Exploring doctoral students' theory choices in education.
Loading...
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The use of theory, regarded as a set of structured lenses or frameworks through which
phenomena can be systematically analysed or explained (Klette, 2012; Johnson &
Christensen, 2007), and deemed central to the entire research process, is not without
contention. Contentious issues relate to theory as occupying a nebulous position due to
its borrowing from the natural sciences for academic legitimacy, and an inherent
hegemony that entrenches the status quo (Thomas, 1997; Carr; 2006). Given the link
between knowledge production and theory, and that locating a theoretical framework
forms a major part of doctoral students’ deliberations, the study sought to explore and
understand the process by which doctoral students chose their theories for their doctoral
research.
A review of the academic literature provided the historical and definitional aspects of
theory, some of the contestations about the meanings and uses of theory, and an
evaluation of issues as they pertained to particular developments within tertiary education
and postgraduate knowledge generation. Although the social sciences have a diverse
array of theories to choose from, the literature did not specifically reveal how doctoral
students choose theories. Against this background, this qualitative study, which initially
adopted an interpretivist case study approach incorporating purposive sampling, was
located at the Faculty of Education at a university in South Africa and focused on five
doctoral students who completed their doctoral theses in Education, in the period 2006 to 2011. The study asked the key questions, how do doctoral students choose their focal
theories for their study, and why do they do so?
To explore doctoral students’ theory choices, the study drew on the salient features of two
dominant psychological and cognitive theories, viz., the Information Processing
Approach and Prospect Theory (Beresford & Sloper, 2008; Payne & Bettman, 2004).
The emergent data suggested that for the students in this study, factors like academic
context, sociocultural background, intuition, worldviews and knowledge influenced their
theory choices. However, several deeper issues emerged which the psychological and cognitive theories of decision-making were inadequate in addressing, particularly issues
of power, and the dichotomies of east/west, north/south influences on knowledge
generation. Due to the lack of criticality, and the inability of these models to provide a
deeper analysis for the why question, the study motivated for the shift to a critical stance,
underpinned by the Decolonial Turn, which included an array of positions that viewed
coloniality as the problem confronting the modern world (Maldonado-Torres, 2011). The
literature on Said’s Postcolonial theoretical views on Orientlalism, Gayatri Spivak on the
subaltern, Southern Theory by Connell, and Decolonial Theory by Quijano, Mignolo and
Grosfoguel was reviewed, and decolonial theory was used to analyse the data from a
critical stance. It is suggested that while insertions from the North and West may
continue to determine particular theoretical inclinations and choices of theory on the part
of doctoral students in the periphery, an epistemic shift is occurring in the South. This is
supported by the observations from the data that, participants tended toward critical,
feminist, gender, postcolonial and postmodern theoretical underpinnings, were conscious
of the impingement of West/Eurocentricism on their choices and knowledge production,
and open to alternate knowledge frameworks. Finally, the concept of epistemic
dissonance is proposed as necessary to delink from the status quo, suggesting it as a
means to confront our assumptions about culture and history, and re-conceptualize our
research in the context of sensitivity to difference, and facilitate a change in
consciousness of students towards disrupting particular epistemic gridlocks on theory
choices.
Description
Ph. D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.
Keywords
Education -- Research -- Philosophy., Critical theory., Critical pedagogy., Theses -- Education.