Canal-U

Productive Multivocality and Methodological Determinism - Suthers

The Learning Sciences are both blessed and cursed with the participation of diverse disciplines and their associated research traditions. Some have argued that no unified field is possible due to the incommensurability of theoretical and methodological traditions involved. Perhaps no serious researcher holds the opposite view, a naive eclecticism, but a third position is possible.

I hold that a theoretically and methodologically homogenous field is not desirable, yet it is possible to engage diverse voices in "productive multivocality". In this talk I will focus on methodological determinism, the proposition that methods rest on presuppositions that remain inescapably embedded in them, and that therefore any research that attempts to mix (incommensurable) methods from different traditions is incoherent.

I will challenge this view without refuting it entirely, exploring in what sense methods intrinsically carry with them assumptions and how incommensurability is actually due to practices associated with the methods.

Finally I will discuss proposed practices for productive multivocality, including using the methods themselves as a form of boundary object.