Transformative research: Personal and societal. A Mixed Methods approach.

Merten’s research has spanned special education services, planning for the inclusion of students with disabilities in neighbourhood schools, enhancing the educational experiences of students with disabilities, and improving the preparation of teachers of the deaf through the appropriate use of instructional technology.

Mertens argues for methodological pluralism that respects multiple ways of knowing and blends knowledge gained from sources that are traditionally accepted by the academy with intuitive knowledge and knowledge gained from other non-traditional sources that are valued in the participant community. She supports arguments made by Joan Walton (2014) and Rosemarie Anderson and William Braud (2011), quoting Walton, “There is a continuing emphasis on the need for methodological pluralism, where researchers from a range of disciplines including the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and arts, can engage in individual and collaborative approaches to generating knowledge that will address issues of global concern.”

When people with intellectual disabilities were asked about their priorities for transformation, they replied that they wanted to live in a world where they can live “ordinary” lives (National Health Committee, 2003). This definition of transformation has societal and personal level implications. Societal attitudes and barriers that limit life chances for people with disabilities must be part of the transformation, along with personal transformation of those in power and those with disabilities. (p.22)

This statement speaks to the notion that “disability” and “accessibility” are not predetermined or static states of being but rather dynamic, co-constructed states of being that can be transformed.

At a personal level, researchers need to experience a transformation in the way they enter communities respectfully in order to build relationships that recognize the knowledge that community members bring to the context. For example, as a non-Deaf person conducting research with the Deaf community for over 30 years, I needed to shift my self-perception as the expert in research contexts to recognize that in matters of deafness, I am not the expert. People who have lived experience of deafness are the experts in that regard and this knowledge has to be acknowledged and valued.

Mertens talks about personal transformation as being part of transformational research. She acknowledges here she had to shift her self-perception from the start, suggesting too that it is an ongoing process.

To this end, transformative researchers often adopt a cyclical mixed methods approach, using the earliest stages of the research study to identify who needs to be included and how they can be included (Mertens, 2018). This also entails a transformative process at the individual level that supports the development of trusting relationships and working with members of marginalized and powerful communities to understand the cultural complexities and their implications for transformation. The relationship-building phase can be followed by a phase for contextual analysis during which existing data and literature can be reviewed. It might also include group process strategies to bring to light the types of tacit and integral knowledge that form the basis for transformation. The information collected from these phases are used to develop an intervention that has potential for transforming individuals and society. This intervention is usually pilot-tested with a small group so that it can be adjusted as necessary. (p.22)

She goes into a bit more detail in the video lecture What are Mixed Methods?

The transformative methodological assumption aligns with Walton’s (2014) recommendation to collect data from diverse sources in diverse ways that honor the intuitive and integral knowledge needed for transformation. Walton suggests the value of transpersonal methods to train researchers and participants in recognizing intuitive knowledge. This can include engaging in imaginal dialogue when developing the research topic, using an expansive literature review strategy that allows for challenges to personal values and assumptions, combining intuitive research methods with conventional quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, and integrating the results of all the data collection with the literature and sharing it in meaningful ways with diverse audiences. “Intuitive perception can help achieve richer forms of understanding when used to complement processes such as analytic reasoning and information gained from the conventional five senses (p. 37).” (p.23)

This relates to four spheres of influence model used in Transformative Inquiry.

This notion of tapping into intuitive understanding to bring about conscious change reminds me of the avant-garde artists of the 60’s and 70’s: Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, or Sol LeWitt. And something about it pulls me into thinking about “Ding an sich” or  “the thing as such”  by Kant, which is the distinction between that which we perceive and the thing itself. There is also something in the space between, the gaps and linkages between, and what is known and what is sensed and the various isnesses where we can make space for new understandings. Is that the space of transformation itself? And is that what we need to access in order to bring about transformation?