1. KNOWLEDGE, PRAXIS AND
RESEARCH QUESTIONS

2. First Questions
• What is knowledge? What types of knowledge can we
use?
• What types of researchers are there? How do they
choose knowledge types?
• What is the best way to get it?
• Who controls it? Who changes it?
• What is the ideal world for knowledge?

3. Perception and Experience

4. Reason: Deduction and Induction

5. Social Interaction

6. Intuition and Human Emotion

7. What sort of researcher are you?
•Answer the following
questions with your topic
in mind…

8. Why do we want to know about your topic?
1. To discover laws to predict and control events
2. To understand and describe meaningful social
action for the people involved
3. To expose myths and misunderstanding and
empower people to change

9. Isn‟t common sense knowing?
1. No, it is not valid unless tested those who already
know
2. Yes, it is a collection of powerful everyday theories
used by common people, and there are many truths
3. No, it is a collection of false beliefs created by
hidden interests that hide behind the majority belief

10. What are human beings?
1. Rational individuals who can drive and can be
shaped by external forces
2. Social beings who create their world through their
own interpretations
3. Creative people with untapped potential, trapped by
exploitation

11. What is reality?
1. Stable pre-existing patterns or orders that can be
discovered
2. Fluid definitions of a situation created by human
interaction
3. Conflict–filled and governed by hidden structures

12. What is the truth?
1. Logically connected to laws and facts
2. Resonate or feels right to those who are being
studied
3. Supplies peoples with tools needed to change the
world

13. There is little agreement on KNOWING
Especially on the biggest
questions…
Coming up: the three
perspectives on some of the
biggest questions…
These perspectives are
generally known as…
• Scientific or empirical or
rational
• Interpretative or
interactional
• Critical and radical

14. What is Education?
Is it giving
access into a
Is it knowing special group
and giving of knowers?
the truth?
Is it helping a
person to Is it teaching
uncover their facts or
reality? interpretation
or power?

15. Framework for Inquiry: Education
Qualitative Quantitative
Theory Praxis

16. Our Year of Praxis Curiosity
Research Engagement with critical thinking
Reflection
Worldview of Knowledge
Synopsis – Formal Question
Literature Review
Ethics
Methodology
Engagements in community as
participant observer
Interviews – understanding their
narratives
Narrative Essay / case study
Data Organisation
Analysis and Interpretation
Findings
Presentation / Paper
Research Article

17. Theory and Praxis
• Theory = Heavens: stable, fixed, certain, contemplative
• Praxis = Earth: unpredictable, changeable, situational,
lived
Platonic way:
knowledge is theory
to be applied to life Isocratic / Aristotelian
and situations way: Knowledge is
experiential, in the world
and lived.

18. Praxis means you are…
• In the situational context
• Can have access to the knowledge providers
• Can BE a knowledge provider
• Can organise your experiences according to rules
• Engage in the active change of your context
• Why is it important to teachers?
• What is an example in the current research questions?

19. Worldview of
knowledge
Findings
• Description Research Approach
• Analysis
• Scientific - Causality
• Action
• Social / Interpretive
• Critique
• Praxis
• Generative
• Critical / Action
• Feminist
• Marxist
Research techniques / Qualitative
Actions in the Field • Descriptive
• Observation • Grounded Theory
• Cases • Visual Ethnography
• Text analysis • Discourse Analysis
• Interviews
• Focus group
Quantitative
• Survey
• Participant • Statistical analysis
Observation • Behaviour Coding
• Conversation • Content Coding
Analysis

20. The Synopsis for a Research Project
• Formally defined vocabulary
• Clear meta-commentary
• Speaking from the point of view of a researcher –
academic
• Question forms turned into statements (if, whether)

21. Introduction
• The aim of the proposed ………………………..research and ensuing
report is to investigate / describe / evaluate whether …
• This research draws on ….
• For the purposes of this report, a personal mobile phone is a
personally funded phone for private calls as opposed to an employer
funded phone that directly relates to carrying out a particular job.
• Employee attitudes include but are not limited to...
• Staff and team meeting refer to...
• Negative effect is assumed to be...

22. Background
• There has been an increase in the use of personal mobile phones
over the past five years and there is every indication that this will
continue. According to Black (2002) by 2008 almost 100% of working
people in Australia will carry personal mobile phones. Black describes
this phenomenon as „serious in the extreme, potentially undermining
the foundations of communication in our society‟ (2002, p 167).
Recently members of the public have complained about the use of
personal mobile phones in corporate meetings (The Australian,
12/5/10). Nevertheless, at present there is no official nationwide or
union policy regarding phone use at work. Individual companies have
expectations of conventional methods of courtesy or when failing,
overt signs and directives (Drake, 2009). The research will attempt to
ascertain if negativity towards phone usage conventions and or rules
produces employee and employer discontent, and what types of
negativity this presents in the workplace. The report will also outline
whether there are exceptions to this perception.

23. Methods of Research
• An annotated review of related literature and will include
views surrounding the use of mobile phones in a socio-
cultural theoretical perspective. A staff Likart-scale survey
on attitudes towards the use of mobile phones in the staff
/ team meetings will be conducted after the review of
literature. Group cohesive behaviour and the idea of
Gemienshaften will underpin the formulation and analysis
of respondent surveys. Participant opinion will be
gathered and analysed according to schematisation of the
respondent perspectives.

24. Possible Outcomes of Research
The results may indicate that employees believe that
mobile phone use is a conventional interruption in staff
meetings. The employer perspective may show that
personal mobile phones are disruptive and counter-
productive in meetings in that they create ill-will about
employee status

25. Justification
Pending the results of the research, it may be
recommended that companies develop a company policy
based on consensus and consultation for the use of mobile
phones except in exceptional circumstances.

26. CORE VALUES OF
THE UNIVERSITY
Why the Academy is different from all other
Institutions?

27. All societies have Core Values that allow
people to live together.
• What are some of the core PUBLIC values of a Western
society?
• Where are these values promoted or expressed?

28. If the University
had a
constitution...
EIGHT CORE
VALUES
would be
central to its
sovereignty.

29. Number ONE Academic Freedom
• To pursue the truth “without fear or favour”
• Freedom from outside interferences such as those
interested in research for profit or following a
political/religious view
• Freedom also from internal interferences such as the
Scholars/Researchers own bundle of needs and mental
habits.
• Freedom from the bureaucracy of the university itself

30. Number TWO Autonomy
• Autonomy: “following only the rules we give to ourselves”
• Similar to: in a democratic society the laws and guiding
ideas that citizens will happily follow will be those that
they freely determine for themselves.
• Therefore in a free society people will try to devise laws
and follow ways based on knowledge that is gained
through free-enquiry.

31. Number THREE Scholastic Rigor
• Scholars follow strict rules - enhances rather than
constrains academic freedom
What are some rules you know of?
• Academics typically place a lot of emphasis of emotional
control – faith, bias, belief and emotion
• Famous scholars are famous for the quality and scope
and depth of their work and self-discipline

32. Number Four Intellectual Curiosity
• Intense curiosity to think / not to assume knowledge but to
question own knowledge
• Desire to know something for its own sake
• Desire to improve human condition, rather than their own

33. Number FIVE Intellectual Honesty
• It is the commitment to getting the truth of the matter
• One must give the most truthful account that one can
• To report knowledge even if it may conflict with their own
personal opinions, benefits and beliefs

34. Number SIX Critical Dialogue
• Even when scholars are working alone, they are always
engaging with ideas of others
• Even in our private thoughts we are always in critical
dialogue with significant others
• In a scholar‟s efforts to work out answers to questions.
They will engage in critical dialogue with other scholars
who are the most important of these significant others.
• Engaging in critical dialogue is one of the more important
ways of understanding a question or topic

35. Number SEVEN Self-examination
• Careful critical self-reflection – science (Bacon)
• Reflect on what – how – why we pursue the truth
• Examine conflicting motivations for knowing

36. Number EIGHT Respect for divergent
values
• To extent boundaries – encounter different ways of seeing
the world
• Re-examining beliefs of oneself
• Quest for knowledge includes respect for other values

37. These lecture
notes come for
free...
But it‟s the only
thing in your essay
that you do not
have to
REFERENCE

38. The THREE possible roles of the
university

39. To provide people with skills for
knowledge based jobs
To increase the capacity for highly skilled
economic development
To give the working class upward mobility

40. • To serve as the institution of research for the
benefit of all in society
• To allow the individual to express their intellectual
curiosity
• To provide those who have gifted intellect with an
outlet

41. • To teach the skills that are required for a critical citizen in
a vibrant democracy
• To be an autonomous entity of protest and dissent in the
face of authority
• To be a place where morality and the significance of
human life is debated and disseminated