Epistemology is “a way of understanding and explaining how I know what I know” (Crotty, 1998, p. 3). According to Denzin and Lincoln (2005), epistemological inquiry looks at the relationship between the knower and the knowledge, and asks “how do I know the world?” (p. 183). An epistemological inquiry can be objectivist, subjectivist or constructivist, and underlies the entire research process and governs the research’s theoretical perspective (e.g. interpretivist, post-modernist, feminist). The theoretical perspective will guide methodological decisions and procedural choices (Crotty, 1998). This study followed the constructivist epistemological paradigm and interpretivism theoretical perspective, which informed all stages of the study from its conceptualisation, research questions, interviewing, data analysis, to discussion and conclusion.
3.1.1 Constructivist Epistemological Paradigm
According to the constructivist paradigm, meaning is created through an interaction between the interpreter and the interpreted (Crotty, 1998). The interpreter, though not entirely objective, is separate from the phenomena to be observed and the meaning-making interaction is strongly influenced by the phenomena and society. However, meaning which is investigated by a constructivist paradigm is not subjective and personal but is socially generated within the interplay of consciousness and the object of experience. In other words, knowledge is not just created by the researcher’s interpretation but involves a whole process of social exchange. The researchers’ interpretations are shaped by the phenomena and societal influences, and the researcher is well aware that those interpretations are influenced through
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50 the interaction between the researcher and the interpreted.
In this research, I acknowledge that the conceptualisation of the program participants’ understanding of teaching and learning in higher education was a subjective process of interpretation and interactive exchange between participants and myself, through which the co-construction of teaching and learning in higher education was formulated. This qualitative approach is rooted in the constructivist epistemology with the assumption that knowledge, meaning and understanding are “individual constructions of reality” and that “knowledge is constructed rather than discovered” (Stake, 1995, p. 99).
3.1.2 Interpretivist Theoretical Perspective
A major sub-category of constructivism paradigm is interpretivism, which looks for “culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world” (Crotty, 1998, p. 67). A distinction that is frequently made regarding research philosophies is between positivism and interpretivism (Bryman & Bell, 2007; Travers, 2001). Positivism believes that researchers can take a scientific perspective when observing a phenomenon with an objective stance. Research based on a positivist stance is conducted in a deductive way, where a number of hypotheses are generated for testing, with empirical verification then sought (Babbie, 2005). In contrast, interpretivism requires researchers to take a different approach. As Bryman and Bell (2007) stated, interpretivists agree that the subject matter of the social sciences, in other words, people and their institutions, is considerably different from that of the natural sciences. This logic leads the researchers to the use of inductive theory process, reversing the deductive process by using data to generate theory. Grounded theory, which is a qualitative inquiry methodology, is one example, in which theory is formulated by data through constant comparison analysis. Charmaz (2006) asserted that constructivist grounded theory is “squarely an interpretive tradition” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 330). Unlike the positivist research, interpretivists believe people create and associate their own meanings through the interactions with objects around them. An interpretivist position was adopted in this research. That is, the meaning is constructed, not discovered, so participants construct their own meaning in different ways. Hence, researchers can only seek to understand real-world phenomena by studying them in detail within the context in which they occur.
Following the interpretivist perspective in conducting research I travelled back to Vietnam to conduct the study to explore the context that the program took place and study how the context might influence the construction of participants’ understanding of teaching and
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51 learning. The interaction with participants helps to reveal and associate meanings related to the research phenomenon on conceptions of teaching and learning in higher education in Vietnam.
Gray (2009) categorised interpretivism into five main approaches: symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, realism, hermeneutics and naturalistic inquiry. This study followed the symbolic interactionism approach as it values the process of meaning-making and interpretation and focuses on peoples’ conceptions and lived realities. The essential tenets of symbolic interactionism, according to Gray (2009, p. 22) are that:
● People interpret the meaning of objects and actions in the world and then act upon those interpretations,
● Meanings arise from the process of social interaction,
● Meanings are handled in, and are modified by, an interactive process used by people in dealing with the phenomena that are encountered.
This research satisfies three central characteristics of symbolic interactionism. Firstly, it aimed to interpret the meanings of participants’ conceptions of teaching and learning in higher education, and from this interpretation, implications for higher education teachers’ professional development program have been suggested and acted upon. Just as the other two tenets of symbolic interactionism, which centre around the “meanings” of the studied phenomena, this study was built upon the philosophy that meanings, in this case, the conceptions of teaching and learning in higher education, are investigated through the lens of the program participants’ perspectives, via the interaction among them and myself, as a researcher. I went to the field to collect data and observed what participants constructed as teaching and learning in higher education prior to participating the program and at the end of the program. My background and experience in higher education and in the context where the study took place, and as a former participant of the program helped to facilitate the research data collection through social interaction with participants (See 3.3.5 Role of the researcher). Also, those experiences are reflected in and influenced the analysis of data through memo writing and interpreting participants’ conceptions. The meanings of conceptions of teaching and learning in this study, in this research, are inclined to follow symbolic interactionism paradigm, because they were not fixed, but changed through the influences of the teachers’ training program and the social interactions and experience that participants of the program encountered during the participation of the program. Therefore, these conceptions were
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52 inherently modified as the third tenet of symbolic interactionism, by an interactive process of participants through their interaction with program presenters and their peers.