In any case, a recent incident (incident sound too austere...happening? occurrence?) I was reminded, for the umpteenth time that what we, as educational researchers, are expected to have a purpose in our research. What is the rationale for the study? people ask. Why undertake this study?  Who benefits? What is the problem you are trying to solve?

As you can tell from the title of this blog post I hold the position that I don't need no stinkin' rationale.

I could make something up like "by examining population X, subgroup Y, we can infer that the results might be applicable to generation Z" (or something like that).  If pressed, I could be convincing in writing some rationale like that, but it wouldn't necessarily be the truth, hence, in my view, it should not be included in the published literature just to check off a requirement.  I firmly believe that if a researcher finds some occurrence interesting and wants to investigate this curiosity they should be able to do so (within the limits of ethical practice of course), without being weighed down by needing to produce a rationale for the study when they try to get it published.

This is by no means new to me.  I've been hearing various versions of this from established researchers for the past decade. My first exposure was when I was an MA student and we had a guest speaker in class who boldly proclaimed that if your research doesn't specifically address social injustices and under-represented populations your research is basically garbage♠. I basically wrote her off because she clearly didn't seem interested in a discussion about this topic (very odd for someone in that position of authority if you ask me).

In any case, while my other experiences with academics have definitely been less polemic compared to that initial experience, I am still surprised that academics basically act within a prescribed box.  I am not taking about the necessity for validity, reliability, and/or trustworthiness. Those are important in research. What I am talking about is purpose. At the end of the day, if I am satisfying my own personal curiosity as to why an event is happening, is that any less valuable than doing it for the benefit of others from the start?  It is certainly appears to be more altruistic, I'll grant you that, but does value diminish simply because you didn't work on something that was meaningful to others as well, at least at the time of research?

Thoughts?


Marginalia
† In writing this post I learned where "I don't need no stinking..." comes from! (see here). Who would have thought an academic rant would teach me some pop culture?
‡ You know, recently I've felt that doctoral students should have some cool video-game-esque ranks, maybe with some badges to go with them, but I guess that's a thought for another post 😜
♠ Well, OK. No, she didn't say this exactly in those words, but based on what she was touting about her research, and her research agenda, and how it was related to other people's work that was more theoretical in nature, or didn't deal with her populations, it was easy to connect the dots.