Page 57 - Igor Ž. Žagar in Ana Mlekuž, ur. ▪︎ Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2019. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 37
P. 57
the challenge of positioning one’s research question in the state of the art ...
ply lack an idea what is expected of them, not only because they get little
information concerning the genre, but even more so, because they do not
yet understand the nature of academic work. We suggest that understand-
ing may partially be undermined by the way teachers phrase what students
have to do in order to come to their research question.
Where is the Research Gap?
A phrase used commonly when it comes to pinning down a research questi-
on is “the research gap”. “Finding the research question” is another obstru-
ctive phrase regularly used in this context, which supports this notion. The
picture evoked in many students is that of a not-yet complete research lan-
dscape which reveals itself through reading, researching, and reading even
more and enough knowledge will naturally reveal the gaps in the picture.
While this kind of guidance seems to be ubiquitous, one should realize that
it is coming with a strong epistemological assumption: The implicit messa-
ge being that the research gap is objectively out there for anyone to see who
knows “the literature” well enough. Doing research means filling gaps whi-
ch will be seen by anyone knowledgeable enough until eventually the white
spots or gaps in the landscape will be diminished. Not seeing a gap is thus
simply indicating incomplete knowledge or intellectual failure.
Many students have troubles deciding on which of their readings are
relevant and miss the point where they need to start focusing and narrow-
ing down in order to develop their own ideas. When considering the met-
aphor, which suggests an objectively existing gap and thus question being
out there, this does not come as such a surprise anymore. Likewise, many
students’ perception of the state-of-the-art section is as positivistic: They
expect it to be obvious what must go in and what can be left out, problems
in decision making are ascribed to incomplete knowledge on their part.
Since teachers often implicitly transport the idea that writing it amounts
to a ’writing down what everyone knows and agrees on’, many students are
ashamed to mention their pains in writing this section.
So while it is commonly used – also by writing practitioners – we sug-
gest that the “gap-metaphor” has been misleading generations of students
into believing the gap was to be found “somewhere outside” (in the sense
of being there objectively) instead of resulting from positioning their par-
ticular work with regard to the research of others. In the following chapter
we introduce two metaphors which we have developed in our teaching and
57
ply lack an idea what is expected of them, not only because they get little
information concerning the genre, but even more so, because they do not
yet understand the nature of academic work. We suggest that understand-
ing may partially be undermined by the way teachers phrase what students
have to do in order to come to their research question.
Where is the Research Gap?
A phrase used commonly when it comes to pinning down a research questi-
on is “the research gap”. “Finding the research question” is another obstru-
ctive phrase regularly used in this context, which supports this notion. The
picture evoked in many students is that of a not-yet complete research lan-
dscape which reveals itself through reading, researching, and reading even
more and enough knowledge will naturally reveal the gaps in the picture.
While this kind of guidance seems to be ubiquitous, one should realize that
it is coming with a strong epistemological assumption: The implicit messa-
ge being that the research gap is objectively out there for anyone to see who
knows “the literature” well enough. Doing research means filling gaps whi-
ch will be seen by anyone knowledgeable enough until eventually the white
spots or gaps in the landscape will be diminished. Not seeing a gap is thus
simply indicating incomplete knowledge or intellectual failure.
Many students have troubles deciding on which of their readings are
relevant and miss the point where they need to start focusing and narrow-
ing down in order to develop their own ideas. When considering the met-
aphor, which suggests an objectively existing gap and thus question being
out there, this does not come as such a surprise anymore. Likewise, many
students’ perception of the state-of-the-art section is as positivistic: They
expect it to be obvious what must go in and what can be left out, problems
in decision making are ascribed to incomplete knowledge on their part.
Since teachers often implicitly transport the idea that writing it amounts
to a ’writing down what everyone knows and agrees on’, many students are
ashamed to mention their pains in writing this section.
So while it is commonly used – also by writing practitioners – we sug-
gest that the “gap-metaphor” has been misleading generations of students
into believing the gap was to be found “somewhere outside” (in the sense
of being there objectively) instead of resulting from positioning their par-
ticular work with regard to the research of others. In the following chapter
we introduce two metaphors which we have developed in our teaching and
57
