I’ve just been reading a book that draws on the work of Wittgenstein to state:
“He [Wittgenstein] maintained that there are two main kinds of problem: problems of ignorance (there are things existing that we do not know enough about and therefore we require more information), and problems of confusion (we have the information but we do not understand what it amounts to).”
Hart (1998, page 141)
This got me thinking…
I’ve just finished a rather rapid read through Jones, L. and Douglas, J. (Editors) (2012) Public health: building innovative practice, Sage Publications/Open University, London/Milton Keynes. (as an aside, I didn’t realise when I got this book out of the library that it is the course text for Open University module K311 Promoting Public Health: skills, perspectives and practice a level 3 undergraduate module). Continue reading
In a couple of weeks time on 15 September 2013, I’ll be running the Great North Run – a half marathon. When I tell people this, I often get asked ‘why?’.
To start with I struggled to explain my motivation. There is something about personal achievement of course. Up until May last year, I had never ever run before. When I finished my Masters research project, I decided that a different sort of ‘project’ would be to see if I could run. I used a “Couch to 5k” app on my phone to gradually build up the time and distance I ran and after nine weeks I could do it – 30 minutes of running, roughly 5km. I enjoyed it so much I continued and my sunday runs gradually got longer. In the August, Alex started out on his couch to 5k journey too. And then at Christmas we said to each other – shall we do the GNR together? We applied, we got places, we’ve trained together all summer…and here we are two weeks away.
But, a lot of people expect me to reply to the ‘why’ question with a charitable cause in mind. I’ve thought about this a lot – round and round in circles about something I really care about. And, I’ve kept coming back to one conclusion
I’m running…Because more equal societies work better for everyone
Not sure what it is but I keep seeing the phrase ‘health system’ at the moment. It always seems to be in the context that it should be obvious to the reader what the ‘health system’ of interest is – as if it isn’t open to different understandings.
So let’s pick this apart a little…
okay the doctorate has started! I’ve had the introductory ‘summer academy’ and now have the follow on assignment. I understand that this is in part to help us try out and hone in on the ‘academic style of writing’ but also to put some of the things we covered at the academy into practice – literature reviews, research questions, quantitative research, qualitative research, systematic literature reviews were all covered in relatively short one hour lectures. This research proposal is for hypothetical research – not the ‘real’ one we will end up doing, so the point is to learn how to write research proposals.
But although we were set the task of ‘write a research proposal’ and I understand how all these things are parts of it – I came away with a few burning questions – what is a research proposal for? what is its purpose? what does a successful one look like?
It’s not long since I wrote My role as a researcher as part of my ongoing inquiry into the nature and value of research. I think – using Vickers terms – that my appreciative setting is now firmly set to spot additional potential developments to this inquiry. Either that or its like lots of buses coming along at once.
So I was really interested to see an online first announcement for an article by Khan et al (2013) – the first three lines of the abstract saying…
“What is the purpose of knowledge? Is it an end product only, or a means for action for change? Who is expected to take action – the researcher, research subjects, both, or some unknown others who may come across the knowledge produced? The larger question then is: is it health research, or research for health, equity and development?” (no page numbers)
The article gave me some new food for thought…
Just recently I’ve read a couple of articles. They are both about the development of thinking in an educational context. One is about developing critical thinking (Moon, 2005) and the other is about the teaching of systems concepts and therefore of interest to the development of systems thinking (Salner 1986).
Both of the articles use theories of adult cognitive development or epistemological development as the foundation for their arguments. In short, they argue that critical thinking (Moon article) and understanding of systems concepts (Salner article) are not possible until the adult has reached a certain stage of development and have integrated particular epistemological assumptions into their world views. Both articles are written from a ‘pedagogical’ perspective so go onto discuss what educators can do to create the conditions where post-18 students can progress the development of their thinking – even if they are not consciously aware of it.
I don’t often use this blog as a platform for a rant, but there’s something I have to get out of my head…
This last week – in my ‘twittersphere’ – two ‘events’ happened, each billed in their own right as a ‘major move’ forward for public health. But they just seemed like parallel universes. Continue reading
I’m now officially four days into the induction programme for my Professional Doctorate in Public Health at the University of Lancaster. We’ve got some on-line induction activities to do – then in a couple of weeks is the summer residential academy. I’m looking forward to meeting my fellow students for ‘real’ beyond the on-line networking we’ve started.
But today yet again, I found myself inquiring into the relationship between ‘doing my job’, ‘doing research’, ‘producing knowledge’ and what these things mean with respect to the relationship with my colleagues and others who will become ‘participants’ in my research.
Hi there
If you are a regular reader to Just Practicing and receive notifications of new posts by email or other feeds… please read on…otherwise just ignore this administrative post.
I have been doing a little housekeeping and updating on my account and am now using a different email notification system – I’ve moved from feedblitz to the one operated by wordpress.com. I am not geeky enough to know whether the old one will continue working – so please pop to Just Practicing and sign up again on the new facility. I’d hate to lose you.
The RSS feeds should continue as usual – but I’ve heard that google are ceasing their google reader service soon. There are others around – such as Feedly.
Thank you.