On
page 54, Luker states, “Why does it matter whether or not you have a research
question? Because you cannot do research without it. If
you try to do research without a research question, you will only end up with the
Damnation of the Ten Thousand Index Cards, a lot of frustration, and if you are
lucky—a lousy research project. The other problem is that without a
question you can’t do theory, without a question, you can’t explain.”
Maybe
I have misunderstood, but maybe the things that I have misunderstood will
become clear in the chapters to come. It seems that having a research question
before setting out to do research is akin to putting the cart before the
horse. Wouldn’t some research need to be done prior to writing a research
question? Especially if one were to follow the guidelines of writing a
good research question as set out by Luker? Wouldn’t one need to have
some understanding about the relationship between the variables? And what
about experimenter bias? In some cases, couldn’t coming up with a research
question without at least some amount of preliminary research lead to
experimenter bias where procedures or results of an experiment are distorted
based on the expected outcomes of the study? For now, I am finding
that, with Luker, I have more questions at the end of every chapter.
Speaking
of horses, the story of Clever Hans is an example of experimenter bias.
Hans did not learn math or the German language; what he had learned instead was
to read his interrogator. This example mainly deals with face-to-face
interviews, but it does illustrate the adverse role that experimenter bias
plays in research.
I think I understand what Luker is saying when it comes to needing a research question. In the canonical social sciences when you go to do research you have a clear idea of what you are researching, the method, the variables, the sample etc. However, Luker is saying that the salsa dancing social scientist isn't going to have this. All we'll have is a question or more precisely we'll have something that needs to be explained. Say you observe something and you ask yourself: why's that? You're on your way to a research question. Luker says that what you need to form a research questions are possible explanations. This should allow you to go beyond describing the phenomenon which you observed to explaining it. The idea is that by having possible explanations you'll able to frame your question and narrow your scope. This is an iterative process. As you research you might have to change your scope or alter the explanations. I also think Luker is assuming that you have some general background knowledge in what it is that interests you.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that helped at all...but I thought I'd take a stab at it nonetheless! It was a concept that I found challenging too.
Dear Karen, thank you for your response, I understand what you are saying, but I have been inarticulate: What I was attempting to articulate is that Luker's approach, to me, seems formulaic, and while there is the occasional sentence stating that these dancing by numbers methods may not work for everyone, it still leaves me wanting. It is the importance Luker places on starting with a research question that I have issues with; it presupposes relationships, interplays and possibly answers, which may in turn lead to the researcher having blinkers on ( I must really like horses) ...my reference to experimenter bias in the previous post.
DeleteLatour says it better ( of course) in Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern: "Quite simply, my worry is that it [Latour is referring to critique, but "it" can be substituted with research questions]might not be aiming at the right target...Are we not like those mechanical toys that endlessly make the same gestures when everything else has changed around them?" ( 225)
I really hope that this is making sense. I am hoping to articulate that while I see the positives in having a research question and then following Luker's dance steps, what I worry about is that doing research in a certain ways possibly sets us up to find only the answers that those certain ways allow.