Warm welcome to the monthly research seminar of our Learning, Culture and Interventions (LECI) expert group on Monday 2nd of March 2020, at 12-14 PM. The seminar will be held at Siltavuorenpenger 5.A, room K108 (Minerva building)
Postdoctoral Researcher Liubov Vetoshkina and Associate Professor Sami Paavola (Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki) will give a seminar entitled:
From the abstract to the concrete and beyond: a winding road of constructing a methodological framework with intermediate concepts
Abstract: Messy and transitional phases of construction of conceptual and methodological framework of specific study rarely receive enough attention in methodological literature. Methodological procedures are often described with ideal typical sequences and more or less linearly progressing phases. We aim at opening up these phases within specific research cases by discussing methodological procedures in relation to the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete. Empirical research often requires introduction of intermediate concepts between general theoretical conceptualization and data analysis. In this paper we follow a specific intermediate concept – intermediary object - in two research cases: 1. the use of building information modelling (BIM) in designers’, architects’ and engineers’ collaboration in construction projects; 2. the craft of historical wooden boat building in Russia and Finland. In the BIM case, the concreteness of the intermediary object allowed to point out the importance of tangible 3D models in face-to-face meetings. In the wooden boatbuilding case, the notion of intermediary object unraveled the modifiable, concrete and dynamic nature of the object of activity and its’ role in the process of historical development of craft activities. With a “manuscript archeology” we follow the construction of the methodological framework by analyzing various versions of documents and texts in these cases. In both cases the process contained multiple episodes with several movements from the abstract to the concrete (and vice versa). These episodes paved the way for the final products: a dissertation and a journal article. Transmethodology in our analyses appeared as a process of construction of methodological framework through multiple methodological cycles across a long period of time.
Keywords: intermediate concept, object of activity, intermediary object, methodological procedure, cultural-historical activity theory, theoretical operationalization, methodological operationalization, transmethodology.
THOSE INTERESTED TO READ THE PAPER PRIOR TO THE SEMINAR, PLEASE CONTACT: liubov.vetoshkina@helsinki.fi
Everyone interested is very welcome to join the seminar!