Análisis Primera Actividad, Fase De Exploración

Stake suggests that the selection of a case for developing an understanding about a phenomenon primarily depends upon its potential to provide learning opportunities rather than upon its potential to represent similar kind of cases (2005, p. 451). Therefore, I also

considered some key features of higher education institutions (HEIs) to find an appropriate empirical context for explaining the phenomenon of research culture emerging in a Pakistani university.

At a broader level, state-run universities appeared to be a suitable option as they have been playing dominant role in the higher education sector of the country since its birth. These universities always remained the focus of government policies. Therefore, frequently

changing policies and unfinished implementation of these policies (specifically prior to the HEC) resulted in uneven and fragmented academic and research developments within state- run universities (as discussed in detail in context section 1.4). In this scenario, the state universities, which existed before the establishment of HEC, may serve as an appropriate site to trace the historical aspects of research activities and culture in Pakistani context as these may contain cultural/structural factors related to research which emerged from pervious policies. An insight into these factors could increase the possibilities of explaining the phenomenon of research culture in a better way. It could also increase the chances to

understand the conditioning context in which academics work (i.e. an important requirement of the theoretical framework used for this study). I, therefore, limited my search for the identification of an appropriate empirical context for this study to state-run Pakistani universities which existed before the inception of the HEC in 2002. As I was interested in explaining the phenomenon of research culture, specifically, with reference to the field of social sciences, the search of an appropriate site was further narrowed down to general universities which offer degree courses in various academic fields including social sciences. Other universities belonged to the specialized fields (science, technology, medicine,

agriculture, engineering, etc.) and have a little possibility of the existence of research culture in the domain of social sciences. Therefore, general universities appeared to be a more suitable site for understanding and explaining the phenomenon of research culture in relation to social sciences.

Moreover, these general universities also remained the focus of HEC’s policies as compared to other HEIs. In this scenario, it may be argued that an older state-run general university may be more useful for this study as it could show the imprints of both pre-and post-HEC polices. Therefore, twelve general state-run universities, which existed before the formation of the HEC, were identified for this study. These universities were located at different geographical regions of the country. While I was planning this study, there was a serious law and order situation in various areas of the country owing to war against terrorism in the region. Because of security reasons, obtaining access to and working in an environment to which I was not familiar could be a difficult and risky task. Keeping in mind these realities on ground and issues of access for doing fieldwork (which include survey, interviews and documents collection), I chose my own university as the research site, which was one of these twelve short listed general universities. In addition, this choice also created the possibility of

an easy access to the policy documents of the university which could have been a difficult task in case of any other university. Being a lecturer in the university, my personal awareness of the context may be considered as an additional advantage for developing a deep

understanding of the phenomenon of research culture. Further pros and cons of bringing insider perspective in this study are discussed in the section 4.6.

In addition, some important features of the university have also made it more appropriate context for investigating the emerging phenomenon of research culture in

Pakistani context. For example, being one of the oldest universities in the county, the internal state of affairs of the university are relatively stable and its context has the potential for containing the factors which may reflect the impact of inconsistent pre-HEC policies as well as of relatively purposeful post- HEC policies. Another important feature of the university is that its administrative structures are also shared with other state-run universities, which used to be its constituent colleges in the past. Therefore, the richness of the context also made this university suitable for this study.

Another important feature of the university is this that it has been striving to promote research activities among academics in order to keep itself in line with the changing context of higher education at national level. The research developments within the university can be evidenced with the fact that the national ranking of the university has improved by five steps during four years and it became one of the top five HEIs of the country in 2010 (when this study was planned). Since then, the university has maintained its place in top five national universities. In 2005, the university produced less than eighty research publications in total, which increased nearly seven times within five years. One fifth of these publications came from the faculties of social sciences despite the fact that six out of thirteen faculties in the university belong to social sciences and comprise forty percent of the total full time

academics (University X, 2011a). This uneven development of research within the university increased the possibilities of exploring the constraining and enabling factors related to research in social sciences.

In the light of above reasons, it can be argued that my own institution, being an old state-run general university with an uneven increase in research publications, can provide useful information for understanding the complex phenomenon of research culture with reference to social sciences faculties in the higher education context of Pakistan.