Epistemological Position Research Articles

Researcher as instrument: a critical reflection using nominal group technique for content development of a new patient-reported outcome measure

Background: This article presents a critical reflection on the application of the ‘researcher as instrument’ concept within a study employing the nominal group technique. Twelve community-dwelling older adults were recruited to generate a list of items for a new patient-reported outcome measure on perceived ability to recover balance. The ontological position and epistemological stance of the first author are presented to provide a philosophical context of his lens and biases of his reflection. Aim: The article aims to share reflective insights into the process of taking the role of researcher as instrument, to highlight the concept’s strengths and limitations for other researchers and demonstrate how it is applied from the perspectives of a physiotherapist conducting person-centred research with older clients. Conclusions: Essential practice skills such as reflectivity and reflexivity are necessary for a researcher as an instrument to build a trusting relationship with participants in person-centred research. Novice researchers should explore their philosophical orientation to develop their research methodology and methods. Implications for practice: Researcher as instrument can be applied to conduct the nominal group technique In person-centred research, researchers need to critically reflect on their roles to build trust with participants during the planning and delivery of their methods, being reflective and reflexive Consideration of one’s ontological and epistemological position allows growth in research learning

Critical realism and attribution theory in qualitative research

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to develop an integrative model that explains how incorporating the two epistemological positions of critical realism and attribution theory can help qualitative organisational researchers better understand the reality of social actors through different lenses. In addition, the paper aims to demonstrate the application of the model through a study of organisational justice perceptions of elite Muslim professionals undergoing performance appraisal in the UK banking sector.Design/methodology/approachThe approach adopted used semi-structured in-depth interviews with Muslim professionals in elite positions in UK Western and Islamic banks. Access to participants was secured through a process of purposive and snowball sampling, a tool often used to recruit hard-to-reach populations. The data were analysed through the integrative model developed in this paper.FindingsThe integration of critical realism and attribution theory provided different dimensionalities of social reality. Attribution theory enabled a systematic identification of social phenomena and their causal mechanisms, defined the characteristics of those mechanisms and highlighted who/what is responsible for and affected by them. Critical realism distinguished between causal mechanisms and the generative forces that help those mechanisms to be actualised and have effect.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is twofold. First, to the best of my knowledge, it is the first paper to build a novel integrative model of these two epistemologies. Second, it presents a detailed application of the model in a contemporary study of the perceptions of justice of Muslims in the UK banking sector.

Strange Bedfellows: Exploring Methodological Intersections Between Realist Inquiry and Structural Equation Modeling

Realist inquiry, based on the philosophy of critical realism, focuses on exploring the underlying mechanisms that drive social phenomena. Structural equation modeling is a collection of quantitative analytical methods that take a theory-based, confirmatory approach to examining statistical relationships between measured (observable) and underlying (latent) variables. Despite originating from different scientific traditions, the apparent similarities between these two approaches hold promise for their combination in mixed methods research. This article contributes to the field of mixed methods research by exploring their potential synergies, how each approach could contribute to the other, and proposing a framework for their combinations in mixed methods research, which has implications in terms of the implied and explicit ontological and epistemological positionings of these two approaches.

The Enabling Instrument: Milton Babbitt and the RCA Synthesizer

In this paper, I review some of the claims about electronic sound synthesis and human subjectivity that were made in the name of RCA’s first electroacoustic sound synthesiser, as it was understood by its various sponsors in the American military-industrial-academic-cultural complex. As described by Harry Olson, head of the corporation’s acoustics research division, RCA’s Mark I synthesiser was intended to be ‘a musical instrument with no limitations whatsoever.’ I argue that the promise of RCA’s limitless musical instrument began at the University of Iowa, with an embryonic effort to define and quantify musical talent. When it emerged fully-formed from RCA’s Princeton-based acoustics laboratory, the synthesiser represented Cold War cultural and economic supremacy by channelling wartime innovations in signal processing, information theory, and cybernetics into the service of a booming American entertainment industry. As centrepiece of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio, the synthesiser was conscripted by the composer Milton Babbitt to realise an ongoing experiment in art and psychoacoustics, linking twelve-tone composition, information theory, positivist epistemology, and psychoacoustics. Babbitt’s ideas about composition as experimentation, I will suggest, supported a vision of human rather than mechanical potential—and of the autonomous artist as a Cold War liberal, a heroic figure more enduring than RCA’s celebrated machine.

»mit saurem Schweiß sagen, was man nicht weiß«

Abstract The present article focuses on the theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger (1887−1961) and his early attempts to popularize physics in the twenties and early thirties. Special attention is drawn to the ›entanglement‹ of media prerequisites and the subject Schrödinger deals with. Exemplary analysis of the magazines in which Schrödinger published, illustrations, and Schrödinger’s rather journalistic, zeitgeisty style of writing reveals a specific way of imparting the small world of atomic physics, hidden to the eye, to a broader audience. While the majority of contemporary quantum theorists rejected the allegedly old-fashioned physics of pictures and models, Schrödinger’s popular scientific praxis of a vivid explanation is even reflected in his epistemological position regarding the central goal of theoretical physics - namely, producing clear and illustrative models.

‘I opened the door to develop kuduro at JUPSON:’ Music Studios as Spaces of Collective Creativity in the Context of Electronic Dance Music in Angola

In this paper, I demonstrate how studios producing the Angolan electronic dance music (EDM) kuduro (‘hard arse’) in the capital Luanda are usefully investigated as social spaces of collective creativity. I triangulate interviews, observations, close listening and ethnographic participation. Researchers often portray kuduro and other EDM styles in the Global South using what I name the ‘scarcity-resilience narrative’. This narrative gives short shrift to the rich cultural resources that feed into EDM styles. It perpetuates problematic stereotypes about African people and occludes the deliberate labour that kuduro practitioners (‘kuduristas’) invest in their craft. As kuduristas routinely affirm that sociability drives their interpersonal creative processes I portray kuduro studios as social spaces and construe kuduro’s collective creativity through Extended Mind Theory (EMT). In my analysis, I first introduce kuduro studios in Luanda broadly and then focus on two influential kuduro studios: JUPSON and Guetto Produções. I show how kuduristas mobilise their collective creativity inside the studio by tapping into aesthetic strategies and conventions of the rich popular culture that surrounds them. Via EMT, I portray aesthetic duelling, puto-kota (‘elder-younger’) relationships, call-and-response and urban vocal strategies as collectively maintained social institutions. Inside the studio, kuduristas translate these rich resources into the sonic materiality of kuduro tracks which, in turn, are designed to achieve maximum audience response through mobilising the social institutions when radiating out into the world. This paper provides the first, fine-grained study of kuduro studios in Luanda. It de-centres the ‘scarcity-resilience narrative’ of Global South EDM by focusing on collective creativity and, as such, offers a fresh epistemological position on the study of music studios, Global South EDM and popular music in Angola.

Epistemic responsibility of industrial enterprise engineer

The concept of epistemic responsibility of an industrial enterprise engineer is introduced. The concept of an engineer’s epistemic responsibility is inspired by a situation of epistemic distrust in which the engineer finds himself as an expert. The definition of ‘epistemic’ in relation to the word ‘responsibility’ allows asking a question, what are the characteristics of the knowledge with which the engineer substantiates decision-making. For the first time in the domestic philosophy of engineering, epistemic duties of an engineer of an industrial enterprise are formulated: the duty of due diligence and epistemic zeal. The general epistemological attitude of an engineer in an extreme situation is skepticism. The author claims that the role of anomalous evidence in establishing the truth is an epistemologically difficult problem in investigating an extreme situation. In an extreme situation, the engineer’s epistemic responsibility is embodied in the following: to prevent self-deception and potentially unintentional deception of others in relation to the engineering solution; do not mislead workers who do not have the proper epistemic experience and do not allow them to be mistaken; take into account abnormal or seemingly questionable information and consider it properly.

Politics on Campus: Why do Students Join Campus Politics in Islamabad?

Education has been an extensively researched area as an important resource of political participation across the globe. However, politics on campus has been an under-researched in South Asia including Pakistan. This study was set forth to explore the factors responsible for the involvement of students in politics at the campus. The present study was conducted under positivist epistemology in three randomly selected public sector universities in Islamabad city, Pakistan. A sample of 396 proportionately selected male students was drawn from the selected universities. A self-constructed questionnaire was employed in the survey to collect the data. Alpha reliability of the subscales was calculated and found appropriate to use. Factors including peer suggestion, ethnic affiliation, academic environment, political culture, political socialization, perceived status and power deficit were tested to find out their association. The Pearson correlational analysis confirmed the association of all the variables. It can be concluded that all the above seven variables are persuading students to join politics on campus and participate in political activities.

The Possibilities and Constraints for Intersectional Practice in Gender Budgeting Activism

Abstract This article examines how gender budgeting (GB) activists in the United Kingdom have sought to practice intersectionality. It draws on Black feminists’ critiques of white feminists’ tendency to deploy intersectionality as a “cooled out buzz word” that relies on modernist, Western feminist epistemology. Results highlight the limitations of modernist positivist epistemologies, which are often used in economic policy and GB, and the importance of knowledge creation practices and explicit engagement with white women’s privilege in intersectional practice. These findings aim to inform European feminists’ responses to Black feminists’ critiques.

EMERGENCE OF ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE APPROACH IN WEST AFRICA: CASE OF A TELCO IN BURKINA FASO

This paper focuses on the relationship between economic intelligence (EI, understood in the informational sense of the term, Martre (1994) and performance. It raises the question of the impact of the deployment of EI on improving the company’s results. Our theoretical approach is based on the corpus of management of the EI system, which is a dedicated IS. The epistemological positioning is of the constructivist type and the methodological approach, of the qualitative type. As for our approach, it is based on an exploration based on a case study in the mobile phone sector investigated in 2018 in BurkinaFaso, especially in the city of Ouagadougou. Our results showthat steering the dynamics of EI improves the performance of the organization in the terms of achieving pre-established objectives. This case study addresses its own limits and it may be subject to some extensions in the future.

Science, technology and innovation policy in Russia and China – Mapping and comparisons in objectives, instruments and implementation

Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy of Russia and China is studied in this paper from a policy foresight perspective and with regard to policy instruments, policy objectives, and policy implementation. A structural analytical framework is developed in this study specifically for STI policy analysis in these dimensions. Analyzing a database of 418 STI policies issued in the two countries, 25 policy variables have been scrutinized for the two countries vis-à-vis the three policy dimensions. The paper then maps and compares the two countries in STI policy instruments, objectives and implementation, adopting a positivist epistemology stance. Estimating a binary logistic model, Russia has been differentiated from China in their choice of policy instruments, their devotion to policy objectives and their approaches to policy implementation, revealing the differences and similarities between the two countries in the three STI policy dimensions. Deriving observable and corroborated evidence for STI policy perspectives in Russia and China, the results and findings help gain legitimate knowledge in this field.

Athlete perspectives on the enablers and barriers to nutritional adherence in high-performance sport

ObjectivesPoor adherence to nutritional guidance by athletes may compromise their health and performance. Enhancing adherence is therefore an important performance and welfare strategy. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore the barriers and enablers of elite athletes' adherence to nutritional guidelines. DesignUnderpinned by our constructionist epistemological position and our relativist ontology, we conducted a qualitative study using focus groups. MethodsWe used the Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model and the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to conduct focus group discussions with a purposive sample of 39 UK-based funded athletes (mean age = 23 ± 3.81), participating in either Olympic and Paralympic sport (n = 30) or professional sport (n = 9), who had access to a nutritionist. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. ResultsAthlete adherence to nutritional guidance was seasonal and included inadequate energy intakes and episodes of binge eating. Underpinning these behaviours, athletes' emotional barriers (motivation) are reinforced through their social interactions within the high-performance environment (opportunity) and athletes' training environment limits developmental opportunities for food planning (capability). However, a holistic-developmental approach by the sports nutritionists (opportunity) supports athlete wellbeing and nutritional adherence. ConclusionThese findings advance theoretical understanding of the barriers and enablers of nutritional adherence amongst elite-level athletes in high-performance sport and present a number of significant implications for athlete support personnel seeking to enhance performance in demanding sporting contexts. Drawing on the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW), recommendations include the need to 1) train and educate sports nutritionists in human behaviour, 2) update regulations for sports nutrition profession practice to acknowledge the skills required to support athletes' emotional wellbeing, 3), educate coaches on the sensitivity of body weight and composition and develop guidelines for monitoring athletes' body weight and composition in sport, 4) persuade influential leaders to develop culture guidelines that shift the performance-narrative of high-performance (i.e., environmental restructuring).

Clinical diagnostics in psychiatry — empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge (on the example of analysis of a written text). Part 1

The paper shows correlation of empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge in psychiatry by analyzing a single text written by a patient. The patients text is analyzed three times. The first analysis performed by a linguist demonstrates how informative for a clinician can be an attentive attitude to the patients Word. The second analysis is a standard procedure for psychiatric phenomenological diagnostics. It is shown that the formulation of a clinical diagnosis from epistemological positions is equivalent to establishing a scientific fact (completion of empirical research): there is no theoretical modeling of pathological processes in psychiatry today; it all ends at the stage of recognizing the symptoms, without any attempt to understand them. The third analysis demonstrates the advantages in understanding pathological mechanisms provided by the explanatory model (interpretation of the text from the perspective of the bipersonal model of personality).

Theory of Religion and Historical Research. A Critical Realist Perspective on the Study of Religion as an Empirical Discipline

Abstract The article discusses the connection between theory formation and historical research in the study of religion. It presupposes that the study of religion is conceived of as an empirical discipline. The empirical basis of theories is provided primarily by historical research, including research in the very recent past, that is, the present time. Research in the history of religions, therefore, is an indispensable part of the study of religion. However, in recent discussions on the methods, aims, and theoretical presuppositions of the discipline, research in the history of religions largely is ignored. To shed some light on this blind spot, the article builds on the philosophy of science of Critical Realism. While the first part deals with the role of historical research in theoretical discourses of the discipline, the second part explains fundamental ontological and epistemological positions of Critical Realism and their implications for empirical research. On this basis, some methodological problems of theory formation in the study of religion are discussed in the third part. In particular, it is argued that it is impossible to validate empirically theories of religion that aim to explain what religion is. The concluding part sketches ways of theory formation in the study of religion that does not take religion as the explanandum but as the theoretical perspective that guides research.

Ja – ty – dzieło jako źródło poznania. Między neokantyzmem a hermeneutyką: Cassirer i Ricoeur

An attempt to compare the epistemological positions of two thinkers coming from different philosophical traditions requires turning to the sources of both philosophical programs. This will allow us to reveal the common and differentiating features of the described projects. On the one hand, we have Cassirer, the heir to neo-Kantianism and the creator of symbolism, on the other, we are rooted in the tradition of reflective philosophy and phenomenological hermeneutics, Ricoeur. Despite many differences in epistemological assumptions, we can find similar positions in both philosophers. The concurrence of the three Cassirerow base phenomena with three hermeneutic horizons manifests itself - as we will try to demonstrate - in the concept of the Work. The hermeneutic intuition of Cassirer turns into Ricoeur's reflection on self-understanding in the face of a work that affects our perception of the world and thinking about ourselves.In the article, we will consider how the contemporary philosophy of culture developed by Cassirer is taken up by contemporary hermeneutics. Is the convergence of the three base phenomena with the three horizons that combine with each other in the process of interpretation in the juxtaposition of the philosophy of culture with contemporary hermeneutics? Do we have the right to compare Cassirerow's base phenomena, I - You -Work is with hermeneutic communication which is presented on the line Author (Creator) -Text (Work) - Reader (Receiver)?

Usage of Terms “Science” and “Scientific Knowledge” in Nature of Science (NOS): Do Their Lexicons in Different Accounts Indicate Shared Conceptions?

Nature of science (NOS) has been a central theme in science education and research on it for nearly three decades, but there is still debate on its proper focus and underpinnings. The focal points of these debates revolve around different ways of understanding the terms “science” and “scientific knowledge”. It is suggested here that the lack of agreement is at least partially related to and reflected as a lack of common vocabulary and terminology that would provide a shared basis for finding consensus. Consequently, the present study seeks motivation from the notions of centrality of lexicons in recognizing the identity of disciplinary communities and different schools of thought within NOS. Here, by using a network approach, we investigate how lexicons used by different authors to discuss NOS are confluent or divergent. The lexicons used in these texts are investigated on the basis of a network analysis. The results of the analysis reveal clear differences in the lexicons that are partially related to differences in views, as evident from the debates surrounding the consensus NOS. The most divergent views are related to epistemology, while regarding the practices and social embeddedness of science the lexicons overlap significantly. This suggests that, in consensus NOS, one can find much basis for converging views, with common understanding, where constructive communication may be possible. The basic vocabulary, in the form of a lexicon, can reveal much about the different stances and the differences and similarities between various disciplinary schools. The advantage of such an approach is its neutrality and how it keeps a distance from preferred epistemological positions and views of nature of knowledge.

Developing UGC social brand engagement model: Insights from diverse consumers

AbstractUnderstanding the social influence of user‐generated content (UGC) to create social brand engagement (SBE) through social media has become a topic of major interest for both academics and marketers since the birth of online social networking. This study explores the social interaction of social media users (SMUs) involving brand‐related UGC, and the outcomes of this study show how SMUs' social interaction through UGC generates SBE in a fashion retail context. There is inadequate understanding regarding what the social motivational contexts of social actors are; these social motivational contexts can play a role in the social generation, exchange, and consumption of fashion brand‐related UGC. The present study intends to develop a UGC SBE model using the diverse insights of the customers of fashion brands. The present study opted for a social constructionist epistemological position using a qualitative research method. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in the UK with 32 customers of fashion brands. Findings highlighted that social responsibility, sharing experience, staying connected and updated, and reward sharing are the major motivational factors that lead to the generation, exchange, and consumption of UGC that would create SBE. Also, the findings revealed the SMUs, as social actors, who played a significant role in generating SBE through their social interaction with UGC in everyday life: frequent SMUs, celebrities, opinion leaders, and product users. Most importantly, it was found that expert opinion influence as identification and crowd opinion were recognised as internalisation social influencing factors that generate SBE. This study proposes a holistic conceptualisation in a “UGC SBE model” by considering: (a) the identification and (b) the internalisation types of social influence of UGC with respect to fashion brand engagement. NOMENCLATURE/ACRONYMS SMUs social media users UGC user‐generated content UK United Kingdom NVivo navigating viewpoints, images, and value observed SBE social brand engagement

Consumer Complaining Behavior: a Paradigmatic Review

Consumer complaining behavior (CCB) is an important stream of research and practice, as it links the domains of service failure and service recovery. CCB research, although extensive and temporally wide, exhibits a lack of concern for the underlying assumptions of scholarly inquiry. Researchers neither explicitly mention, nor consciously indicate their ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. We systematically identify the extant CCB literature and map it to two well-accepted paradigmatic classifications (Burrell and Morgan 1979; Deetz Organization Science 7(2): 191–207, 1996). Normative or functionalist paradigm with the assumptions of an objective external reality, a positivist epistemology, a determinist view of human nature, and nomothetic methodology emerges as the dominant CCB research paradigm. The implications of this dominance are discussed as a barometer of the future of CCB research and practice.

Enactment: A necessary conceptual review

ABSTRACT Enactment as a psychoanalytic concept was coined by Jacobs in 1986. Since then, it has developed within the psychoanalytic community as a concept. Originally, enactment described an aspect of countertransference expressed through subtle actions within the analytic process, as distinct from noisier performances that fall within the spectrum of “acting out”. Nowadays, the concept of enactment poses some difficulties that should not be ignored. As a theoretical concept, enactment has a complex epistemological position, and as a clinical concept it sheds light on contemporary psychoanalytic practices. This paper explores the results from an empirical and conceptual research work, focusing on the history, translations and usages of the term “enactment”, and its comparison with related terms. It will also consider the epistemological perspective regarding the current status of enactment as a scientific concept and its relationship with the psychoanalytic theoretical field.

Inštrumentálny realizmus ako možné východisko teoretickej reflexie vyučovania matematiky

The aim of the paper is to present an epistemological position called instrumental realism and to show how this position can be used as a tool for the analysis of different approaches to mathematics education. Instrumental realism is based on the conviction that any successful study of a particular segment of reality must on the one hand take into account the specific features of the particular segment of reality that we are studying. On the other hand, it must take into account the particular epistemic tools, by means of which we approach this segment of reality. In the case of physics, biology, or psychology, these two requirement do not seem controversial. Nevertheless, in the case of mathematics to speak about mathematical reality that we study or about the instruments that we use is much less obvious. Instrumental realism thus opens a new perspective on knowledge acquisition, that, as we believe, has many important consequences for mathematics education.