The nature of research by Bruce archer

The nature of research by Bruce archer

Archer has clarified different forms of Research in tradition science, humanities and research through practitioner action and explains how they are classified and sub-categorised into different layers of how the methods are conducted in each practice.

I will briefly examine the different methods and see how the different models of research relate to my practice, what they mean to me as a practitioner and how Archers paper will merge elements from different disciplines and aid me towards the answer of what kind of academic researcher I will become but first i will analyse this paper and then self-reflect in my next post.

Archer addresses scientific research in general, in tradition, humanities and practitioner in action. Archer also addresses how research is considered an ‘enquiry of communicable knowledge’ which I will briefly explore and communicate my understandings to further my research in a an exploratory way that will help expand my overall method of research and help evaluate my question in more depth.

Archer addresses very important points in general science such as:

• Systematic explanation

a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organised scheme or method.

• Enquiry

an act of asking for information.

• Goal direction

aimed toward a goal or toward completion of a task

• Knowledge-directed

Teacher or trainer imparted ‘ready made’ (structured and systematic) knowledge about a particular skill, subject, or topic, transmitted through lectures and text books. Compare with constructed knowledge.

• Communicable

Able to be communicated to others.

The general scientific method seems to be a form of rules that are in its principles a basic understanding of enquiry, experimenting, goal orientation and using knowledge to communicate information based on the findings and creating an understanding of the results.

Research in science tradition

• Fundamental research:

Systematic inquiry to gain new knowledge.

I found this explanation of the ‘Value of fundamental research” by Cris dos Remedios to be extremely helpful and the research paper goes more in-depth with other forms or research methods which cover various elements from the industry to how certain forms of research effect practice and business in many ways. “BENEFITS OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH

There are three benefits of fundamental research: (1) acquisition of new knowledge; (2) social benefits to society; and (3) economic gains.

NEW KNOWLEDGE

New knowledge is the primary product of fundamental research. This information, once stored exclusively in printed format, is increasingly available in searchable and down-loadable form. Although there are reservations which have stimulated considerable debate [Shaw, 1998] about the costs and benefits of electronic publishing, it will probably dominate the way scientific information is handled in future. The burgeoning network of websites on the Internet will also clearly have an enormous impact on the ease of exchanging technical information but their lack of any substantive review casts a serious doubt on their value to science.

SOCIAL BENEFITS

The social benefits of educating high quality scientists, technologists and engineers are an immediately recognisable return for the funding of fundamental research. On the contrary, reduced government funding and the perception of lower status diverts our brightest and best young potential scientists, who turn instead to careers in commerce, law and medicine where, from the point of view of science, they remain lost. Thus, fundamental research is a crucial part of a research training, which in turn has important implications for the social cohesion of a nation.

ECONOMIC GAINS

The economic returns from fundamental research can be considerable, far in excess of the initial costs of the research. But because of the difficulty in separating funding levels for fundamental research and applied (goal-oriented) research, it is difficult and even impossible to statistically evaluate the economic returns from fundamental research alone. The US Department of Defence recently concluded that basic research was the principal contributor to product development and that the delay between the basic discovery and its application was significantly less for basic than for applied research. A report [Martin, 1996] commissioned by the UK Treasury focused on the economic returns. It concluded that basic research has a substantial impact on productivity, that new technology depends on advances in basic research, and that there is an interdependence between national strengths in industry and strengths in fundamental research.”

• Strategic research

To systematically calculate and fill gaps in the fundamental research and/or to aid the application further by evaluating it.

• Applied research

Applied research is research that seeks to answer a question in the real world and to solve a problem. ( can be a product of no results but the findings can be useful for identifying future studies / developments in terms of being useful or useless)

• Action research;

is either research initiated to solve an immediate problem or a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a “community of practice” to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. (to test new information, ideas, forms and procedures that can produce something that can be communicated as knowledge.)

Research in Humanities

Examining the Past to Understand the Future

“Humanities research often involves an individual professor researching in a library in order to write a book. The books that result from this study are part of an ongoing dialogue about the meaning and possibilities of human existence that reaches back to ancient times and looks forward to our common future.”

The research paper describes the humanities as a centre piece which focuses on mankind as the centre problem as opposed to the science focusing on the physical world as its centre point. The paper also mentions Metaphysics (the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space) which is composed of:

Theology the study of the nature of God and religious belief. Philosophy the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. Epistemology the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. Ethics moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.

Aesthetics a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty. the branch of philosophy which deals with questions of beauty and artistic taste.

The Arts are seen to be broken down into 3 elements starting with The practice of the arts, Scholarship of the arts and research into the arts.

The practice deals with creating and the scholarship deals with knowing of history in the world of arts and the research serves as the purpose for art and all its activity.

Humanities and the arts are far more subjective in the nature of how they are understood and how they relate to mankind and ideologies that are based on reflection and multiple perspectives of different argument whilst the traditions of science focus on objective nature of experimenting, observing, creating a standard with factual information that can be used to verify/falsify the unknown into the physical world of knowing.

References

Archer, bruce (1991) ‘Nature of research’, Nature of research, , pp. 6–13.

Humanities (2013) How is humanities research conducted? Available at: http://shc.stanford.edu/how-humanities-research-conducted(Accessed: 15 October 2016).

Union, I., Pure and Biophysics, A. (2013) International union for pure and applied biophysics. Available at: http://iupab.org/publications/value-of-fundamental-research/ (Accessed: 15 October 2016).

Links

Nature of research paper – https://archive.org/details/TheNatureOfResearch –

iupab.org/publications/value-of-fundamental-research/