RES701 - Robin Le Couteur - 2019

Research Methods When research is conducted, there are many ways of going about it depending on what you are trying to find out, and what philosophical view you have on research. These different ways, or methods, of researching are the tools that a researcher uses. There are many different types, but the method I’ll be talking about today is ‘Discourse Analysis’. Discourse Analysis According to thoughtco.com , “Discourse analysis  is a broad term for the study of the ways in which  language  is used between people, both in written  texts  and spoken  contexts . ” Basically it looks beyond what people are saying and looks at how they are saying it. It is analyzing language in context . Other methods of language analysis look more at the structure of language and parts of words for example, but discourse analysis looks at conversation at a higher level looking at the overall conversation rather than the parts of the conversation. How is it...

Paradigms What is a paradigm? To start of this blog, we first need to understand what a paradigm is, then how it relates to science. owlcation.com has a fantastic description of what a paradigm is:  "Essentially, a paradigm is a set of assumptions governing how we interact and interpret the world." Basically a paradigm is the assumptions which we generally believe to be true, it's a perspective of what we think is real and true that we base our thinking on. Everyone has their own paradigm which reflects their beliefs and experiences. In relation to science, a paradigm is a shared set of assumptions and beliefs. Scientists can't explain the universe and how it works, so they form a paradigm to base their thinking on. Without this base you can't start because there is no starting point. Paradigms don't always stay the same. Sometimes the assumptions can be proven wrong, and new scientific progress is made. New sets of assumptions are made. This ...

This blog I'll be giving my answers for the homework questions given to us last week about ontology and Epistemology What is ontology? How is it relevant to research? According to philosophyterms.com/ontology/  "Ontology is the study of being. " Ontology looks at what things  exists, and what existence  is. With ontology you are looking at the objects around you and making assumptions on what is real. It is a matter of perspective. What is Epistemology? How is it relevant to research? According to  britannica.com/topic/epistemology, Epistemology is " t he philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human  knowledge . " Epistemology doesn't look at what is physical but rather what we know about the world and how to justify what we believe. Epistemology looks past our perspective of the world and tries to explain and justify our knowledge of what we think is real  What is the connection between ontology and epistemology in a re...

Hi! My name is Robin, and this is my first blog posting for RES701. In this blog I'll be answering the 5 questions that were given to us. What do you think ‘research’ is? I think research is when you look at various sources and conduct experiments to gain understanding and come to conclusions. I could conduct research on a topic to gain understanding based on other people's research and conclusions, or I could use that information plus my own experimentation to reach new conclusions and contribute to the world's knowledge. Do you think you will ever need research skills? Of course! When you learn about new things, good research skills will allow you to reach sound conclusions. I already use research skills in my study to learn about different topics, as well as to just learn new things that I find interesting.  What do you think a research journal is and who is it written for? I think a research journal is a record of how a researcher conducted their work. I...

In class we had an interesting discussion about the following questions. In this blog I've included the questions and what I came up with as answers for them.  Is there a difference between ‘knowing’ something and ‘having knowledge’ of something? Knowing is firsthand experience, knowledge is a gathering of other people's knowing. What is ‘truth’? It is the proven facts about something without any imagining or theories, or what is widely accepted as being correct and factual. Often we say something is true when it could possibly not be, so 'true' can either mean what just is correct and factual, or what the majority believes to be true based off a combination of knowing and knowledge. Something can be believed as true when a group of people agree that something is correct based off their combined knowledge. A truth is something we believe to be correct. What do we   really  mean when w...