The teacher researcher in me feels that any research I embark on to be truly meaningful must have direct application to my existing practices, either in my work in my small school, in my university teacher education initiatives and to networks in the name of public service.
Any product, program or artefact finds meaning in truth in its utility and not merely to satisfy my need to create. In the process of doing so, I ask, is this as meaningful to others? To what extent? Furthermore, the goal to understand. How is their experience of it? How else can you make that experience meaningful? useful? truthful?
The academic side of me drives me to search for the theory that guides the study and the face the challenge of building on it.
My experiments with the use of technology to search for basic solutions in all these work engagements brought me to the idea of design thinking.
And now with my PhD work, it all comes to this space of where all the above converge into what can be named as Design based Research.
But what bugs me is this: what is the paradigm I am actually drawing from? All this time, I have thought it was interpretivism or constructivism or is it only because Ive just read that far? And now since Im reading about pragmatism more closely, it is possible that I am actually more guided by it than the former.
Or can I just be both? Or why not let the research questions speak for themselves plainly and should I just junk the idea for finding the paradigm that is ‘required’ of any research study.
So perhaps a way to go is to understand what a pragmatist paradigm is really about. since ive read it through mixed methods research, why not finally get into it. you still got time...you and your itchy brain! don't worry, you'll find to relax that itch sometime.
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