Conceptualisation of research processes

All candidates held masters degrees, and most had professional qualifications so workshops focused specifically upon conceptualisation of research processes rather than research methods. In a survey , the majority of candidates could identify concepts and relate them to their intended research design and research process. However, despite clarifying research questions and ‘reading around-their-subject’, one-third of candidates still had problems in visualising concepts within a framework

Writers on research methodologies view conceptual frameworks as:
● Emerging from researchers’ appreciation of reading, personal experience and reflection upon
   theoretical positions towards the phenomena to be investigated;
● Presenting the researchers’ paradigm through a combination of identified conceptual
   variables;
● Serving different purposes within deductive, inductive and staged approaches in the design
   and interpretation phases of research;
● Providing a shared language for researchers to clarify, design, undertake and conclude their
   research thereby enabling their readers to ‘appreciate’ that research;
● Being the catalyst that raises the level of researchers’ thinking from the simple and descriptive,
   via analysis to conceptualizing the research itself.

These issues enabled to appreciate how doctoral candidates struggled to comprehend the
nature of the conceptual framework