Tuesday, December 23, 2008

What is Research?

This post is an introduction to research as the discriminatory process we use to gather knowledge; whether material of spiritual, it is the process of inference that all knowledge is garnered from the right questions, assumptions and research attitude of the mind. Ultimately, this process refined through the 5 senses in perceiving our world clearly become the means to make the discernment into the nature of the instrument used itself; ie. the mind and begin the process of Self-inquiry.

The material is a summary of my University course as compiled by Leon Straker (Physiotherapist researcher at Curtin University 1995). Some of the ideas have been covered in the earlier post - History, Memory & Ways of Knowing.


WHAT IS IT?


Research is systematic investigation undertaken to search and gain reliable knowledge; a goal directed process for looking for a specific answer to a specific question in an organised, objective, reliable way.

Gaining Knowledge - 4 Ways of Knowing

i) Intuition - "I know because I know"

Intuition is essential to research, especially in asking the right questions, deciding on the best method and interpreting the results. Intuition is common in clinical practice, and probably very useful on a day to day basis, but it is not adequate justification for what you do as a professional. To illustrate, if facing charges of malpractice, the judge would not be impressed if you gave your rationale for the treatment in question as "I felt it would be best".

ii) Authority - "I know because "so and so" said so

These authorities are giving you a distillation of their knowledge based on intuition, reason and experience - an opinion. If the authority is well recognised and respected their opinion may well be useful knowledge for you, but is is still not adequate justification for what you do as a professional. To illustrate, often authorities disagree about the best treatment.

iii) Reason - "I know because it is logical"

This is called deductive reasoning, and is very useful , but again is not an adequate justification for all you do as a professional. To illustrate, if the principle you accept is wrong, or you apply is to new area, then the conclusion you draw may be wrong.

iv) Experience "I know because it has been tested"

Making a generalisation from the individuals tested to all similar individual is called inductive reasoning. This is the strongest form of evidence that something is so, that is, the best way of knowing. As long as your experience was gained through research (that is systematic, reliable, specific), the knowledge you gained will usually out class the other ways of knowing. To illustrate, if you feel something is right, your senior says it is right, and by deduction from the principles it is right then you have a strong case that your knowledge is correct. Yet just one example of experience where it is not right overthrows your intuition, the authority's opinion and the reasoning.


The only situation where experience cannot out class the other ways is:-

i) if the aspect of knowledge you seek cannot be observed. A good example that comes to my mind is accupuncture as used in physiotherapy.

Meridiens and nadis, being subtle electro-magnetic psychic channels, cannot be observed. The whole Chinese medicine and Yogic system has a anatomy upon which their science and practice of healing is based. Each internal organ is connected to a nadi/meridien (as well as element and psychological function) to which chi or prana travels in this alternative anatomical system and determines the balance of doshas or ying and yang in the organ.

Though yogis and Chi Kung practicioners attest to their experience of their existence these are not measureable by traditional empirical methods or research. However, this does not mean this system does not exist. In the case of acupuncture, clinical effects have forced therapists to address its validity as more than just (psychological) placebo and ascribe effects of accupuncture on the nervous and hormonal systems (through its modulating effects or gate control theories on the central nervous system). However, this research is more clinical and outcome based and only deals with the pain reducing effects of accupuncture, and not its subtle holistic effects on the internal organs in terms of delivering more chi, prana or life force to the organs by opening up psychic channels.

Thus, accupuncture (as applied by physiotherapist) is used in the western bio-medical model usually under 3 rationales;

i) to either reduce pain (through its theoretical pain modifying effects) or

ii) to stimulate the recovery of tone in flaccid acute stroke patients and indirectly plasticity in recovery in the associated areas of the damaged (infarct by haemorrage or clot) brain.

iii) In physiotherapy there is some observable co-incidence between motor points (where nerves are superficial at muscles) and trigger points (used for relaxing tight groups of muscles) to acupuncture points but this is not consistent and does not relate to the internal medicine. Rather these points are used for local bio-mechanical treatment or pain reduction to "referred pain" areas (ie. when you press a trigger point in the neck it can radiate up to the head or a pain at one place might be interpreted by the central nervous system somewhere else and can be used for treatment).

As far as internal medicine is concerned, some very quasi-experimental research has been done to reveal a correlation between frequencies detected at the associated meridien from the fingers to its related internal organ. It does this by the fact that every internal organ has a parameter of resonance and the theory determines this as between yin (lower) and yang (higher) that can be detect by its machines (MORO machine). Thus, the physics of the internal organs resonance is detected at the finger tip on the assumption that this frequency travels along the meridien to the finger tip where the internal state of an organ is measured at its bio-physical energetic level. The organs potential for dis-ease arises by its resonance outside the parameters of normal and thereby proposes to detect at a more causal level its potential for manifesting as a disease at the bio-chemical level. Therefore, if authentic, this machine aims to be helpful in preventative medicine for conditions such as cancer that arise out of mutation of cells and free radicals and this theory seems to open up the body-mind connection with the influence of more than just genes and environment on health; ie. the psychic (thoughts and emotions) as well.

However, due to the subjective assumption of intangibles, this research would remain questionable without any tangible variables to control outcomes. However, perhaps longitudinal case studies with outcome measures using the multi-regression computer methods will help correlation studies become more controlled and statistically significant to infer the existence and correctness of these systems of medicine in the future.

ii) when one's spiritual consciousness becomes pure enough to know things from the atma within by becoming one with the object or topic of contemplation. But then this knowledge is realised to be a form of relative truth and ignorance and requires a very subtle intellect endowed with a satwic purity of discrimination (viveka shakti - 5th chakra) rather than the powers and imaginations of the mind (medja shakti- 6th chakra). Therefore, the fine line between psychic perception and imagination always remains until Self-realisation and the truth that is spoken is not the truth. Therefore, one still needs to employ the scientific language and play the rules of the game to translate intuitive revelation (which is the highest type of knowledge in Vedanta) into rationale explanations for the purpose if communication, language and argument; drawing on the other 3 types of knowledge to give reason to ones opinion and knowledge.

Research then is the process of gathering information to support knowledge, using as many of the ways of knowing as possible.

Research Process

Research can be thought of a process involving 9 steps: identifying a question, looking at what others have done, refining the question, devloping a backgound, choosing a method, preparing a proposal, collecting the data, analysing the data, reporting the study.

Types of Research

People are interested in knowledge about everything. the questions people ask, and try to answer, cover the whole spectrum of human awareness. The research people do to try answer these questions necessarily takes a variety of different forms. No one form is absolutely better than another, each is suited to its own area, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Just a sthere are many tupes of research, there are different ways of grouping them. Here are 3 suggested ways of categorising them:-

1st = Pure and Applied where;

Pure = "abstract and general, concerned with generating new theory and gaining new knowledge for knowledge's sake"

Applied = "designed to answer a practical question, to help people do their jobs better"

2nd = Experimental & Descriptive where;

Experimental = "manipulating one variable to see its effect on another variable, while controlling for as many other variables as possible and random assigning subjects to groups"

Descriptive = "describing a group, a situation, or an individual to gain knowledge which may be applied to further groups or situations, as in case studies"

3rd = Clinical & Laboratory where;

Clinical = "performed in the "real world" where control over variables is quite difficult"

Laboratory = "performed in "unreal" or laboratory surroundings that are tightly controlled"

Research can also be classified as quantitative and qualitative, where quantitative indicates a study which can be described well numerically and qualitative indicates a study where concepts are difficult to describe numerically and are better left in words.

We will categorise research into 3 groups: descriptive, correlation and experimental. As they are all types of research that all involve a question, a plan, a sample of people, data collected from the sample, and interpretation of the data to provide an answer to the question. However, they differ in the types of questions they ask, inthe amount of control the researcher ahs over the variables, in the statistics used, and in the properties of the conclusions drawn.

i) Descriptive Research

The common question is "What is teh real world like?" There is rarely any manipulation of the situation, rather observation is conducted in the natural setting. These observations provide the basis for a description of the characteristics of interest in the population from which the sample was drawn.
Descriptive research usually observes, measures or records answers to questions.

ii) Correlation Research

The common question is "To what extent are the characteristics related? Occassionally one characteristic is manipulated but usually both characteristics are recorded in a natural setting. Correlation research usually observes, measures or records answers to questions too.

iii) Experimental/Quasi-experimetnal Research

The common question is "is A different from B?" In experimental research characteristics of the situation are carefully manipulated and the effects of this manipulation on the other characteristics recorded. Quasi-experimental research is similar except that the situation can not be so manipulated. Experimental/quasi-experimental research usually also observes, measures or records answers to questions.

Type.............Question...............Control.......Statistics......Answer

Descriptive.......What is it like?........None..........Descriptive...This is the average/range/frequency

Correlation.......Are they related?.....None/some...Correlation...They are weakly/strongly association

Experimental....Are they different?...Lots/some......Inferential....They are/are not different

Conclusion

Although research is often not easy, and sometimes involves frustration and confusion, it is a challenge that should result in the satisfaction in discovering new knowledge. And, the same approach taken through the scientific approach can be applied philosophically in researching through a Socratic theory of knowledge into the nature of who we are, with the source of the mind as the foundation of all knowledge leading to an experimentation and appreciation of a science of consciousness and a Vedantic Advaitic philosophy of Self-inquiry.

¨I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Lao Tse

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