So, just finished the first Elluminate session for the trimester and had a discussion about epistemology and ontology with Julia, Nicky and Marty. I have to admit that as I haven't done any reading yet I wasn't really sure what to make of these two concepts or what importance they will have in the coming weeks.
Now I know that epistemology relates to knowledge and understanding and asks questions like "What is knowledge?" and "How is knowledge acquired?". Ontology, or as it used to be called Metaphysics, relates to the nature of being, existence and reality. Questions examined in this field include "What can be said to exist?" and "What categories can these things that exist be placed into?". After discussing these two topics we moved on to a discussion of truth and if there is just one truth or many different "personal" truths. My own instinctive feeling is that there are of course many truths because everything sees things from their own perspective and experiences them based on their own prior experience, prejudices, stereotypes etc.
I'm not sure yet how all of this is going to have an impact on educational research but we did confirm that how you see the world will obviously affect how you conduct research: in the questions you ask, in the results that you want or expect etc etc.
I did find what looks to be a very good introductory paper on this topic by Hilda Freimuth (2009). I'm going to read this now and see if it makes things any clearer for me.
Neil
http://www.ugr.uaeu.ac.ae/acads/ugrujournal/docs/PEER.pdf
That's a really useful paper Neil. I particularly like the diagram at the end that illustrates the cycle of influence operating upon fundamental aspects of educational research. Although I do agree with the stated conclusion that there is no one best way to research, I would limit that a little by saying that in certain contexts there may be some approaches to research that are better, or more logical than others.
AntwortenLöschenJulia