Course Description:
This intensive, two-day event will introduce a new, innovative approach to undertaking small-scale research in master's and doctoral projects. The approach is based on David Plowright's Using Mixed Methods: Frameworks for an Integrated Methodology (the FraIM), published by SAGE in December 2011. The main aim of the two-day workshop will be to provide an opportunity for new researchers, master's and doctoral students and supervisors to become familiar with the FraIM and to consider how it might be used to support undertaking postgraduate research. David Plowright's book will form part of and will be included in, the workshop materials.
Research is firmly embedded in a conservativism that can lead to a confused understanding of both the practicalities and the conceptualisation of the research process. There is no doubt a variety of reasons for this. It may be the reluctance of methodology tutors, supervisors and researchers to let go of their cherished positions held over many years. It might also include a lack of confidence, time, incentive or interest to challenge the traditional perspectives ubiquitous in methodology publications and research cultures in higher education. Whatever the reasons, research methods rely, for their understanding, on a number of myths. The biggest myth of all is the use of the traditional distinction between qualitative research and quantitative research.
The two-day workshop will begin with challenging the traditional paradigmatic perspectives used to conceptualise the research process. The opening sessions will be about the myths that make up the 'Mythology of Methodology', the subject matter of David's next book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan later this year. This will be followed by selected elements of the FraIM, including:
Facilitator:
The facilitator, Dr David Plowright (BA BSc MA PhD PGCE FHEA FRSA), is an experienced lecturer, researcher, programme director, supervisor and examiner at masters and doctoral levels. He has recently retired from his full-time post as programme director of the professional doctorates in education (EdD) courses at the University of Hull, UK. He presently works as a consultant doctoral supervisor for the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology, the Open University, UK and also as a research associate at Stellenbosch University. David's book, Charles Sanders Peirce: Pragmatism and Education was published in 2016, by Springer. It introduces selected ideas from the work of C. S. Peirce, the 19th century American founder of pragmatism.
Please contact Ms Rhoda Van Rensburg at vanrensburgrhoda@sun.ac.za for more information on each short course, as well as registrations or simply click on the registration button above.