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The research question as social link
The Réflexives® seminars provide researchers with a unique opportunity to collectively test research practices in order to change them - which means reconsidering ways of thinking and of building original and solid scientific knowledge.
Revealing constructions and relations
Years of practice have led to the following observations:
The level of implication of the PhD student in his thesis
can be appreciated through the degree of reformulation of his thesis subject;
clearly, the different pieces of writing produced during the thesis (reports,
abstracts, papers, etc) indicate whether the subject has been re-formulated
into a relevant research problem and research question. The autonomy, creativity
of the student can therefore be assessed, hence the competences he/she has developed.
A number of key observations can be made - they concern many different disciplines,
" hard " as well as " soft " ones. Great attention must
therefore be paid by supervisors and students to the following points:
1. 1. Scientific constructions are not visible :
a.The research question is not always clearly formulated and no visible in-depth study of the subject proposed by the supervisor has been conducted during the PhD - for two main reasons:
i. Either the " subject " has been extensively developed by the supervisor so that the PhD student is just given a list of tasks
ii. or it remains open, but the student did not go in depth into the subject. Hence an often difficult relation between supervisor and student: dissatisfaction, misunderstandings, etc.b. Very often students and supervisors do not spend enough time or energy identifying and formulating the research question and hypotheses: is this due to intellectual laziness? When the question is not formulated, it seems that social or economical issues are directly addressed with technical or technological solutions; little thinking and analyzing is done. The contribution of research is not visible, students and supervisors do not identify what research can bring to technique. The "added value" of the doctoral student is not clear.
2. Critical skills, a taste for debate and controversy are not enough developed: such deficiencies are visible in the introductions of scientific papers, theses etc; very often, they provide the reader with a list/catalogue of facts, observations, presented in a descriptive style. It is as if researchers had lost all interest in developing arguments, in defending a point of view.
3. Logical links (cause and consequence, for example), arguments, reasoning are not explicit; a lot of students are content with observations and facts.
The PhD thesis, a tool for knowledge production
Traditionally, a doctoral thesis must reveal intense intllectual
work : elaboration of a research question, formulation of hypotheses and construction
of research objects to test them. The research questions are formulated at
the confluence of two worlds : that of scientific knowledge- the state of
the art of the discipline, what is known and what is still obscure - and the
societal environment, with the many problems society is confronted with.
The whys of a thesis are at least as important as its hows, and yet the current
research practices point to the contrary. Researchers' choices are more and
more influenced by the technique and the instruments . Experimentation comes
first and the cognitive issues are neglectedToo often, the scientific questioning
is a summary of the " context " and of a limited number of well
known and general issues. We defend the idea that elaborating research questions
is intellectually demanding, both for supervisors and students.
The supervisor - student relationship
1. from the supervisor's subject to the PhD student's project:
a key stage which is often neglected ; the same is true in project building,
when generally too little time is spent on moving " from idea to project
".
Let's first dispel a widely spread confusion. A PhD student doesn't develop
a subject, and conversely a supervisor's job is not to prepare or submit
a project: the ambiguity and many of the difficulties encountered in the
course of the PhD may well start here, which will lead to misunderstandings,
strained relations and a weak PhD thesis.
Yet when writing a research project before hiring a student, many supervisors will go as far as making a complete list of tasks, planning a tight schedule, leaving little if any space for their student. They will blame money issues, length of thesis or pressure to publish. On the other hand, many students are very happy to do what they are told - they feel comfortable, pursuing a student trajectory, trained to "give teachers what they want". But doing a PhD is a unique opportunity for changing status - moving from accumulating knowledge to producing knowledge.
Changing words will not suffice to stop the confusion! On
the contrary it may add to it : indeed for the past years the terminology
of supervision has expanded and now the supervisor plays many roles as "adviser",
"promoter", "boss", "teacher", "friend",
"PI" (for principal investigator) etc. The same is true in French
and in other languages..
Supervisors must open spaces of dialogue with the different stakeholders
(there are often many) to discuss the PhD's issues, the rights and duties
of the parties, ethics and intellectual property, communication of the results.
Regulations exist, almost every university has put them on its website.
But those questions so not form a "body of knowledge" that can
be taught or enforced. They must be addressed through meaningful discussions.
It is only through dialogue that the young researcher will develop autonomy
and creativity.
The many "lab meetings" during coffee breaks or, worse, sporadic
and brief encounters are almost useless. "Committee meetings"
meant to manage the thesis have proved inefficient so far, most of them
because they are gatherings of "dear colleagues".
2. what does " supervision " mean ?
Opening " transaction spaces " (Nowotny et al, Re-thinking
Science, 2001) is a necessity and a challenge for supervisors who really
want to train younger generations. Preparing them to open a dialogue with
society, with colleagues from other disciplines, giving them a taste for
debate and controversy are among a supervisor's duties. Developing critical
thinking and encouraging open-mindedness is indeed key to accepting other
viewpoints.
Discussions should not be confined to specialists; especially when the situation
is analysed, the issues are debated and the hypotheses identified and formulated.
The discussions will be richer if scientists from other disciplines are
present, regular practice of dialogue and critical analysis of written products
will bring enormous progress.
It is essential that PhD students learn to engage in debate, to defend their
ideas, their choices and approaches and to situate their action. They must
be able to make the most of complementarities of experiences, of competences,
of methodologies and points of view. They must not be confined to individual
or lonely intellectual exercises. Doing a PhD is a collective exercise which
must lead to an original research project. Assisting the PhD student in
taking ownership of his project and in developing it is the duty of supervisors.
The" Godelier-Bourgeois report" (pages13 to 16)
asks for the creation of new " educational spaces " which will
foster a critical attitude in the young researchers and defends the idea
that developing "new core competences for sustainable employability
and active citizenship" requires a new pedagogical approach.
Towards a relation of " good prescritpion "
" Coopérer, c'est explorer ce qu'il peut y avoir comme coopération possible entre des partenaires "
A.Hatchuel argues that cooperation is not easily achieved and that it is a collective process which must be " invented, built and understood ":
" La coopération est la raison d'être des organisations, mais l'observation montre que le maintien de comportements coopératifs y reste un problème récurrent et un objectif toujours menacé (…). Coopérer est un processus collectif qui doit être inventé, construit et compris. "
Hatchuel, A., Coopération et conception collective. Variété et crise des rapports de prescription, in G. de Tersac, E. Friedberg (Eds.). Coopération et conception. Toulouse: Octarès.
We can imagine that a relation of " good prescription " can be established between a supervisor (who prescribes) and a PhD student (who executes) ; such a relation would come as a conclusion of a cooperation process taking into account the points of view of the two parties. To be successful, this cooperation process implies that learning occurs simultaneously on both sides - what Hatchuel calls "croisement des apprentissages" -, where each party develops a learning experience which is "stimulated, disturbed and nourished" by that of the others.
The Réflexives® seminars aim to open spaces where such learning experiences can occur, where knowledge and relations can influence one another, and be reconstructed outside hierarchy.