THE NATURE OF INQUIRY

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Inquiry is the act of investigation

Problem

Asking for information

To find solution

Research

Scientific & Positivism methodology

Naturalistic & Interpretive methodology

Methodological from Critical Theory

Research is concerned to understand the world. How we view our world. What we take understanding to be and what we see as the purpose of understanding

The Search for Truth

To understand the nature of phenomena, people present their senses by three categories. They are experience, reasoning and research (Mouly, 1978).

            In our daily life, to come the term with problems of day to day living, we are heavily dependent upon experience and authority. For uncovering ultimate the truth, there are two different points of view between scientist and laypeople.

1.   Scientist        : scientist construct their theories systematically, Concerns with such relationship, serious, systematic use technique and procedures

2.   Laypeople    : mostly, laypeople do not attempt to trying to explain an occurrence, Concerns with such relationship, loose, unsystematic and uncontrolled

            The second categories are reasoning it consists of three types: they are Inductive, deductive and the combine of inductive and deductive.

·         Deductive reasoning is on the syllogism or analogy which contributes to formal logic.

·         Inductive method was eventually in which the investigator first operates inductively from observation to hypotheses.

·         Inductive-deductive is also from observation to hypotheses but it is also from hypotheses into their implication.

Research

There are 3 characteristics of the research, they are:

•       Experience       : a research is systematic and could be controlled

•       Empirical         : a research must be based on the data and reality

•       Self-correcting : a research Combination of both experience and reasoning

Conceptions of Social Reality

There are views of social science:

1.      Assumptions concern the very nature of social phenomena.  

2.      Assumption concern the vary bases of knowledge-its nature and form, how it can be acquired.

3.      Assumption concern human nature and in particular, the relationship between human being and their environment.

Positivism

All genuine knowledge is based on sense of experience, and can only be advanced by Observation and experiment (Auguste Comte) .

The Assumptions and The Nature of Science

There four kind of assumption held by scientist

1.      The assumption of determinism                        : the event has causes, determined by other

2.      The assumption of empiricism                          : the nature of empirical evidences support it assumption.

There five steps in process of empirical science:

1.      Experience

2.      Classification

3.      Quantification

4.      Discovery of relationships

5.      Approximation to the truth.

3.      The assumption of the principle of parsimony            : the basic idea should be explained in the most economical way possible

4.      The assumption of generality                          

Types of theory

1.      Empirical theory

2.      Grand theory

3.      Critical theory

The Tools of Science

There two tools for science:

1.      Concept           : the relationship between the word or symbol and idea or conception

2.      Hypotheses      : a guess statement of the relationship between two or more variable

The scientific method

Scientific method is scientific approach which necessarily involves standards and procedures for demonstrating the empirical claim of its finding

Criticisms Of Positivism And The Scientific Method

The positivist paradigm has been allowed to exert on areas of our intellectual life. Positivism’s concern for control and Its appeal to the passivity of behaviourism for instrumental reason.

Phenomenology, Ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism

·         Phenomenology is a theoretical point of view that advocates the study of direct experience taken at face value

• Ethnomethodology is a theory which is concerned with the world of everyday life and how people make sense of their everyday world.
• Symbolic Interactionism a Symbol of interacting which is produced and represented by people in the external world.

CRITICAL THEORY AND CRITICAL EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Critical theory:

Ø  Prescriptive

Ø  Normative

Ø  Entailing a view of what behaviour  in a social democracy should entail

Critical theory is intended to realize a society that is based on equality and democracy for all its members.

CRITICAL THEORY AND CURRICULUM RESEARCH

The curriculum is a selection of what is deemed to be worthwhile of knowledge. It is an ideological selection from a range of possible knowled.

Feminist research

Feminist research challenges the legitimacy of research that does not empower oppressed and otherwise invisible groups—women.

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

Research is a systematic controlled, empirical, and critical way to search the truth of natural phenomena in our environment.

Evaluation is a systematic determination of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards.

According to Smith and Glass (1987)The Differences between Evaluation and Research are:

1. The intents and purposes of the investigation
2. The scope of the investigation evaluation
3. Values in the investigation Research
4. The origins of the study Research
5. The uses of the study
6. The timeliness of the study Evaluation
7. Criteria for judging the study Evaluation
8. The agendas of the study

EVALUATIVE RESEARCH OR APPLIED RESEARCH

Evaluative Research seeks to assess or judge in some way, providing useful information about something other than might be gleaned in mere observation or investigation of relationships.

Applied research A form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of science.

Research, Politics and Policy-making

·         Research and politics intertwine; the relationships between educational research, politics and policy-making are complex.

·         A significant tension between research and policy-makers.

·         The issue of the connection between research and politics.

METHODS AND METHODOLOGY

Methods are the tools, techniques or processes that we use in our research. These might be, for example, surveys, interviews, Photo voice, or participant observation. Methods and how they are used are shaped by methodology.

Methodology is the study of how research is done, how we find out about things, and how knowledge is gained. In other words, methodology is about the principles that guide our research practices.

The aim of the method and methodology  is to help us to understand, in the broadest possible terms, not the products of scientific inquiry but the process itself.