Showing posts with label Ronfeldt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronfeldt. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Re-examining my worldview

Image: ariss via freeimages

Research Philosophy

 How do I identify with four of the main worldview areas, as discussed by Newby?

Scientism and Positivism

 This school of thought demands predictable cause and effect - not easy to establish where people are concerned. Once people realise that others are able to predict their behaviour in any way, they tend to change their behaviour to avoid manipulation! It may be beneficial to look for patterns if you have a critical interest, such as a business issue, although this may actually overlap with more humanistic traditions (see below) because you will be seeking a model that is 'fit for purpose' rather than trying to establish an objective truth.

This is the case for the research carried out by Meadows (2004) and Tremain (2011, 2012), where the critical factors affecting examiner retention and job satisfaction needed to be identified. Establishing an all-encompassing theory or truth (positivism) may be too ambitious - and would be clouded by personal interests - identifying and monitoring the relevant factors was achieved through careful selection of questions and interpretation of data.

 Future reading: Discussion of the work of Karl Popper (Newby, Ch.3)

Humanism, Phenomenology and Existentialism

 Whist positivism demands an objective external truth independent of human influence, humanism treats 'truth' as a social construction, where one culture's truth may not be another's. This ties well with my understanding of social evolution (Hobson, 2012; Ronfeldt, 1996, 2012a,b) whereby societies develop distinct cultures of varying complexity through the addition of different forms of organisation. Conflicts arise between or even within societies due to disagreements about how society should be ordered (or not) by hierarchical institutions and free market policies. Ronfeldt (2013) acknowledges that even the term 'tribe' in his T-I-M-N framework is frequently contested by others, and progresses the model by engaging with and incorporating these disagreements into his model.

Phenomenology focuses on individual and collective experiences to form a rational basis for future action, by probing the differences between 'perceived' and 'experienced' world. Methods include description observation, reporting and reflection.

Existentialism centres around seeking to understand the world from a personal perspective, driven by conviction and desire. Methods could extend to asking participants for other forms of 'data' such as pictures, videos and stories of their lives - anything that conveys their viewpoint in richer detail than a questionnaire could. Existentialism has been applied to curriculum design, by designing a curriculum that centres around self-discovery.

 Critical theory

This theory is concerned with political beliefs, particularly those that are left-of-centre and seeking to change society by making people aware of their circumstances in order to liberate them. Research carried out within a critical theory framework seeks to observe and expose individual facts which can then be combined to form an argument for change.

Aside: I am particularly interested in the references to Karl Marx, as this led to a model for social evolution around the struggle for control of wealth - somewhat akin to Ronfeldt's description of the transition between biform (T+I) and triform (T+I+M) societies.

 Applying critical theory to education has been used by academics to attack the present model for education as being primarily based around servicing the needs of the capitalist economy, and thus serves only to reinforce the inequalities that it inevitably generates. However positivists would undoubtedly attack this approach because it proposes a hypothesis and seeks to prove it.

 Postmodernism

This approach distinguishes itself from the 'modernist' approaches by rejecting the 'modernist' assumption that there is a single explanation for things, which leads to a natural order. For education, this almost rejects the need for theories of education, since such theories are rooted in modernist approaches! This approach does overlap with my TIMN world-view, because it is by nature multi-layered, and acknowledges that 'people and organisations can play several and sometimes conflicting roles', in keeping with the different types of organisations and the interfaces between them.

Postmodernism bears a great deal of similarity to the network (+N) principles described by Ronfeldt, with researchers seeking to act more as nodes in a network, unpicking their assumptions and sharing data that reflects their local situation, with the ideal that the value of the network increases not simply with the number of nodes but the number of connections between them.

 Future reading: Steven Johnson: Future Perfect 

Summary

 My adoption to the T-I-M-N framework in my outlook leads me to cross several of the boundaries of research philosophy, but perhaps I identify more strongly than I realised with the post-modernist approach for rejecting the established order with its demanded polarisation of political outlooks.

References:
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Sunday, 12 May 2013

The nature of academic publishing

Image: forwardcom via freeimages

Building up towards my reflective assignment, I thought it might help to draft this in sections, according to particular areas of interest throughout the module. First stop is publishing...

One of the assumptions that I am interested in challenging is the area of academic publishing. We tend to regard the world of academic journals as ‘an open and public forum’ (Colquhoon, 2006) that is created for the common good, but a growing number of people are beginning to question if this holds true, especially in the age of open web content. Wheeler (2011a, b, c) has written a number of blog posts criticising the traditional system of academic publishing, noting that:

‘It’s a hierarchy that rarely changes.’

Furthermore, the hierarchical nature of the publishing world is often self-defeating in terms of securing the widest possible audience:

‘...many of the top, elite journals we are expected to publish in are in fact read by a very small percentage of the community the research is intended to reach.’

From considering my own worldview, I have noted the restrictions that hierarchical institutions place on the education system, particularly when combined with the solutions offered by market organisations (Hobson, 2012; Ronfeldt, 2012b). Potential disruptive alternatives may yet be found in the emerging network sector predicted by Ronfeldt (2012a), or the peer-to-peer ideology (Bauwens, 2009), although sustainable business models are yet to emerge. It should be noted that there are dangers inherent in the misuse of data for either solution. Newby (2010) warns of ‘intellectual imperialism’ when researchers are able to claim sole ownership of research data, discounting the rights of those involved in the study. At the other extreme of open web publishing, Lanier (2006a, b; 2012) warns of the dangers of ‘digital Maoism’, whereby all ownership and authorship of published data is lost, and transferred to control of the crowd.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013

First attempt at defining Research Purpose

Originally posted to eBridge, 5 March 2013
First attempt at defining Research Purpose:

The purpose of this evaluation study will be to understand the effect that online discussion has on the quality of learning for participants in workplace learning programs at my workplace. At this stage in the research, the online communities will be generally defined as any online discussion platform set up with the intention of supporting discourse amongst participants on a learning program.

I've deliberately re-written to avoid phrases such as ‘before, during, after’ and ‘training events’ (Shackleton-Jones, 2013) because I want to make sure that the capability of online learning is not limited to simply supporting traditional training events. Although it's likely to be viewed as a bolt-on by many for some time, I want to make sure that I establish effectiveness for the online component in its own right.

Research Problem

Online communities are becoming an area of increased interest in learning provision that is both affordable and available 'anytime, anywhere'. This interest has stemmed from growing demand for higher education, but there is also keen interest for workplace learning. There is a growing recognition that simply providing the technology and expecting both participation and effective learning outcomes is not enough. Investigations of the learning environment - both technological and human interaction within it - warrant study to ensure that both practitioners and participants use the medium effectively. This study will focus on the effects that online interactions have on learning for employees at an educational services provider, and whether the current provision of online learning tools could be said to constitute an online learning community in its own right, or simply an extension to face-to-face training programmes.

Worldview

My current worldview has lately been quite dramatically shaped by a model for social evolution put forward by Ronfeldt (1996, 2012a). He defines human organisation as being representable by four distinct forms: tribes, institutions, markets and networks (T - I - M - N). Within this framework, we can begin to understand the complexity of our society, and what possible avenues there may be for progress beyond our current state. In particular I'm interested in the possible implications for the future of our education systems (Hobson, 2012; Ronfeldt, 2012b) in the face of both technological evolution and the corresponding changes in our organisational behaviour. As Marshall McLuhan famously stated: 'We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.' My intent is to explore how the network form can be utilised for a better education system, and how online communities might contribute towards realising this future.

References:
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