Last post of the course

You should write a 1000 word commentary in which you reflect about different ways of combining different methods in order to answer complex research questions.

The course began with a deep dive into a more philosophical approach to reflecting about knowledge – something that was new to me, and not necessarily something that was easy to grasp. However, it did add a new layer of thinking for me, and I gained insight into how to reflect upon the world around us, and especially knowledge. Many times in an engineering education, the answers are black or white – right or wrong (take for example math, given a specific equation there is a right answer and many wrong answers). This course opened up a new way of thinking, what is right and what is wrong – is there such a thing, can we objectively say that anything is right?  Our a posteriori knowledge is something that must be examined in order to understand how we reflect on certain questions – and other people who do not share that knowledge must gain a larger understanding of what you are presenting, in order to understand.

The course continued with more philosophical questions such as enlightenment, dialectic discussions and nominalism. This was also something that can be applied to just about anything and is an important aspect to bring with you when trying to contribute to the human pool of knowledge.

I would say that after the above, the course became more and more relatable over the last few weeks. Discussing theory, quantitative research, qualitative research, design and case studies were all more tangible for an engineering student than the philosophical questions that began the course. Since most (if not all) who read this course have written a bachelor’s thesis, we had previous experience in these fields, which I felt was applicable when reading about the texts prior to the seminars.

However, with the above being said, and the extremely interesting aspects of this entire course – it is not until you can combine all 6 seminars that you truly have an understanding of how you as an individual can contribute to knowledge by answering complex research questions. By first having a grasp of the philosophical aspects, and actually asking yourself what knowledge you want to contribute with, how yourself will be colored by your life experience, and how to avoid nuancing your research given the lens you view the world with.  Ask yourself question such as “Do I have any previous experience of this subject, and how will that affect my approach to this question?” or “What exactly am I trying to contribute here, and how should I best approach the problem?”. When you have answers to the above, you can apply the second half of the course – trying to come up with new theories of different aspects of life by using either qualitative or quantitative methods (or maybe even a mix of both). There are many methods which can be applied to solving the hypothesis you have, for example using quantitative measurements (raw data put into a context), qualitative measurements (interviews, participant overviews, focus groups and so on).

Continuing on how to answer the research questions – once you have all of the tools given to you, and you have been defining the question and the method to use in order to best achieve the answer, the next step is to “get your hands dirty” and get to work. Define what you are trying to answer (by using a more philosophical approach to knowledge and a priori/a posteriori knowledge), start looking at which methods to combine in order to best answer the question (quantitative measurements? Qualitative? Design research? Case studies? A combination of them?). It is important for the researcher to know that there might not be a right answer on which path to take, but having all of the tools in your arsenal will help you choose the path which best fulfills your needs – every research question will have a different approach to how to answer it. A subject that has been brought up by me and my course mates has been that of objectivity versus subjectivity – and the impossible task of being entirely objective when conducting research. And to me, it is quite clear that it is impossible to be 100% objective – but due to the philosophical part of this course, and what true knowledge might be (and might not be), you have a better understanding of how to become more objective. And from a reader perspective, knowing that every paper out there is not entirely objective is also important to know – and use that knowledge to take the core of the paper with a grain of salt, and form your own opinion of what is being presented.

I think another very important part of this course is the entire structure of first reading texts, followed by a lecture, then a seminar and finally a follow-up post. The structure ensured that we view the week’s content at hand through many different aspects – and we were given the chance to first gain our own perspective of the literature, followed by gaining insight into how other students and teachers viewed it. By combining all of these perspectives, you had a better opportunity of defining how you want to view it yourself.

I want to wrap up with the point that I have been trying to get across through this post – which is that there is no “one size fits all” approach to how to answer the complex research questions you form. And there will never objectively be a correct way of answering one, but with that in mind, you have the possibility to use different approaches to answering them and create your own combination of what the best suitable approach might be. A course like this one has opened my eyes to different perspectives I had never thought about previously, and it is exactly that types of perspectives that is essential in answering research questions – the knowledge of all of these different approaches.