Defining My Role as a Researcher

Another interesting topic that arose during last night’s Skype call was defining our role as a researcher. Helen clarified this excellently and I am much more aware on the tasks at hand following the discussion on the matter.

Harry and I expressed the issue that no one else has written about specifically our inquiry topics; they have written about things relating to it but not the specifics. Helen advised that the fact that we aren’t finding the stuff in between the literature and researcher is actually a good thing as it is that stuff in between that we are looking to develop for our own research.

‘It’s you as the researcher that makes those links, fills those gaps and that looks at the relationships between the literature that’s already out there and what you’re perceiving and experiencing in your own practice. Acknowledging that there is literature in these two areas and acknowledging that what you’re proposing to do straddles these two areas.’ Helen.

This helped to define my role as the researcher as it is to make those connections in order to give me something to write about in my inquiry. I will be looking at the relationship, what it is and what I am experiencing as well as what I am reading that’s already published.

There is a very definitive role as a researcher. It is not to tick off what’s already there, but it is to look for the gaps and how what I am proposing made me fill some of those gaps. In the bigger scheme of things, I am looking at what contribution I am making to this field in terms of research.