Page 61 - Igor Ž. Žagar in Ana Mlekuž, ur. ▪︎ Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2019. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 37
P. 61
the challenge of positioning one’s research question in the state of the art ...
b) her research question belongs to less defined and more open research
space and she must find the positioning by herself. Most real cases will be
probably somewhere in between. It is obvious that the task for the author
in the second situation is much more demanding, but even someone on the
other pole will profit (need) to see where the decisions to go a specific way
are located and where do they lead, as also to understand the reasons why
the specific paths are taken.
The tree-metaphor provides orientation in understanding the iterative
process of positioning one’s research question (and oneself) in the research
space not least, because of the self-similar organization of trees as they
branch. The novice academic writer needs to explore the research space
looking for the assumptions and statements (metaphysical, epistemologi-
cal, definitions of the concepts) that are present in specific proposals or in
the whole debate. They can be both explicit or implicit. When the writer
detects implicit presuppositions she must dig deeper and see in which way
the underlying debate is relevant for her investigation and make a decision
which branch to take. In other words, academic writing involves deciding
on and committing oneself to taking a particular path. The tree-metaphor
supports understanding that with the research question in mind she can
(and is obliged to) choose the path that she thinks will be the most appro-
priate for investigating her topic.
The path will start with the statement or assumption that she takes
as well supported and does not need further questioning, at least for the
scope of her investigation. If the research space is relatively small then it
will cover just a few branches where actual decisions in the process of find-
ing the solution to the research question will be made and the path to that
branch will be relatively easy to follow. (Fig11a) On the other hand, if the re-
search space is quite large, the situation is much more complex and a much
higher number of decisions will have to be taken. (Fig.11b) Rejecting one or
more basic assumption in the research context will mean going on differ-
ent branch or sometimes even amount to designing a new tree, depending
on their function (branch or trunk).
Let us take an example from cognitive science. In the 1980ies there was
a hot debate whether connectionist/neural network models could be proper
models for higher cognitive processes. The proponents of classical symbol-
ic approach (Fodor and Pylyshnin, 1988) argued that neural networks could
not explain systematicity of thought because they do not support combina-
torial syntax and semantics. The main disagreement was about the prop-
61
b) her research question belongs to less defined and more open research
space and she must find the positioning by herself. Most real cases will be
probably somewhere in between. It is obvious that the task for the author
in the second situation is much more demanding, but even someone on the
other pole will profit (need) to see where the decisions to go a specific way
are located and where do they lead, as also to understand the reasons why
the specific paths are taken.
The tree-metaphor provides orientation in understanding the iterative
process of positioning one’s research question (and oneself) in the research
space not least, because of the self-similar organization of trees as they
branch. The novice academic writer needs to explore the research space
looking for the assumptions and statements (metaphysical, epistemologi-
cal, definitions of the concepts) that are present in specific proposals or in
the whole debate. They can be both explicit or implicit. When the writer
detects implicit presuppositions she must dig deeper and see in which way
the underlying debate is relevant for her investigation and make a decision
which branch to take. In other words, academic writing involves deciding
on and committing oneself to taking a particular path. The tree-metaphor
supports understanding that with the research question in mind she can
(and is obliged to) choose the path that she thinks will be the most appro-
priate for investigating her topic.
The path will start with the statement or assumption that she takes
as well supported and does not need further questioning, at least for the
scope of her investigation. If the research space is relatively small then it
will cover just a few branches where actual decisions in the process of find-
ing the solution to the research question will be made and the path to that
branch will be relatively easy to follow. (Fig11a) On the other hand, if the re-
search space is quite large, the situation is much more complex and a much
higher number of decisions will have to be taken. (Fig.11b) Rejecting one or
more basic assumption in the research context will mean going on differ-
ent branch or sometimes even amount to designing a new tree, depending
on their function (branch or trunk).
Let us take an example from cognitive science. In the 1980ies there was
a hot debate whether connectionist/neural network models could be proper
models for higher cognitive processes. The proponents of classical symbol-
ic approach (Fodor and Pylyshnin, 1988) argued that neural networks could
not explain systematicity of thought because they do not support combina-
torial syntax and semantics. The main disagreement was about the prop-
61
