Week 13 - What type of researcher am I?

Through my researching journey, I discovered the way I find gathering my data most effectively is based around a qualitative research method. This is a primary characteristic which demonstrates my philosophical worldview of Social constructivism. Not only as a researcher, but as I live my daily life, I am an individual who gathers my sense of the world through experiences and understanding. I find myself consistently having the ability to look at the world through all the shades of grey. Creswell (2005) promotes this concept when he states that 'meanings are constructed by human beings as they engage with the world they are interpreting'. Creswell (2005, p.8) discusses the actions of connecting and extracting meaning within specific objects, or concepts, and enabling one's self to respect the complexity of these concepts rather than using a narrow-ended meaning to categories these notions. I reflected this through my open-ended interview style which facilitated a natural conversational method of gathering data, which liberated the subject to reflect on their own experiences and knowledge - Resulting in a deep and meaningful understanding of the specific views. In regards to my research topic based around religious and non-religious views and experiences. I have definitely based my decision on the grounds that it is a personal endeavour. This is again reflected within the work of Creswell (2005) when he acknowledges the fact that researchers of this classification are capable of recognising their backgrounds and their own perceptions, as well as how their personal experiences position them. In my case, looking at and considering my experiences around theistic and atheistic debates has definitely become the driving force in undertaking this research task. With that being said, I was able to ignore my personal bias and develop an open discussion between all the religious and non-religious world-views. We can see how effective the employment of a qualitative research method proves as a form of data collection to this subject. By honing in on the individual experience and extracting those meanings, I was able to gather my findings to offer a detailed account of this individual's perspectives allowing outsiders to look in and sympathise through a deeper level of understanding.

Reference:
Creswell, JW 2005, Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative research, (2nd ed.), Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, pp.5-11.