What is Research ?

The Age of Enlightenment
Process of reason and rationality

Enlightenment- C18th when scientific philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds

Secularisation 

reason rather than metaphysics

belief in a unified scientific method - Scientism

Positivism

C.P. Snow
The two cultures and the scientific revolution
science and art are totally different and would never meet

Positivism interested in Facts
should lead to a conclusion
objectivity
measurement rather than argument
the facts that speak for themselves
causation
separation and control of variables

Approaches to Research:
Empiricism
Quantitative Research
Qualitative Research
Subjectivism

Action Research
An idea or something they want to investigate, place it in a real world context, and find out about it in this situation and then reflect upon it. 
Then they can restart the cycle, constant research cycle

Theory
Action
Reflection

= Praxis
Synthesis

the unification of thinking and doing

Methodology

method- a way of proceeding about something in a systematic or logical manner
methodology- the science of method, employed in a particular activity

historical
sociological
semiotic
communication theories
postcolonial
psychoanalysis
postmodernist
discourse analysis
marxism
feminism
queer theory
gender studies
…

epistemology
philosophical method researching
the hermeneutic circle

developed by Heidegger 

Interpretation is a process designed to clarify an experience and assign meaning to it.

This is aided by the hermeneutic circle which involves looking at different perspectives on events and relating individual components.

Three overlapping levels of interpretation
behind the text
in/through the text
in front of the text