HMPYC 80:
Research
Methodology
Chapter 01 –
Research & Professional
Practice HMPYC 8
, ➢ 1. Introduction:
• Research in the professional context not only faces the challenge of ensuring relevance in its topics, but also
applied and who benefits from it.
• Four themes that highlight the challenges various professions currently face, namely;
(i) the philosophical foundations of professions
(ii) the nature of professional practice
(iii) professional and research ethics
(iv) the diversity of paradigms within professions, (including professional practice in the Fourth Industrial Rev
➢2. Philosophical Foundations of Professions:
• Philosophy plays a pivotal role in illuminating our thinking about the many aspects of human existence, an
also critical in guiding us in our chosen professions.
• Across many academic disciplines, applied philosophy becomes foundational in its expression as “a philoso
thereby establishing a central position in relation to other disciplines, including examples such as a philoso
education, of medicine, of law, of mind, or even of language.
• Philosophy (from the Greek philosophia, meaning “the love of wisdom”) is the study of how knowledge, re
existence as human beings evoke questions about who we are, what we know and how we experience the
around us.
, ➢ 2. Philosophical Foundations of Professions:
• Tartaglia refers to this as “the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and experience”.
• When we look at professions in relation to philosophy, we could describe it as the love (or pursuit) of knowle
professions.
• Philosophy becomes the vehicle (or school of thought) through which we interpret and perceive what is arou
in turn, bring about a paradigm.
• If philosophy can be regarded as a general worldview, then a paradigm is the framework through which we m
the world.
• A paradigm establishes the boundaries of understanding and practice, along with the subsequent ethics that
accompany these boundaries.
• Absolutism – a philosophy of absolute power, such as is found in absolute monarchies.
• Zoroastrianism – one of the oldest and continuously practiced religions or philosophies in the world, focusin
notion of a balance between order and chaos.
* The respective underlying beliefs and principles of these philosophies (i.e. elements of the philosophical pa
ultimately inform the chosen approach and methodology the researcher uses.