher needs to understand that research problems and questions are a matter of discursive production in which the researcher's values and perspectives are visibly and/or invisibly laden. The notion of value-free research is a ploy to barricade the emergence of creativity. Therefore the issue of legitimacy starts from the beginning of any research. To reduce the crisis of legitimacy, non-positivist researchers can justify that their research problems are of professional, academic and personal significance. Explicitly speaking, the practice of judging research students in terms of their prior grades, their profession and background clearly puts research supervisors in a deeply rooted crisis of legitimizing their research students. Legitimacy is again questioned in the case of what and what not to collect from the field. It is true that one can never collect the totality of the field. Therefore, the collection metaphor does not seem to be appropriate in non-positivist research; rather the generation metaphor entails the true meaning of legitimizingfield data for non-positivist research. Similarly, the notion of ‘total understanding’ of the fieldis to be replaced by ‘thorough partial understanding’^xxviiof the field. Specifically, the notion of generating data is also useful in making the research report life-likeness. Therefore, legitimacy of the data is associated with the extent to which it helps ascertain the verisimilitude of research texts. 

 

The crisis of praxis is related to theory-practice dualism. Specifically, envisioned actions in the texts are expected to be performed by the researcher during and after the research. However, it is very hard to judge that the researcher has followed and/or will follow what s/he purports to follow. Certain ways to reduce the crisis of praxis are: 1) researcher's behaviour towards her/her participants, 2) her/his commitments in relation to transforming participants, and 3) his/her critical reflection upon his/her situatedness. 

 

Transferability^xxviii: Transferability is regarded as an alternative rigour criterion to external validity. A research activity or its product can be transferred to another setting or context by identifying similarities and dissimilarities between the researched and the would-be research site. The notion of transferability is not to deal with replicability but to seek adaptability to the new context. For instance, after studying the research report of a Nepali educator's inquiry into socio-cultural dimension of school leaders, an African high school headteacher may be tuned her to explore the same dimension in her own context. In so doing, she may use African indigenous hermeneutics as her research method as the Vedic hermeneutics does not fit well in her situation. Probing the status of TQM^xxix in Nepali schools may require researchers to construct a Nepali TQM rather than import it from a context which is culturally incompatible.

 

Triangulation^xxx: Data, theory, researcher and methodological triangulations are in practice.  Triangulation is an alternative to internal validity. Data triangulation is employed to legitimise the data by confirming and disconfirming though multiple sources. For instance, a researcher may plan to use three types of data sources—interview, focus group discussion and student-generated metaphors about teachers—to identify students’ perception of their teachers. In a theory triangulation, multiple theories are selected to construct a framework. Besides, multiple theories may serve as referents. Researcher triangulation is possible in action-based research in which each actor/participant contributes to the evolution of the research. To me, methodological triangulation deals with using multi-methods approach in educational research. However, it also infers the use of a single method on different occasions and in varying contexts.

 

Action-oriented criteria^xxxi: According to a critical perspective any research should generate action(s) for change. Perhaps, answering these questions can pave the way to developing action-based criteria for a researcher. What types of action were dominant during the process of the research? Did the researcher help participants make sense of their lived world? How about transforming them from their current state of uncriticality? In what ways can the result/product of research transform the situation? These questions are at the centre of discussion while raising the issue of action-based criteria. Although it is very difficult to visualise the future impact of any research, it may not be impossible to identify possible actions that the research can generate. To me, it is the researcher who needs to explore ways to ensure that his/her research is catalytically suitable. 

 

Crystallisation: The term crystallisation refers to multiplicity in the research process. Furthermore, it is one of the alternative approaches to validity for research that is situated in the postmodern. Crystallisation focuses on ‘writing as inquiry’^xxxiias the performativity of the researcher as a way to understand the complexity, partiality and paradoxes of worlds. Laurel Richardson says that what matters in research is to uncover multiple truths through continuous reflections upon the field, participants and actions. To me, the notion of crystallisation reverses the traditional writing process which regards writing as an add-on activity of research. A question blocks here my journey. Do I have visible criteria for promoting crystallisation? Specifically, a researcher can use multiple genres—story, poem, reflective texts, biography, impersonal texts and so on—to demonstrate her/his process of crystallisation. Besides, the idea of crystallisation can also be demonstrated through multiple perspectives, data sources and voices. Here the term ‘multiple’ does not mean to be confinedby two or three theories or sources but to demonstrate how the researcher proceeds with multiplicity to crystallise his/her thorough partial understanding of the world s/he wants to uncover.  Needless to say, the term crystallisation entails the meaning of multiplicity as a crystal has ‘multiple angles’ throughwhich the researcher can get the crux of knowledge s/he claims to know.

 

Pedagogic rigour criteria^xxxiii: Pedagogically, it is believed that any research should make an impact on the readers’ pedagogic actions. Specifically, whenever I conduct research on and for teachers, it should be able to generate thinking to change their conventional pedagogy. Research which intends to go beyond the surface reality of teachers’ lives in schools should be capable of making significant impact on their minutiae of activities. There is no dearth of rigour criteria of such research which deals with pedagogy. The popular idea of sensitising readers with pedagogical thoughtfulness^xxxiv can be useful for those who aim at exploring their own understanding of pedagogy. One set of rigour criteria to promote pedagogical thoughtfulness is orientation, richness, strength, depth and surrounding metatext. The notion of orientation deals with how pedagogic texts are oriented to explore the meaning of the phenomenon under study. The term richness refers to thick explanation of the context with a view to making the readers familiar with the research issue and context. To me, strength as a criterion entails the notion of the degree to which the research texts have created a pedagogically dialogic relation with the readers. Similarly depth is related to the explanatory/interpretive dimension of situatedness. Though non-positivist research is inter- and transdisciplinary in nature, it is inevitable to consider the surrounding metatext in which s/he belongs. For instance, a mathematics educator doing research to transform mathematics pedagogy needs to consider mathematics education as metatexts to make an impact on readers. Perhaps, this is a matter of legitimacy as well.

 

Literary criteria^xxxv: Writing is a literary enterprise. Portraying something through texts is an artful activity of humans. Bliss in writing is culminated through well-developed thought woven in well-crafted texts. The notion of ‘words can make rain’ has revitalised its existence to challenge the impersonal writing suggested by the Enlightenment project. What may be possible literary criteria for research?  How can non-positivist research texts be made literarily viable? To me, it is a matter of creating a dialogic relationship between the writer and readers. A non-positivist researcher cannot be the authority; instead s/he becomes a writer who does not own the meaning made by the reader out of his/her texts. Perhaps using metaphors, analogies, images and similes can enrich one’s writing and also make him/her able to express her/his idea. There are multiple literary criteria that can be used in social research. Among them multiple textualities—which help create multiple meanings of reality—and verisimilitude—meaning does it resonate true?—are a set of rigour criteria of non-positivist research. Even in positivist research, the numerical data collected by a researcher should possess verisimilitude in order to convince the readers that his/her data seems to be numerically real.

 

It is worthwhile noting an interesting innovation in the field of educational research. Non-positivist researchers can make their research a literary creation, such as a novel^xxxvi, a collection of stories, a theatrical representation and so forth. In so doing they need to supply an exegesis that speaks about the methods s/he adopted to generate data, and ways to read his/her thesis. Take an example: my MSc thesis did not go that afar, but has attempted to embed the notion of multiple genres, metaphorical writing and verisimilitude.

 

Literature and theories in non-positivist research

 

While writing this subsection, I have totally been laden by the crisis associated with the concept of theory and its use in non-positivist research that purports not to subscribe to the structural cage of modernity. While going through the definition of theory, it gives me a concept that a theory is a symbolic representation of relations and structures^xxxvii. Does it not indicate that theories and models are the sources of hierarchy, structure and superiority? How to use such a concept of theory in the context of postmodern non-positivist research? Rather than answering these questions, I begin to discuss the issue of a theoretical framework versus referents, giving much emphasis to referents. In this, my focus is on creative and critical use of theories in non-positivist research. Similarly, I talk about the way to perform a literature review in non-positivist research, focusing on an interpretive approach to understanding others’ texts. My understanding of different theories comes as my experiential narratives. 

 

Framework versus referents^xxxviii: In my experience, the notion of ‘framework’ does not match with the concept of non-positivist research that is being discussed here. The term entails the meaning that frames are to make the researcher reductive and imprisoned by some limited ideas (see Figure 1). Framed researchers’ reality is not different from the reality of a framed photograph. Generally, the act of making framework results in their limited view, uncritical acceptance of theory and ultimate alignment with linearity.  So what is the alternative?  How can non-positivist researchers use theories in their research? How to lower the crisis that is created because of the use of theories as they are? In my experience using theories as referents is a viable alternative as referents enable researchers to interpret the world from multiple perspectives. Reading the idea of Kenneth Tobin and Deborah Tippins^xxxixhelped me to understand how educational theories can be used creatively and contextually as referents. Being referents, theories are critically used, and have the potentiality of being extended. The chain of making a framework, working within the framework, collecting the data within that framework, analyzing within the same framework and testing the justifiability of the framework is little more than an academic mockery we have been practicing for a long ago. To me it is tolerable to make and use more than one framework so that it can represent a world of multiple frames. 

 

                                                                       

              

Figure 1: Researcher within a framework

 

As a non-positivist researcher, I believe that referents do not cage the researcher (see Figure 2) but enable him/her to view the world from multiple perspectives. It helps formulate the idea that the researcher can ‘think outside the box’ as to make sense of his/her research for the larger context. Referents are not an uncritical acceptance of theories rather they are a critically crosscut of theories that a researcher wants to use in his/her research. Taking an example of my research may clarify this issue. I chose Curriculum, Constructivism, Critical Ethnomathematics and Multiple Epistemic Metaphors^xlas my referents. I used them as I needed. Specifically, I valued not being circumspect through a particular belief, but I chose to accept the multiplicity that exists in educational, psychological, sociological and philosophical landscapes. Furthermore, I always considered their use in my practice rather my use in explaining them.

                                                                                   

  

 

Figure 2: Researcher and theoretical referents

 

Essentially speaking, using referents requires researchers to use different genres of representation. The way they perform a literature review so as to depict others’ texts, a theoretical survey so as to give up their own personal practical wisdom, and embrace theories so as to be enslave within them is about to collapse. Amidst these issues, my next detour focuses on to reviewing literature in non-positivist research.   

 

Literature review: The archaic belief that the literature review is fixed under a particular chapter is in question. The combined journey of practical andtheoretical wisdom, review of texts and metatexts, data generation and interpretation, and so forth, constitutes the research process. Separating them into preset chapters devalues the creative enterprise of research. The crisis-laden practice of conventionality does not separate the chapter of the ‘literature review’ from the chapter of the ‘literature view’.  Viewing and reviewing are so interlinked that researchers view and review literature as performativity. Etymologically speaking, reviewing literature is not simply shifting others’ ideas into the textual foreground; rather this is a process of interpreting others’ texts, theories and others’ findings. Questions are ready to change my detour. Is it necessary forever tobe a separate chapter for the literature review? How do non-positivist researchers review literature?

 

Depicting a literature review under a separate chapter is not justifiable as the literature review is not practically limited within that chapter. It is embedded throughout the process of the research. Theories, research reports and perspectives are reviewed continuously. The background and foreground of each text are linked with any form of literature. In my experience, rather than being depicted as an exclusive chapter, the literature review deserves to be the embedded within the performativity of the research.

 

Naturally, a non-positivist researcher does not consider the chapter of the literature review as separate and distinct rather s/he puts much emphasis on ‘what a researcher says to others’. Therefore, the literature review is performed continuously from the initial to final stages so as to demonstrate the link between what is within and outside the research field. Researchers do not transfer what they get in others’ texts but interpret others’ meanings from their own perspective. The value of reviewing literature is to unfold multiple meanings of others’ texts so that the researchers’ journey becomes relatively secure.

 

Continuum of theories: How are theories classified? Doing a theoretical review I faced the dilemma of classifying theories according to their importance in research. Classifications are many and their detailed explanation is not my purpose. My plan here is to uncover my experiential perspective about different theories and their use in non-positivist research.

 

In my classification ideologies situate at one extreme, metatheories in the middle and local theories at the other extreme of the continuum. Initially, I constructed the meaning of ideology as a set of beliefs that guide the political and economic system of the state^xli. Later, I changed this idea about ideology. To me now, ideology also holds the notion of ideas that shape and facilitate one to understand the world around him/her. Postmodern critique of ideology has identified its hegemonic nature. Ironically, non-positivist researchers subscribing to the postmodern paradigm make critical use of ideology because of its superstructural and dogmatic nature. Beside political ideology, epistemological ideologies are also essential to note. Non-positivist researchers embrace multiple epistemic ideologies to allow unfolding interpretation of the world under study. My understanding of the conventional notion of ideology-free research is simply the denial of the invisibility of ideology. Therefore, researchers are always enshrined by ideologies no matter what type of research they perform. Michel Foucault’s notion of power and knowledge explicitly indicates the pervasive role of the researcher’s ideology in legitimizing others’ knowledge. Perhaps, it is the researcher who needs to identify her/his ideological metaphor of research and its limitation.

 

My understanding of metatheory is a constellation of several theories, and metatheorizing as the process of categorizing similar theories under a common attribute. For instance, constructivism can be a metatheory. Its common attribute manifests in subsidiary theories, i.e. different types of constructivism. However, the notion of metatheory again poses a serious threat to non-positivist researchers because of the visible/invisible suppression embedded in the ideology of metatheorizing. To me, the world is not so simple and clear-cut but seems to be the ‘regularity of suddenness’^xlii. There are multiple centers and multiple regularities. Therefore, using metatheories in research and metatheorizing from research requires prudent lenses. Although metatheories cannot be free from crisis, they always shape and facilitate researchers.

 

Primarily, I thought of a hierarchy of classification of theories. Because of my ethics and ideology of change for a socially just world, I changed the hierarchy into a continuum. To me, it is not the case that ideologies are more powerful than local theories; instead, both are equally valuable and useful for the world with multiple meanings and interpretations. Local theories, to me, represent the emerging nature of theories and help understand the world in its primary form. To me, local theories represent relative authenticity by manifesting (perhaps) their unique interpretation of the world. Local cultural theories, local practical wisdom and personal theories are considered under this category. Researchers can uncover many local theories while they perform fieldwork.

 

 

Preparing Write-ups and Report Format

 

Opening up my computer is an indication of my journey of the day. Although I choose to write my reflection on the entire process of my research, I am in an inescapable dilemma that everything seems to be a mess. I have no method like a survey, I have no metaquestion like Durkheim used, and I have no structure to write a thesis. However, I believe that messing up is the reality of my life. Through my research I try to demonstrate how our process of knowledge claims is nonlinear, chaotic and personal.

 

How to write a non-positivist research report? How is it different from conventional research writing? Is there any universal format for non-positivist research? These are ‘frequently asked questions’ by research students and supervisors who are new to non-positivist research. To delineate the issue of non-positivist research writing, I have organised this section under five subsections: autobiographic writing, writing as inquiry, nonlinear and narrative representation, and diachronic representation.

 

Autobiographicwriting: Impersonal writing—iticised writing—has been a longstanding phenomenon in our research tradition. The history of impersonification goes back to the Enlightenment project which established the idea of objective writing. However, the notion of neutrality embedded in the so-called objective writing appeared to be a hoax as it coerced others’ ideas. With the advent of poststructuralism, the idea of neutrality in meaning through an impersonal structure turned out to be a camouflage for masking multiple meanings. Therefore, the notion that ‘third person writing’ represents reality objectively is an archaic idea as even conventional researchers have started to use autobiographic writing.

 

There are some reasons why autobiographic writing is employed in non-positivist research. The tradition of non-positivist research has taken into account the interpretive theories and perspectives that occur in science, sociology, philosophy, education, arts, politics, religion, psychology, technology and literature. Interpretive traditions including constructivism and deconstructionism strongly advocate the notion that representing reality is a personal endeavour because it is the seeker/researcher who wants to interpret reality. Autobiographic writing also prevents (to some extent) the researchers from being caged by the crisis of representation. In saying so, some questions seem to support my perspective. Does it not mean that autobiographic writing corrects the mistake of coercing others?  Can the approach of autobiographic writing help the researcher to promote the ownership of his/her research?

 

Let me perform a brief historical survey of the Western World. Francis Bacon when summoning social and scientific writers (cf. authors) advocated the use of impersonal writing. He further stipulated that writing should avoid personal bias by eliminating feelings, emotions and prejudices. However, his summon did not work well within the scientific community as many of the scientists started to report their discoveries through autobiographic writing. The biographies of scientists which have a significant educative value are full of emotions, feelings and prejudices. Similarly Kuhn’s notion of paradigm shift in science ^xliii opened up new avenues of representing knowledge and has also supported by the idea of relativity of Einstein^xliv. Besides, the poststructuralists attacked the notion of universal and secure structures that are followed uncritically. The notion of meaning as the single interpretation of the text, then, changed to multiple and decentered interpretations of texts and contexts. Coupled with the crisis of meaning and objectivity, impersonal writing continued to disappear from the social (and educational) research enterprise. 

 

Writing as inquiry: Non-positivist researchers embrace the notion that writing is an ongoing process. It is not the case that writing starts when the researcher finishes his/her field work. Traditionally, writing is regarded as an appended activity that starts after completing the task of data collection. In non-positivist research, writing is regarded as performativity through which non-positivist researchers can unfold multiple truths from the data. Specifically, writing is not regarded as explaining and describing the data but as a tool to uncover and generate data. Then, questions emerge here. How can researchers use the notion of writing as inquiry? Why is writing important in non-positivist research? How does ‘writing as inquiry’ help non-positivist researchers to be reflective and reflexive?

 

The forms of writing are many in non-positivist research. Non-positivist researchers write journals, field notes, stories, vignettes, poems, dramas and so forth when they encounter their research phenomena or fields. The ‘diary metaphor’ is central in non-positivist research as non-positivist researchers maintain a paper-based or electronic diary that includes writing software. There is no demarcation of when to write and when not to write, rather preference is given to writing as an embedded task of non-positivist researchers.

 

The primary aim of non-positivist research is the professional development of the researcher. Recent educational theories such as reflective practice, constructivism^xlv, cultural activism^xlviand contextualism have put much emphasis on situated and personal approaches to professional development. Therefore, research writing if guided by the metaphor of research as professional development could serve a transformative function for the researcher. How is it possible? Indeed, non-positivist research writing through a writing as inquiry approach helps researchers to be reflective upon the process and product of their research. The relationship between research and researcher is deeply intertwined while the writing becomes a tool of the inquiry. Therefore, rather than making some discrete tools, researchers can employ writing as a comprehensive tool of their research. oHow

 

 

Multiple genres for nonlinear texts: The method of linear portrayal of texts continued to reign until the concept of nonlinearand multitextualrepresentation became vital to demonstrate thorough understanding of the world taken under study. Some weaknesses of linear texts include the circumspective flow of meaning, depiction of metonymy as totality of field, unnecessary conversion of everything into linearity, presence of hierarchical structure within texts and the embedded oppressive concept of author-receiver. Non-positivist research traditions continue to embrace nonlinear approaches to representation. Indeed, there is no single format that I can prescribe for a nonlinear approachto research writing. However, I can share my brief experience of nonlinear writing. To me, research reports can be regarded as a journey and chapters as detours. Nonlinearity, then, is presented through multiple genres emphasizing brushstrokes, highlights, backgrounding and foregrounding. Nonlinear texts help understand fragmented meaning, autobiographic reasoning, polarity of understanding and voluntary worlds of human experience. 

 

Embracingjourney as a metaphor of research writing places much emphasis on the emerging plot of the research. Casts, characters and their roles are, therefore, less predictable. Meaningsand contexts are intertwined. The drama metaphor opens up an avenue of multiplicity in research writing. What does this indicate? To me, the indication is crystal clear that different genres—storied, poetic, autobiographic, reflective, theatrical, digital and so forth—are used to represent the multiple meanings of our worlds of experience. Specifically, certain texts may be more appropriate to represent a particular chunk of experience than other genres. Does it not mean that nonlinear writing is a match between the worlds of experience and research texts?

Diachronic and emergent representation^xlvii: I believe that our experiences emerge dramatically and diachronically through time rather than synchronically as a pictorial description does^xlviii.Non-positivist researchers use a diachronic representational approach to demonstrate how the researcher proceeded in his/her investigative journey over time. The conventional five-chapter structure does not represent the diachronic flow of knowledge claims depicting how the researcher detoured through different bends. To me the diachronic representational approach helps minimise the representational crisis by allowing the researcher to organise her/his knowledge claims in the order in whichs/he performed the research process.

 

Diachronic representational formats are constructed and justified by the researcher. Researchers may choose to use themes that represent nodes, modes, detours, signposts that he/she crossed over in the research journey. Metaphorically speaking, representational structure for non-positivist research may be similar to montage, flashback, episodes, epics and so forth. The emergent structure is not only limited to the paper-based format; instead micro-worlds can also be used to represent one’s knowledge claim. Audiovisual graphics either simulated or generated can also be considered to be a form of representation.

 

Conclusions and invitations 

The brief discourse I have presented here may be a metonymical representation of non-positivist research. I have tried to briefly summarize its foundation—though non-positivist researchers, like myself,are antifoundational—giving much emphasis on what I have been practising as a non-positivist researcher. Perhaps, the myth of quantity, objectivity and   linear rationality (who is irrational?) has put us in an inescapable cage of foundational, circumspective and reductionist research.

 

I believe that paradigms have changed and newfound ideas have emerged. I guess, the way we conduct research, supervise research students, teach (and preach) to others have changed significantly. Non-positivistresearchis an assemblage of several changes that have occurred in the field of social science during the last twenty-five years. So why not look into my own intended curricula—the term curriculum does not only represent the course document but also includes educative practices—to reflect upon my practices? Why not dare to explore my own hidden, implicit and secret curriculato liberate our educational discourse from colonial thinking^xlix? Why not encourage research students to search for epistemological issues?

 

Considering the notion that research students are the think-tank of the country (and of the world), non-positivistresearch allows and invites multiplicities to understand social complexities. It values the idea that imposingan obsolete knowledge system on them is to coerce and to violate their rights of getting access to recent knowledge system developments. My indication here is to promote epistemological pluralism so that research students can make decisions about their own epistemic activity. As an advocate of nonconfrontational and invitational approaches, my request goes out to all researchers to help me clarify various implicit ideas—many ideas are implicit in the beginning—that are presented in this article.  

 

 

List of references

Aviram R. & Yonah Y. (2004). ‘Flexible Control’: Towards a conception of personal autonomy for postmodern education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(1) 3-17

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2001). Research methods in education (5th ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer

Dagher, Z. (1991). Methodological decisions in interpretive research: The case of teacher explanations. In J. J. Gallagher (Ed.)Interpretive research in science education (NARSTMonograph) (Vol. 4, pp. 61-82). Manhattan, Kansas: National Association for Research in Science Teaching.

D' Ambrosio, U. (1999). Methodological questions in studying the history of mathematics in colonial Latin America. Acta historiae rerum naturalium necnon technicarum, 3, 139-151.

Denzin, N.K. (2003). Performance ethnography: critical pedagogy and politics of culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Denzin N. K & Lincoln Y. S. (Eds.)(2000), Handbook of qualitative  research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Denzin, N. K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Denzin, N.K.(1988). Triangulation. In J.P. Keeves(Ed.), Educational research, methodology, and measurement: An international handbook (pp.511-513). Sydney: Pergamon Press.

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as a subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative  research (2nd ed., pp. 733- 768). Thousand Oaks, London, Delhi:Sage Publications.

Giddens, A. (2000). Introduction to sociology. NY: W.W. Norton

Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and politics of education. NY: Routledge.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, London and New Delhi: Sage Publication.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Geelan, D.R. (Accepted). Songs of Innocence and Experience: Impressionist Tales and Secret Stories of Life in Classrooms. In J. Wallace & P. Taylor (Eds.), Innovative qualitative  research for science and mathematics education. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Luitel, B. C. (Accepted). Why are there no cultural stories in my mathematics textbook?: One question and many answers. In J. Wallace & P. Taylor (Eds.), Innovative qualitative  research for science and mathematics education. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic

Luitel, B.C., & Taylor, P. (in press). Envisioning transition towards a critical mathematics education: a Nepali educator's autoethnographic perspective. In J. Earnest & D. Treagust (Eds.), Educational change and reconstruction in societies in transition: International perspectives. Perth: Black Swan

Luitel, B. C. (2003). Narrative explorations of Nepali mathematics curriculum landscapes: an epic journey. Unpublished Master of Science (Mathematics Education), Curtin University of Australia. [Online] Available: http://pctaylor.com under 'My mentoring of transformative research’, Perth: Australia.

McCarthy, C. & Dimitriadis, G. (2004). Postcolonial literature and the curricular imagination: Wilson Harris and the pedagogical implications of the carnivalesque Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 36, (2) 201-213   

Meighan, R. (1981), A sociology of educating. London: Holt publication    

Milne, C. & Taylor, P.C. (1998). Between a myth and a hard place: Situating school science in a climate of critical cultural reform. In W.W. Cobern (Ed.), Socio-cultural perspectives on science education: An international dialogue (pp. 25-48). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Richardson, L. (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of non-positivist research (2nd ed., pp. 923-947). London: Sage Publications.

Sama., B.K.(2037 V.S.^l). Niyamit Akasmikata (Sudenness in regularity). Kathmandu: Sajha Prakashan

Taylor, P.C. & Dawson, V. (1998). Critical reflections on a problematic student-supervisor relationship. In J. Malone, W. Atweh, & J. Northfield (Eds.), Research and supervision in mathematics and science education (pp. 105-127). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Slattery, P. (1995). Curriculum development in the postmodern era. NY: Garland Publishing.

Smith, L. T. (2001). Decolonozing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples (3rd ed.). London: Zed Books Ltd.

Stapleton, A. J., & Taylor, P. C. (July 2003). Representing research (&) development. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA), Melbourne.

Quantz, R. A. (1992). On critical ethnography (with some postmodern considerations). In M. D. LeCompte & W. L. Millroy & J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative  research (pp. 447-505). London, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto: Academic Press.

van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Burton, R.  (2002). The experience of time in the very young. Downloadable from: http://phenomenologyonline.com/articles/burton.html 

van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. London, Ontario: SUNY Press.

von Glasersfeld, E. (1992). Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning. London: The Falmer Press.

Hafner, P. (1998). Theories and paradigms in sociology. Philosophy and Sociology 1(5) pp. 455 - 464

 

Notes

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ⁱ This paper was written sometime in 2005. I have expanded and revised some of these ideas now… Please visit my websitefor my recent writing

ⁱⁱ I have used quantitative and positivist tradition synonymously in my article, Luitel (accepted).

ⁱⁱⁱ Positivism is coined by Augeste Comte to use the notion of experimental science in sociology. This approach is much criticized because of its inability to uncover invisible ‘social things’ (see, Emile Durkheim in Giddens (2000))

^iv You can download my full research report—Luitel (2003)—fromhttp://pctaylor.combrowsing the link of ‘my mentoring of transformative research’.  

^v See my research report, Luitel (2003).

^vi Ibid.

^vii Denzin (2003) has mentioned the term performavity as a metaphor of research process.

^viii Dagher (1991) speaks about the relationship between theories and research questions.

^ix The issue has been discussed by Taylor and Dawson (1998) depicting their own relationship as mentor and research student.  

^x The notion of flexible control is much valued in postmodern times as mentioned by Aviram and Yonah (2004).

^xi Denzin and Lincoln (2000) challenge the solitary and disciplinary research epistemology.

^xii Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have mentioned the term metonymy as a type of metaphor. Metonymical representations are incomplete. In the sentencethepenis powerful thanthesword, the underlined words are metonymical representations of the wordsknowledgeandweapons. 

^xiii Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2002) have mentioned some of the continua presented here.  

^xiv I have used this metaphor to denote my research process.

^xv Based on my survey of journal included in the Blackwell-Synergy Database. Its web address is http://www.balckwell-synergy.com

^xvi Guba and Lincoln (1989) have mentioned some of these methods in their bookFourth Generation Evaluation. 

^xvii Milne and Taylor (1998) havementioned how linguistic coercion has been hindering scientific traditions.  

^xviii These three words are Hindu-Buddhist approach to research/seeking. They can be translated as listening, reflecting, and deeper thinking respectively.

^xix Epistemological pluralism is much debated issue in the discourse community of education. The proponents of pluralism believe that research students should be provided with epistemological choices so that they feel at home while carrying out their research. Besides, epistemological pluralism is essential in this age of democracy, human rights and equality.   

^xx See in D’Ambrosio (1997) andLuitel and Taylor (in press).

^xxi A constellation of beliefs that rejects uncritical acceptance of hierarchy, structure, meaning and so forth. Patrick Slattery (1995) has mentioned how postmodern thoughts can beused in curriculum development, research and pedagogy.

^xxii Max Van Manen (1990) talks about human science.

^xxiii Luitel (Accepted) discusses the ways he reducedthe crisis. Denzin (1997) has delineated how poststructuralists challenged the existing discourse systemby introducing different crises laden in textual representation.

^xxiv Polyvocality denotesa method of representingmultiple voices as research texts. Ellis and Bochner (2000) have mentioned it as a rigour criterion for autobiographic research. 

^xxv In the human science ‘time’ is also regarded as a subjective phenomenon as its conceptualization and measurement is different from person to person. Burton (2002) has delineated this issue in his research paperThe Experience of Time in the Very Young. 

^xxvi The issue of knowledge and power has been discussed byQuantz(1992).

^xxvii Richardson (2000) uses the notion of ‘thorough partial understanding’ rather than so-called complete understanding.

^xxviii Guba and Lincoln (1989) in their bookFourth generation evaluationhave proposed the concept of transferability as to replace the conventional idea of validity.

^xxix TQM is the acronym forTotal Quality Management

^xxx Triangulation does not replace validity itself but is an alternative to validity. Denzin (1988) has discussed how triangulation serves the purpose of rigour in qualitative and multi-method research.

^xxxi Guba and Lincoln (1989, paraphrased) have proposed some action-oriented criteria for evaluation research. They include utility and transformative focus.   

^xxxii Richardson (2000) proposes the method of writing as inquiry dispelling the myth of conventional and linear writing.

^xxxiii Geelan (accepted) and Luitel (accepted) have added an additional criterion tovan Manen’s(1990) four initial criteria.

^xxxiv See van Manen (1990).

^xxxv Van Mannen’s (1988) literary criteria include characterization, dramatic control, and impressionism. Furthermore, Denzin (1997) has introduced the concept of literary verisimilitude to make ethnographic research legitimate.

^xxxvi A link can be found onDavid R. Geelan’s website http://bravus .port5.com to browse the electronic version of his Ph.D. dissertation which came out to be a Novel. 

^xxxvii See in Hafner (1998).

^xxxviii I have talked about this issue in my article Luitel(accepted)

^xxxix Tobin and Tippins(1993) have exemplified how constructivism can be used as a referent.

^xl See my research report browsing 

^xli Giddens (2000) discusses the notion of ideology. 

^xlii Bal Krishna Sama, a Nepali dramatist, uses a equivalent Nepali terms of regularity of suddenness as ‘Niyamit Akasmikata’ as the title of his one of the plays. 

^xliii Thomas Kuhn is a prominent figure of philosophy of science. Information about his  revolutionary thoughts can be found athttp://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html

^xliv Browse the webpage:.

^xlv von Glasersfeld(1992) proposes the philosophy of radical constructivismas a way to conceptualise the process of learning.

^xlvi Cultural activism promotes the idea of contextualism, border crossing and social justice in education. See Giroux(1992)

^xlvii Stapleton and Taylor (July 2003) have demonstrated how a doctoral thesis can be represented through emergent metaphor of ‘scene and act’.    

^xlviii R. D.Laingdelineates how experience unfolds diachronically. I have read Laing’s these ideasin Geelan (Accepted).

^xlix See Meighan (1981) for different forms of curriculum. McCarthy and Dimitriadis (2004) have inundated the relationship between postcolonial literature and curriculum issues. 

^l VS is the short form ofVikram Sambatwhich about 57 years ahead of AD. Vikram Sambat is the Nepali official 'year system'.  _______