ATS3222 Chap.1 Research and the Production of Knowledge
Research and the Production of Knowledge
Week 1 introduces the unit through four class questions: the reasons people research at all, what it means to call knowledge something produced, how a thesis is organised to support that production, and how a student starts to make knowledge rather than only read it.
The unit's welcome page answers the first broadly: research underpins work on global, national and local challenges, inside universities and across government, industry and community organisations.
The chapter sets up two terms used for the rest of the semester. Ontology deals with what reality is like and what there is to know; epistemology deals with the ways knowledge is reached and justified.
A diagram traces how those assumptions lead to a methodology and then to methods, so that a change in your view of knowledge changes the tools you can defend.
A table then reads each section of a conventional thesis as an answer to a sceptical reader's question, from why the problem matters to what the findings change.
The worked model turns a loose curiosity about young people leaving team sport into a research problem with stakes, a population and a question.
Practice tasks ask you to explain ontology and epistemology with a topic from your own discipline and to show how two rigorous studies of one place can produce different knowledge.
Read this chapter before your first workshop if you can. It is short on detail by design: the aim is a working vocabulary you can use from Week 2 onwards, when the unit starts asking you to describe a project of your own.
If a term still feels abstract after the chapter, attach it to a topic you care about and the abstraction usually disappears.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why research matters beyond the university
- 02
Knowledge as something produced
- 03
Ontology: what can be known
- 04
Epistemology: how we come to know
- 05
From assumptions to methods
- 06
What each thesis section contributes
- 07
Turning curiosity into a research problem
Worked example · free
Show how one assumption changes a design
- +1State one assumption: wellbeing is a measurable state that exists whether or not apprentices talk about it.
- +1Follow it to evidence: a validated wellbeing scale given to a large sample, compared across trades.
- +1Contrast the alternative: if wellbeing is a meaning apprentices construct, the evidence becomes their accounts of good and bad weeks, gathered in interviews.
Key terms
- Production of knowledge
- The view that findings are made through a researcher's choices of question, evidence and method, which others can inspect and challenge.
- Methodology
- The overall logic of inquiry that connects a researcher's assumptions to the methods they use.
- Research problem
- A situation in which something important is unknown or assumed, framed so that research could address it.
- Thesis structure
- The conventional sequence of introduction, literature, framework, method, findings and discussion that makes a claim checkable.
- Research literacy
- The ability to understand how research is designed, judged and communicated, and to apply that understanding to your own projects.
Research and the Production of Knowledge FAQ
What is the difference between ontology and epistemology?
Ontology asks what exists and can be known about a topic, for example whether stress is a bodily state or a shared experience. Epistemology asks how a researcher could know about it, such as through measurement, interviews or documents.
Why does a research unit begin with philosophy?
Because every design rests on assumptions about reality and evidence. Stating them early lets you choose methods that fit and explain those choices to markers, which all three assessments reward.
What does producing knowledge mean in practice?
It means treating each finding as the result of choices you can describe and defend: what you asked, whom you studied, and how you gathered and read the evidence.
How does thesis structure relate to the assessments?
Each section answers a reader's question. The literature section anticipates the mapping task, the ethics and limits discussion anticipates the feasibility report, and the introduction and outcomes anticipate the proposal.
Do I need a research topic in Week 1?
Not a final one, but having a rough area helps. The Week 2 thesis plan and the Week 3 choice of position both ask you to apply the ideas to your own interest, and the mapping task builds directly on it.
Assessment move
Pick a topic you might genuinely pursue this semester and write two sentences about it: one on what you assume exists, one on how it could be known. Then sketch the four-box chain from ontology to methods for that topic. Keep the sketch, because the Week 2 thesis plan and the Week 3 choice of position both build on it, and the mapping task asks you to describe the interest it captures.
A useful test of understanding is to explain both terms to a friend without using either word.
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