CREATING INNOVATIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS: A PROBLEMATIZATION PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

There are a number of intellectual reasons, professional norms and institutional mechanisms by which qualitative and quantitative research have been strongly driven towards the internaliza- tion – at least publicly preferred – of conventional modes of formulating research questions. At individual (researcher) and community (paradigm) levels, gap-spotting is the most common mode of formulating research questions. Given that in this way the assumptions of existing theoretical orientations are more or less merely reproduced in a programmed manner, it is unlikely that such studies will result in original and influential contributions. In this context, it is reasonable to ask the following questions: Did the educational research lost its way? Do educational researchers have anything to say? Has the research in education become a routine (uninspiring), isomorphic and irrelevant?

The paper indicates that problematization makes an obvious but seldom used alternative strat- egy of formulating research questions. The basic idea of the paper is to promote the approach that critically and constructively analyze and indicate the limited nature of premises, perspectives, implications, language and other elements of dominant theoretical orientations, aimed at challeng- ing them and considering a set of alternative options instead. Specifically, problematization means locating, articulating and criticizing the assumptions of existing literature, and thus, formulating research questions that encourage the development of interesting and relevant knowledge.

It has been found that problematization cannot be reduced to a fixed or even strictly routine procedure, since it necessarily involves a dialectical and dialogical process. On one hand, the principle of “everything is possible” by no means can be applied in problematization; on the other hand, problematization cannot be conducted in any universally perfect way. As a dynamic non- linear process, it is always situated in the reality of research practice. In other words, at each ap- plication, problematization is defined over and over again – it becomes what it is only in user’s hands. Finally, the paper concludes with the statement that despite the pervasive tendency of re- searchers to implement standardized and isomorphic studies, educational research are possible to return to the “right path”, which includes creating original scientific knowledge, relevant both from social and pedagogical perspectives.