Archive for the ‘Research’ Category
Complexity, Methodology and Method: Crafting a Critical Process of Research
This paper defines a theoretical framework aiming to support the actions and reflections of researchers looking for a ‘method’ in order to critically conceive the complexity of a scientific process of research. First, it starts with a brief overview of the core assumptions framing Morin’s “paradigm of complexity” and Le Moigne’s “general system theory”. Distinguishing ‘methodology’ and ‘method’, the framework is conceived based on three moments, which represent recurring stages of the spiraling development of research. The first moment focuses on the definition of the research process and its sub-systems (author, system of ideas, object of study and method) understood as a complex form of organization finalized in a specific environment. The second moment introduces a matrix aiming to model the research process and nine core methodological issues, according to a programmatic and critical approach. Using the matrix previously modeled, the third moment suggests conceiving of the research process following a strategic mindset that focuses on contingencies, in order to locate, share and communicate the path followed throughout the inquiry.
Research Skills for the Future: Summary and Critique of a Comparative Study
What key research competencies will researchers, and professionals need to have in the future? To introduce the topic, we look into a recent comparative study on this question that compares the situation in eight research-intensive countries. The interviewed researchers and research managers appear to agree largely about a number of common factors that shape the development of research practices in all applied fields. These concern three major groups of factors: structural, cultural, and methodological, that is (in the report’s terms), related to new ways of carrying out research.
… depicts 20 competencies that are expected to be indispensable for mature researchers by 2020, in both public- and private-sector research, in all of the countries studied. Together, they constitute for the authors of the study the ideal profile of experienced researchers in the future. Six of these competencies are regarded as newly emerging key competencies. They are:
- A well-developed capacity for analysis, including the mastery of sophisticated IT tools
- The ability to work and cooperate in interdisciplinary environments
- The ability to develop research networks
- Language skills
- Corporate culture and management skills
- Awareness of the pertinence of the research and the ability to assess its impact on the environment
Read also: Research Skills for the Future: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
Research Skills for the Future: Research Workforce Under the Spotlight
Research Skills for the Future: A Consultant’s Perspective
Skills and competencies needed in the research field: Objectives 2020
Skills and competencies needed in the research field: Objectives 2020
Politicians, business leaders and unions in all countries are unanimous in pointing to research, and the issues of how to fuel it and how to resource it, as make or break challenges. If national and/or international research policies together with skills and competencies management strategies are to succeed, they must first be reconciled. Other issues, key to predicting the outcome of current changes in the needs of the research world, include changes in education systems and increasing professionalization of research work, job appeal, and mobility and career management. In this context, APEC and Deloitte Consulting decided to conduct a joint international survey on the skills and competencies needed in research-related jobs within the next 10 years. For the first time, a forward-looking international study presents the vision and expectations of researchers and research managers with regard to skills and competencies.
This study addresses six key questions: What are the main trends in the changing organisation of research? What skills and competencies are currently sought after in a researcher? Which are specific to a junior researcher and which to an experienced researcher? How will they change over the next 10 years? What is the current degree of proficiency of these skills? What actions and strategies have been introduced or are planned to produce, attract and retain researchers? This study therefore addresses a wide audience: PhD students, researchers and research personnel, recruitment and career management professionals in every type of organisation (laboratory, business, university department, etc.), professors, newly qualified researchers, and executives keen to exercise their talents in the research world.
Lire aussi: Les besoins en compétencesdanslesmétiers de la recherche à l’horizon 2020
Quantitative Research Methods in Chaos and Complexity
In addition to qualitative methods presented in chaos and complexity theories in educational research, this article addresses quantitative methods that may show potential for future research studies. Although much in the social and behavioral sciences literature has focused on computer simulations, this article explores current chaos and complexity methods that have the potential to bridge the divide between qualitative and quantitative, as well as theoretical and applied, human research studies. These methods include multiple linear regression, nonlinear regression, stochastics, Monte Carlo methods, Markov Chains, and Lyapunov exponents. A postulate for post hoc regression analysis is then presented as an example of an emergent, recursive, and iterative quantitative method when dealing with interaction effects and collinearity among variables. This postulate also highlights the power of both qualitative and quantitative chaos and complexity theories in order to observe and describe both the micro and macro levels of systemic emergence.
New Directions in “Child Abuse and Neglect” Research
A critical step in devising effective responses to child abuse and neglect is reasonable agreement on the definition of the problem and its scope.
At a minimum, any recent act or set of acts or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.
Publications on child abuse and neglect have increased more than threefold over the past two decades, documenting significant advances in the field. Among these are: (1) research on consequences of child abuse and neglect has demonstrated that they are serious, long-lasting, and cumulative through adulthood; (2) the consequences include effects on the brain and other biological systems, as well as on behavior and psychosocial outcomes; and (3) rigorous research has been conducted on interventions to address the problem. Yet despite these gains in grasping the scope and scale of the problem, as well as identifying some general preventive approaches with proven effectiveness, much of the research evidence also underscores how much remains unknown. The causes of child abuse and neglect need to be understood with greater specificity if the problem is to be prevented and treated more effectively. Also needed is a better understanding of what appear to be significant declines in physical and sexual child abuse but not neglect; why children have differential sensitivity to abuse of similar severity; why some child victims respond to treatment and others do not; how different types of abuse impact a child’s developmental trajectory; and how culture, social stratification, and associated contextual factors affect the causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of child abuse and neglect.
MOOR – Massive Open Online Research for education
“To our knowledge, this is the first major online course that prominently features massive open online research, or MOOR, rather than just regular coursework” said Pevzner. “All students who sign up for the course will be given an opportunity to work on specific research projects under the leadership of prominent bioinformatics scientists from different countries, who have agreed to interact and mentor their respective teams.”
“What sets us apart is combining research with a MOOC,” said Ph.D. student Phillip Compeau, who helped develop the online course. “The natural progression of education is for people to make a transition from learning to research, which is a huge jump for many students, and essentially impossible for students in isolated areas. By integrating the research with an interactive text and a MOOC, it creates a pipeline to streamline this transition.”
Cloud Computing in Higher Education and Research Institutions and the USA Patriot Act
What are the implications of the Patriot Act for the possibility that access to information from higher education and research institutions stored in the cloud is requested by U.S. authorities? This is the key research question addressed in this report. The Patriot Act, enacted in 2001, has strengthened the powers to acquire data by American intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities. In practice, however, the Patriot Act is merely a complex part of an even more complex and dynamic system of data access powers granted under the American legal system. European privacy laws offer no safeguards against the exercise of these powers by the U.S. government. Nor can this risk be eliminated by contractual agreements. Whereas contracts would otherwise offer a solution in terms of providing a legal framework for risks, it is not possible from a legal point of view to use them to restrict the powers of law enforcement or intelligence agencies. From an international legal perspective and given the importance of the confidentiality of information for higher education and research institutions, these conclusions give cause for concern. At the end of the day, however, a real solution can only be found at an international level.
Les enfants chercheurs: la recherche scientifique comme modèle d’apprentissage
La recherche scientifique peut-elle être un modèle d’apprentissage ? Deux invités, une enseignante professeure des écoles et un chercheur vont nous expliquer pourquoi et comment ils travaillent ensemble et comment ils envisagent leurs pratiques pédagogiques. En encourageant les enfants dans cette démarche scientifique, Ange Ansour et François Taddei incitent les élèves à mieux organiser et préciser leur pensée en écrivant avec précision tout ce qu’ils ont observé dans la vie de ces fourmis. C’est en écrivant qu’on acquiert une méthode nécessaire à la recherche scientifique. On passe ainsi du “questionnement“ à la “méthode“…dans cette démarche pédagogique expérimentale et scientifique, on apprend aussi à apprendre. Il s’agit d’une démarche de créativité scientifique. Apprendre à transmettre, mais aussi apprendre à critiquer et réinventer pour demain, individuellement et collectivement dans la classe. Une expérience passionnante que ces élèves ont la chance de vivre dans leur classe.
Lire aussi: La Pédagogie Freinet en Théorie – En quoi se différencie-t-elle de la pédagogie dite “traditionnelle” ?
Student as producer: an institution of the common?
This paper presents the further development of the concept of student as producer from a project that seeks to radicalise the idea of the university by connecting research and teaching, to a vision of higher learning and revolutionary science based on the reconnection of the natural and the social sciences. The argument is sustained and developed by a critical engagement with classical texts in management studies as well as Marxist writing that has emerged out of the recent wave of student protests against the increasing privatisation and financialisation of higher education. The paper provides a case study where the natural and the social sciences are being brought together in a postgraduate research education programme at the University of Lincoln. The case study includes a debate about the essence of revolutionary science through an exposition of the work of two major revolutionary scientists, Robert Grosseteste (1170–1253) and Karl Marx (1811–1883).
Student as Producer and Open Educational Resources – enhancing learning through digital scholarship
At the University of Lincoln, the student as producer agenda is seeking to disrupt consumer-based learning relationships by reinventing the undergraduate curriculum along the lines of research-engaged teaching . The open education movement, with its emphasis on creative commons and collaborative working practices, also disrupts traditional and formal campus-based education. This paper looks at the linkages between the Student as Producer project and the processes of embedding open educational practice at Lincoln. Both reinforce the need for digital scholarship and the prerequisite digital literacies that are essential for learning in a digital age.
