A Good Chat

Nothing happened. In fact today's meeting with GR (the male PhD student) was good. Having a preconception or stereotyping is not a constructive approach. I could learn a lot. Although GR's method is a case study, his approach is the use of mixed methods which is totally different from mine. He has actually been managing his research well.

Our discussion was mainly about methodology. The primary question was: What can we begin with?

KK (me): What is methodology, anyway?
GR: Yeah, that's also my concern.
KK: Perhaps we should state exactly what methodology is. There is no consensus in the definifion of methodology.
GR: Agree. Is it an approach or should we include a theoretical perspective?

We actually could not define what methodology is!!

We already looked at theses in past years. However, none of them had a clear structure in the methodology chapter. Finding a clear definition of methodology became our homework.

Crotty (1998) defined methodology as the overall approach taken in a piece of research. He also stated that methodology is the strategy, plan of action, process or design...

If this was true, we should begin with stating either quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods as an approach. Most of theses, however, do not begin with this. Instead, they start with stating an epistemological position or a theoretical perspective.

I know that people in general start this chapter with ontology and epistemology. But this approach is inconsistent with Crotty's definition. There is one possibility that Crotty's definition is wrong or at least little adopted. I think it too much, otherwise.

Reference:
Crotty, M. (1998). The foundation of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. St Leonalds, NSW: Allen & Unwin.