OUAN501 - Research & Epistemology (2)

"Research is to see what everyone else has seen and to think what nobody else has thought".

The first lecture of the year was conducted by Fred with the title, 'Research and Epistemology'. From my understanding, epistemology is a core area of philosophy and is essentially centred around the limitations of knowledge. The lecture itself I think was a way of making us think about the way we research and learn about areas, with a focus on the creative field and more specifically our own creative practice. Furthermore the lecture looked at the different processes that we work through in order to learn and obtain certain pieces of knowledge. Research to me has always meant finding out information about specific areas which in turn can then be used and applied to other areas, or whatever you want to use the information for. However, we were told during the lecture that the information discovered through the process of researching is useless unless it is transformed into something that can be meaningful to you. To follow on from this, it was said that research itself is also quite subjective. The reason for this is that ultimately everyone has a unique view of different things and thus approaching information will be done so based on the individual, in terms of how they approach and interpret the information through research. This means that by understanding the information that exists and you've obtained it can be approached in a way unique to yourself. There are a lot of different ways of conducting research. Some of the more popular methods, especially for students include visiting the library and using books as a form of research. As well as conducting surveys and experiments. Despite this, different forms of research yield different forms of information and data. The four main 'types' of data that can be produced are primary, secondary, quantitative and qualitative. Primary and secondary data are names for the type source in which the data was received, for example, if it is primary it means that the data was collected but doesn't yet exist. However, if it is secondary the data has already been collected. A way this type of research could be obtained is by looking at previous experiments or finding out about other data that has been collected. Quantitative and qualitative data refers to the type of data that is being collected. Quantitative is data that can be measured, so numbers or facts and statistics. Qualitative is more subjective in this sense and is data that relies on people's beliefs or opinions, so I suppose this could infer a survey, as that can be a method of recording people's attitudes and opinions.

There are also three approaches to research, the first being stimulated research. This encompasses your surroundings and drawing inspiration from different sources within it whether it be libraries, media, or past conversations you've been involved in. The second approach is a systematic approach. A systematic approach is in a sense, experimental, and it allows you to structure and restructure components and characteristics until you gain a solid understanding. Finally, the last approach is internal. This is the development of your own personal thought process based on individual internal perceptions and ideas. This one is important because it can drastically dictate the way you approach a research task, and research in general. Something else that Fred said that stuck with me was when he spoke to us in terms of creative practice and research in that sense, it can also refer to learning new processes, and experimentation that can be conducted in order to find out what may work and what won't. He also said that it is good to embrace failure. The reason for this which made quite a lot of sense to me is that it will strengthen the knowledge for what will work in the future, essentially learning from mistakes and in turn not succeeding straight away but in the process of problem solving and experimentation learning several outcomes and finding out more than just the right way of doing something.

Overall, research will more or less be unique to the individual conducting the research because when people research things their goal is to discover or learn about things that they don't already know about, essentially putting them at the centre of the research. This is due to the fact that the type of research conducted and the manner in which it is conducted revolves around what prior knowledge they do and don't already have. A lesson that the lecture taught me is that one of the most important things to remember is to make sure research is relevant to our own practice and to gather and process it in a way where we can understand it, or use it to further our knowledge and gain experience.