Searching for the Right Question

Abstract

This chapter provides a thematic overview of the literature and outlines the research process. In doing so it highlights the structural issues in the literature that impacted the research: The absence of foundational research, particularly that with objectively assessable data. The epistemological challenges of the current theoretical state. The difficulty of analyzing unstructured data, its variable quality and the sheer volume of “assertive” commentary that passes for research. Last but, by no means least, the possibility that the questions themselves might actually be part of the problem. While there is no shortage of literature there is in fact very little actual data. The literature itself has been fragmented by the lack of a common epistemology and a “competition of ideas”. In their own positivist way, the questions turn out to be as flawed as the answers it seems they would almost inevitably generate. A von Braun quote seemed to offer the most appropriate explanation for the situation. “Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing”.