Soundtrack to Research

Stephen Bezzina writes: What is my epistemological position? Is this a Hawthorne effect? Is the observed difference between means, statistically significant? Am I a post-positivist? What is the best research design? Are there any confounding variables? What’s the confidence interval? On which philosophical assumptions are my research paradigm and methodology based on? 

These are a few, yet important questions that I have asked myself during my first real meet-and-greet with the world of social science research. Not all of these questions have a definite answer, but all require extensive reading, understanding and writing. 

Starting off with the heavy terminology, with terms like epistemology, axiology and ontology, I have found myself thinking around the nature of knowledge, ethics and reality to the sounds of Brian Eno and David Bowie and their spacey synth tracks’ atmosphere. 

Visiting the various paradigms and positioning myself and my beliefs within the positivist and post-positivist views of the world was a journey with Tangerine Dream on their Real Train.

Plastikman, Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin took over the research design stages, guiding the development and critical evaluation of the research methods, techniques and instruments with their faster darker techno beats. 

Soundtrack to Research by Elektronicheslernenmuzik on Mixcloud

On analysing the extant quantitative data available, I embraced Kraftwerk’s Tour de France through the sampled sporting voices and mechanical sounds, paving the way forward towards the statistical significance of the results obtained. Sven Väth and The Human League with Harlequin's Meditation and Kiss the Future respectively, set the ideal climate and mood for evaluating results and drawing conclusions. Finally, the jazzy fever surrounding the sound of the saxophone in The Man With The Red Face, put Laurent Garnier on top of the playlist during the writing-up of my own research proposal.

Stephen Bezzina was completing the Research Methods course on the MSc in Digital Education at The University of Edinburgh.