{"id":46017,"date":"2018-11-19T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T19:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=46017"},"modified":"2018-11-19T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T19:52:09","slug":"theory-fright-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/theory-fright-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Theory fright \u2013 part two"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Theory is explanation.<\/a>\u00a0Last post I suggested that this understanding might help to reduce fear of theory. This week, another piece in the fright reduction puzzle.<\/p>\n

Something else that might help reduce fear of theory is the understanding that not every piece of research uses theory. But all research, regardless of its aims and objectives and its discipline, works with key concepts. And key concepts have to hang together coherently. As a framework. A conceptual framework.<\/p>\n

Let me give you an example.<\/p>\n

Imagine you want to research, say, how to publish a journal article \u2013 oh, hang on that\u2019s me, let me start again. Imagine\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0want to research how to publish a journal article. I would\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to work with concepts. I might want to see academic publishing as an asynchronous conversation. That\u2019s a concept I\u2019d need to explain as it\u2019s not the only way to understand publishing. But following that, I could see a journal article as a contribution to a conversation. That second idea is easier to grasp once you get the first one.<\/p>\n

So now I am working with two concepts \u2013 academic publishing as conversation and the journal article as one contribution to it. These two complementary concepts make a very simple framework that I can use to design my research on academic publishing. And I can also use it to underpin some writing that I want to do on how to write a journal article.<\/p>\n

Right, but what kind of research am I designing? Here\u2019s the rub.<\/p>\n

If my research is simply to look at how many contributions there have been to a particular academic conversation \u2013 let\u2019s say I\u2019m interested in papers that are written about open access publishing \u2013 then I probably don\u2019t need anything other than the two linked concepts I\u2019ve outlined. Or if want to look at what kind of empirical work has been done on open access publishing and what methods have been used, I still don\u2019t necessarily need anything more than this initial conceptual framework.<\/p>\n

But if I decide that I want to look at rejections in open access publishing then I could decide that I need to theorise the notion of \u2018a conversation\u2019, explaining who gets to speak and who doesn\u2019t and why. I might then call on the theorisation of a \u2018discourse community\u2019. A discourse community has norms, conventions, border keeping practices and so on. Alternatively, if I decided to look at the economics of open access publishing then I might turn to political theory related to public and scholarly good compared to profit-making. Or, if I chose to look at how peer review might work differently in open access publishing, I could call on ethical theory in order to ground a conversation about new norms of academic writing-related behaviour.<\/p>\n

So you see, while we\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0research with concepts and a conceptual framework,\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0all research question explicitly uses theory. Whether we use explanatory theory or not is in part related to the purpose of the research \u00a0\u2013 are we interested in \u2018what works\u2019 or \u2018what is\u2019\u00a0\u2013 or are we trying to understand why something is the way that it is?<\/p>\n

I recently saw a really clear example of a turn to theory in order to understand something \u2013 it was in the journal\u00a0Teaching in Higher Education.\u00a0<\/em>The author, Jon Nixon, begins his paper,\u00a0\u2018Becoming ourselves\u2019( 2018)<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0by recounting a particular interaction which took place in an interview.<\/p>\n

In the course of conducting the study I interviewed a number of teachers and students, but the comment of one teacher in particular has stayed with me over the years. \u2018It\u2019s not just that expectations need raising \u2019 argued this teacher,\u2018 It\u2019s that our pupils need to see that they can achieve\u2019. Then the interviewee added:\u2018 There\u2019s some sort of subtle difference there I think.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>(p. 902)<\/p>\n

Nixon goes on to say that he has \u2018pondered\u2019 for a long time on what that subtle difference might be. He writes that the teacher\u2019s statement raises a \u2018fundamental pedagogical question: how to translate aspiration into functioning capability?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure that Nixon\u2019s question resonates with many of us. I\u2019m sure Nixon is not the only one to ponder over teaching in under and postgraduate classrooms.<\/p>\n

But then Nixon goes on to say\u2026<\/p>\n

I have found Martha C. Nussbaum\u2019s work particularly helpful in thinking through \u2013and working through \u2013that question. Her speci\ufb01cation of what she terms the ten \u2018central capabilities\u2019 has in the past provided me with a very helpful framework, not withstanding what some would see as its colonialist and\/or universalist bias (criticisms that Nussbaum robustly counters). (See Nussbaum 2000, 78\u201380; 2011, 33\u20134). Hans-Georg Gadamer\u2019s later work on \u2018applied hermeneutics\u2019 has also provided me with some hugely important insights into what he calls \u2018the primacy of the question\u2019 in the development of understanding both within the humanities and more generally. More recently I have come across Paul Gibbs\u2019s (2017) work on happiness and contentment, which has helped me approach the question from some interestingly di<\/em>\ufb00erent angles<\/em>. (p. 902-3)<\/p>\n

The paper goes on with Nixon explaining his take on Gibbs which he then brings to the question of pedagogy, and students\u2019 ambitions.<\/p>\n

There are three things about Nixon\u2019s introduction that are notable. Nixon<\/p>\n