Discussion on Research Methods & Pragmatism
Research seems to be more of an art rather than a science in many respects. While methods specifically can be scientific, the specific blend of approaches that one chooses to combine is very much where the art comes into play. Above all the framework which you decide on to begin your research can either be a strong scaffolding within which your research flourishes, or a windowless box that blinds it.
For me a number of specific approaches stuck out. Firstly, action seems to me to be the most pragmatic and, in the long-run, most effective. I can anticipate many projects with moving parts needing on-the-fly adjustments, that hopefully overtime begin to perfect the system. Context here is everything and contextually aware methods seem to me to ‘live’ in the real world. That is why I am also drawn to ethnological research. This research does not remove subjects from their context. Almost diametrically opposed to the rational thinker of economics, ethnological research allows the social, the cultural and, most importantly, the human to the factored into the model. Finally, as I think about the models that can be created though research, simulations come to mind. While simple simulation has existed for decades – those mathematical and physical models that allow theories to be tests – it is those virtual simulations that seem to me to be the most fruitful. As technology unwaveringly progresses the complexity and realism of simulations does too. I begin to think of what GTA 10 might look like and how it might aid a whole host of industries – from flight schools to social science schools and cartographers to geologists even.
Overall my research interest is in the pragmatic and the contextual, in that which mirrors real day-to-day life. Isolated hypotheticals, for me, seem only to serve those looking to carry out that research, rather than to contribute to the totality of knowledge of a given subject.
