KNOWLEDGE, PRAXIS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

First Questions• What is knowledge? What types of knowledge can we

use?

• What types of researchers are there? How do they choose knowledge types?

• What is the best way to get it?

• Who controls it? Who changes it? • What is the ideal world for knowledge?

Perception and Experience

Reason: Deduction and Induction

Social Interaction

Intuition and Human Emotion

What sort of researcher are you?

•Answer the following questions with your topic in mind…

Why do we want to know about your topic?

1. To discover laws to predict and control events

2. To understand and describe meaningful social action for the people involved

3. To expose myths and misunderstanding and empower people to change

Isn’t common sense knowing?

1. No, it is not valid unless tested those who already know

2. Yes, it is a collection of powerful everyday theories used by common people, and there are many truths

3. No, it is a collection of false beliefs created by hidden interests that hide behind the majority belief

What are human beings?

1. Rational individuals who can drive and can be shaped by external forces

2. Social beings who create their world through their own interpretations

3. Creative people with untapped potential, trapped by exploitation

What is reality?

1. Stable pre-existing patterns or orders that can be discovered

2. Fluid definitions of a situation created by human interaction

3. Conflict–filled and governed by hidden structures

What is the truth?

1. Logically connected to laws and facts

2. Resonate or feels right to those who are being studied

3. Supplies peoples with tools needed to change the world

There is little agreement on KNOWINGEspecially on the biggest questions…

Coming up: the three perspectives on some of the biggest questions…

These perspectives are generally known as…

• Scientific or empirical or rational

• Interpretative or interactional

• Critical and radical

What is Education?

Is it knowing and giving the truth?

Is it helping a person to uncover their reality?

Is it giving access into a special group of knowers?

Is it teaching facts or interpretation or power?

Framework for Inquiry: Education

Qualitative Quantitative

PraxisTheory

Our Year of Praxis Research

Curiosity

Engagement with critical thinking

Reflection

Worldview of Knowledge

Synopsis – Formal Question

Literature Review

Ethics

Methodology

Engagements in community as participant observer

Interviews – understanding their narratives

Narrative Essay / case study

Data Organisation

Analysis and Interpretation

Findings

Presentation / Paper

Research Article

Theory and Praxis• Theory = Heavens: stable, fixed, certain, contemplative

• Praxis = Earth: unpredictable, changeable, situational, lived

Platonic way: knowledge is theory to be applied to life

and situations

Isocratic / Aristotelian way: Knowledge is

experiential, in the world and lived.

Praxis means you are…• In the situational context• Can have access to the knowledge providers• Can BE a knowledge provider• Can organise your experiences according to rules• Engage in the active change of your context

• Why is it important to teachers?

• What is an example in the current research questions?

Worldview of knowledge

Research Approach• Scientific - Causality• Social / Interpretive• Praxis• Critical / Action

• Feminist• Marxist

Qualitative• Descriptive• Grounded Theory• Visual Ethnography• Discourse Analysis

Quantitative• Statistical analysis• Behaviour Coding• Content Coding

Research techniques / Actions in the Field• Observation• Cases• Text analysis• Interviews• Focus group• Survey• Participant

Observation• Conversation

Analysis

Findings• Description• Analysis• Action• Critique• Generative

The Synopsis for a Research Project

• Formally defined vocabulary

• Clear meta-commentary

• Speaking from the point of view of a researcher – academic

• Question forms turned into statements (if, whether)

Introduction

• The aim of the proposed ………………………..research and ensuing report is to investigate / describe / evaluate whether …

• This research draws on ….

• For the purposes of this report, a personal mobile phone is a personally funded phone for private calls as opposed to an employer funded phone that directly relates to carrying out a particular job.

• Employee attitudes include but are not limited to...

• Staff and team meeting refer to...

• Negative effect is assumed to be...

Background

• There has been an increase in the use of personal mobile phones over the past five years and there is every indication that this will continue. According to Black (2002) by 2008 almost 100% of working people in Australia will carry personal mobile phones. Black describes this phenomenon as ‘serious in the extreme, potentially undermining the foundations of communication in our society’ (2002, p 167). Recently members of the public have complained about the use of personal mobile phones in corporate meetings (The Australian, 12/5/10). Nevertheless, at present there is no official nationwide or union policy regarding phone use at work. Individual companies have expectations of conventional methods of courtesy or when failing, overt signs and directives (Drake, 2009). The research will attempt to ascertain if negativity towards phone usage conventions and or rules produces employee and employer discontent, and what types of negativity this presents in the workplace. The report will also outline whether there are exceptions to this perception.

Methods of Research

• An annotated review of related literature and will include views surrounding the use of mobile phones in a socio-cultural theoretical perspective. A staff Likart-scale survey on attitudes towards the use of mobile phones in the staff / team meetings will be conducted after the review of literature. Group cohesive behaviour and the idea of Gemienshaften will underpin the formulation and analysis of respondent surveys. Participant opinion will be gathered and analysed according to schematisation of the respondent perspectives.

Possible Outcomes of Research

The results may indicate that employees believe that mobile phone use is a conventional interruption in staff meetings. The employer perspective may show that personal mobile phones are disruptive and counter-productive in meetings in that they create ill-will about employee status

Justification

Pending the results of the research, it may be recommended that companies develop a company policy based on consensus and consultation for the use of mobile phones except in exceptional circumstances.

CORE VALUES OF THE UNIVERSITYWhy the Academy is different from all other Institutions?

All societies have Core Values that allow people to live together.

• What are some of the core PUBLIC values of a Western society?

• Where are these values promoted or expressed?

If the University had a constitution...

EIGHT CORE VALUES would be central to its sovereignty.

Number ONE Academic Freedom• To pursue the truth “without fear or favour”

• Freedom from outside interferences such as those interested in research for profit or following a political/religious view

• Freedom also from internal interferences such as the Scholars/Researchers own bundle of needs and mental habits.

• Freedom from the bureaucracy of the university itself

Number TWO Autonomy

• Autonomy: “following only the rules we give to ourselves”

• Similar to: in a democratic society the laws and guiding ideas that citizens will happily follow will be those that they freely determine for themselves.

• Therefore in a free society people will try to devise laws and follow ways based on knowledge that is gained through free-enquiry.

Number THREE Scholastic Rigor

• Scholars follow strict rules - enhances rather than constrains academic freedom

What are some rules you know of?

• Academics typically place a lot of emphasis of emotional control – faith, bias, belief and emotion

• Famous scholars are famous for the quality and scope and depth of their work and self-discipline

Number Four Intellectual Curiosity

• Intense curiosity to think / not to assume knowledge but to question own knowledge

• Desire to know something for its own sake

• Desire to improve human condition, rather than their own

Number FIVE Intellectual Honesty

• It is the commitment to getting the truth of the matter

• One must give the most truthful account that one can

• To report knowledge even if it may conflict with their own personal opinions, benefits and beliefs

Number SIX Critical Dialogue

• Even when scholars are working alone, they are always engaging with ideas of others

• Even in our private thoughts we are always in critical dialogue with significant others

• In a scholar’s efforts to work out answers to questions. They will engage in critical dialogue with other scholars who are the most important of these significant others.

• Engaging in critical dialogue is one of the more important ways of understanding a question or topic

Number SEVEN Self-examination • Careful critical self-reflection – science (Bacon)

• Reflect on what – how – why we pursue the truth

• Examine conflicting motivations for knowing

Number EIGHT Respect for divergent values

• To extent boundaries – encounter different ways of seeing the world

• Re-examining beliefs of oneself

• Quest for knowledge includes respect for other values

These lecture notes come for free...

But it’s the only thing in your essay that you do not have to REFERENCE

The THREE possible roles of the university

To provide people with skills for knowledge based jobs

To increase the capacity for highly skilled economic development

To give the working class upward mobility in society

• To serve as the institution of research for the benefit of all in society

• To allow the individual to express their intellectual curiosity

• To provide those who have gifted intellect with an outlet

• To teach the skills that are required for a critical citizen in

a vibrant democracy

• To be an autonomous entity of protest and dissent in the face of authority

• To be a place where morality and the significance of human life is debated and disseminated