I'm afraid at a conference usually there is no time to reach a common ground. The best is to present your position as clearly as possible and be prepared for nasty or misunderstanding questions/notes at the end of your lecture. If you know that your position is a new or minority view it is good to prepare some short argumens in favor of your position. If you want to have a long term and constructive cooperation with someone, however, it is unavoidable to discuss and clarify your positions and possibly reach a mutually acceptable common ground..

Most attempts to 'convey' "What Constitutes Valid Knowledge and How Can We Obtain It?"  namely, 'my epistemological position', reflects one's understanding of basic issues of science and that is not something you just change when it does not fit. After due diligence to make ones position explicit and stated clearly, the researcher assumes the 'audience' has "acquaintance" with the philosophical assumptions in the generation of knowledge in qualitative research namely phenomenology, hermeneutics and symbolic interactionism. These would serve as minimum prerequisites for one to 'communicate' one's research and expect some degree of 'epistemological' convergence!

It is a challenge to one's ability to understand that one who does not understand. But I guess one has to open her/his "mind" to the kind of audience he/she has, analyze the difference in this philosophical position (objective vs. subjective, quantitative vs. subjective), and find a way of crossing over. In this world of "mixed methods", there must be a way. But this will require a broad perspective (and experience) of both worlds.

Last month, I attended a national conference in a technical college.  I presented a paper of the use of music mnemonics to teach a biological process, the lac operon.  I had a close friend who accompanied me.  She came as a participant but didn't present a paper.  I was wondering if I would face some awkward moments, but to my surprise, the facilitator had actually googled for info about me and my research.  One of the technical lecturers asked if mnemonics could be used for students to remember formula and other aspects of physical sciences.  So I responded that when I was a student, I remembered the colors of the rainbow as ROY G BIV, and this was a first letter mnemonic.  Another person asked me on how would first letter mnemonics compare with music mnemonic.  I didn't exactly answer that question.  I just responded that in all our homes and kindergartens, little children learn the Alphabet using the music mnemonics, set to the tune of 'Twinkle, twinkle little star'.

It is a common and typical behavior of individual listeners of academic lectures at a conference: 'What I do not know does not exist'. Everyone wants to look like a progressive and unassailable. No one would put his foot as backward. Since time is very limited for discussion after a lecture, it remains mostly at short exchange of own viewpoints. Therefore, it is advisable to communicate my own epistemological position in the form of publications. Anyone can then attack, refute or confirm my position. And I will be grateful if other colleagues convince me by their rebuttal. Through our willingness to learn from the experienced, we will bring the world forward.

A number of years ago, I attended a conference which included three researchers doing the initial conference keynote.  One was to talk about qualitative methods, another quantitative methods and a third mixed methods.  Right before the speaker got up to speak about mixed methods, a well known qualitative researcher stood up in the audience and announced, "Mixed methods should never be carried out.  They are theoretically non congruent."  My heart went out to the mixed method speaker.  However, she took her place on the podium without hesitation and gave her presentation. 

My reaction as someone in the audience was to then disregard the scientific writings of the rude researcher who put down someone's presentation before it even began.  For me there was in inconsistency between being a qualitative researcher, who should be supportive and open to the descriptions by subjects, and someone who attacks and embarrasses a colleague in that way.    While many in the audience were not big fans of mixed method approaches, the speaker was more respected than this obnoxious researcher who tried to diminish what she had to say before she could even say it.

Scientists should be on the cutting edge of new phenomena and areas of investigation.  Others may or may not see the value initially.   I now do research on near-death experiences, deathbed communication and after death communication to list just a few of the transpersonal experiences surrounding death.   One of the ways I present this information to an audience not inclined to accept these experiences is to stay with objective facts.  I say, we don't know really how these occur.  What we have proof of, is millions of people have these experiences and have been having them for centuries.  We need to know what to say to them and how to help them and their loved ones process the aftereffects. My backup plan is to use Thomas Kuhn's ideas from his book The structure of Scientific Revolutions.

 It is easy to 'preach to the choir' and present only to like minded individuals.  It is crucial to present to those who lack exposure and understanding.   We cannot be daunted by people in the audience who might be rude and not accepting when we have evidence of our areas of expertise.

Hi Bruna,

Very good question & I share the same empathy.  This situation sometimes happen during conference and we can't stop the audience asking questions only from their point of views.  Suggesting to do the following:

1) Know who are the audience of your presentation - most of the times you might only know during the last minutes but do your best to read through their profiles which might be printed on the booklet when you register on Day1 / find out from organizer who had registered to attend your presentation.

2) Anticipate what question(s) the audience will ask & prepare for them.

3) Over-prepare your presentation - i.e. go through your slides before the presentation & prepare possible diversion from your main presentation areas e.g. if you are presenting a quantitative research outcomes, pls prepare in case audience might ask you why not you conduct your research in qualitative or mixed methods study.  Like wise if you are presenting a PLS-SEM outcomes, pls prepare in case audience might ask you why not you conduct your research in Covariance-based SEM, Multiple Regression etc.

4) Pen down key assumptions / delimitation / boundary of your research in the earlier section of your presentation slides - i.e.draw a boundary of your research  scope & level set the audience expectation to show you are prepared.  E.g. research respondents are a few hundreds of random sample from a large organization instead of from thousands of organizations in a specific industry (need to justify why only respondents from a large organization?  what so special about the organization that you are researching? etc).  Also spell out clearly your research problem, research objective(s) and research question(s) so that when you are being questioned why you use a specific research approach, then you can refer back to your research objective etc.

5) Before the actual presentation, try to perform a mock presentation to your other faculty members to evaluate what kind of questions they might ask or their critiques - so that you can improve the contents of your presentation or prepare better before the actual presentation.

6) Try to be truthful before the audience - e.g. if certain research areas you'd missed out / overlooked, you might want to acknowledge these as limitations and try to improve before the actual submission to journal for article publication.  If you can't recall all the remarks made by the audience, get a colleague as audience to help you jot down the key points / questions.  In case you don't know the answer for some questions, you might want to tell them you don't know at this moment & willing to come back to them once you have an answer.

The above 6 points not only can apply to conference presentation, they are also useful for a student going for under- / post-graduate viva exam.  Wishing you all the best.

Regards,

Fung

Vow. I am lucky. So far I never had any had any arguments in any conferences. I guess, the crowd was the factor. They knew exactly what I am talking about and may be the research topic was not based on sensitivity of or the emotions of the human beings. Reasearch areas were based on chemistry and Biology. Our job was to present and publish such discoveries, the findings as is. In fact, we are glad many researchers have extended their research based on our findings. Remember, science/ new finding is like a baby. As it matures, it has to adapt to the new findings. Scientists have to be flexible and have to change their own theory if necessary. No shame if one is proven wrong in future years.

Alas, there are areas in Biology even scientists/ researchers argue to such an extent they do not want even the discussion or publication of a subject they do not believe in. Here let me not name the areas. That is tragedy.

My philosophy so far is to carry out research in areas, as much as possible, that no one else has touched. Example, everyone was behind topics like Phytoremediation to Clean Up Sites. I believe plants are like humans and better and smarter than human. What I mean is the plants do not like toxic chemicals.  But I still believe everyone has right to such projects. I can cite a great physicist / Biologist who demonstrated, plants nervous system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose.

Now what   I / we  are  doing ? Go behind plant kingdom. They are extremely smart, unselfish creatures in the world. Without them we all  will have a  barren land. Let us all go green. If god gives me a boon, I want to be a plant for a day. Have a wonderful summer everyone.

Dear All,

The situation Bruna presented is a very common one. Who can predict the opinions and reactions of an audience? A lecture or a view which does not effect a discussion, cannot be a really original contribution. One should be always ready for thorough even cutting questions.  Conferences are organised to present new, imaginative and unusual contributions, not to repeat the same version of the ever and incontestable truth.

Consequently, I do not understand Bruna’s question and agree with the comment of Guenter.

hello

I believe a lot depends on the conference chair to have some pre-reading done on presenters, their papers and the actual papers in the session. Debate can be handled better in such instances.

I congratulate you, the reviewers and the conference for accepting papers from a diverse perspective. I am often doubtful of many conferences/forums for being a one way self/group congratulatory session of people that have the same viewpoints. The room from constructive criticism sometimes goes missing. I guess I have been privileged in my exposure to many disciplines, Arts, business, design, cultural studies, communications domains.

well done for challenging yourself and do not worry about some times nasty differing opinions. It can only make your submitted journal work better being prepared for such objections

The world was once flat you know!

Brad Wilson

To Bruna:

“Facilitator seemed not to understand her research” ...  If true, that is sad indeed.

To:

Madelaine.

“Right before the speaker got up to speak about mixed methods, a well-known qualitative researcher stood up in the audience and announced, "Mixed methods should never be carried out.” 

That is no no in any conferences. I guess. again facilitator failed miserably to carry out his/ or her duty to facilitate the process of conference proceedings. Best way to tackle such people, to state  rules of presentions including time allowed  questions and answers. Anyone who needs more info or to pick a bone with the presenter  can meet the presenter after the presentation.

I have engaged presenters in a positive dialogue. With all negative thing said  about facilitators and listeners,   I like to add one thing.  Many a time, the presenters get positive feed back from their listeners and facilitators. We are all life long learners.

I am not sure having positive and agreeable debates at conferences is the answer

on many occasions it may be good to be told you are wrong at a conference forum than to have it up in lights for the rest of your career in a publication.

debating such things respectfully is also hard to take as we are invested in our work (some more than others.. A a career full of it!). This is difficult for both parties I imagine but it is the junior researcher which often comes off second best

it is important for other seniors in the room and chair to be aware of these dynamic.

do not get me started on publishing and reviewer bias that goes with this. !!

my 2 cents

brad

Thank you all for your responses. It has been very helpful to hear from all of you. 

Hi Brad thanks for the response. I totally agree! It’s not a matter of imposing anyone’s view but in being open to understand other perspectives, other ways of knowing. And yes, we invest so much to the extent that we become our work, right?

To Mdulagiri: I think it does happen more than we think. Personally I have not experienced anything like this, but in saying this I am a novice researcher. And if it does happen, I do think we need to approach it in a very positive way, as you said, and get feedback. But that’s the tricky part and I guess you’d need to have experience in order to manage this.

To Gyorgy, I definitely think it is a good idea to prepare you presentation having in mind your audience. But as a novice researcher I think we might be a bit naïve.  We need to have in mind that not everyone will look at your work the same way you look. We need to be prepared for criticism and learn from it! 

.. Is it too much to ask ... Respectful debate.

people become that invested it can be 40-50 years of a person's work. I do not want to sound ageist as I think it is person thing... but you have to be a pretty BIG person to then say lets hear and consider alternative views,perspectives.

I remember once when I was younger (not too long ago... Alright it was a fair while ago) in a pretty big conference forum a key professor just labelled my work wrong and in error. I pretty much moderated the discussion by myself as it continued.

I asked for the specifics of where I was in error given I had followed the advice and procedure of two key professors in the room big enough to say I had done it right.

there was no backing down.. So I said we would have to agree to disagree (I learnt this tactic from dealing with my first ex-wife..... It did not work on him).

I concluded my presentation by joking (and I emphasize the joking part) that if this was another era... I guess we might be at the stage of challenging to a duel of scholarly gentlemen (choice of pistols or swords).... The cross- cultural nature of the audience meant about half the audience responded in loud laughter. It cracked me up and I said it.

As long as you are still having fun it is worth it.

Definitely Bradley! Take it lightly, I suppose is a good way of approaching it! I could not help myself from laughing when I read your comment!! Thanks! 

Bruna, if your audience does not share your epistemological position, there is a fair chance that you are not addressing a relevant intellectual community.  Given that it's improbable that any sizable audience will share identical epistemological positions, it's seldom a major issue among members of an expert community, or a learned society.  By definition, these communities "see things the same way," so to speak, or, as Kuhn put it, a "paradigm" comprises their membership.

But what would have been pretty clear in, say, 1960, is badly obscured today.  It's not so much that many disciplines have broken down into segments, but that the big professional associations have made heroic efforts to maintain their memberships.  Any number of big associations have adapted to "methodological diversity," whatever that means, except that different factions will not openly challenge other factions on grounds of validity.  Unfortunately, this does not mean--as the arrangement implies--that one faction is as plausible and valid as the other.

I don't go to any big conferences any more due to this failure to engage and debate between the factors as Roderick puts it. Junior academics definitely don't actively engage in my experience.

they all hold their tongues and the work is poorer for it...

editors also do not talk much in terms of support either way  as they just want more submission year on year to talk about rejection rates being higher..

brad

Dear Dr Duraes,

This kind of experience sounds familiar to me.  I remember presenting my works to professors and classmates who worked from different perspectives, and were ready to disprove my points. I always began my presentations with "the problem / issue can be approached from various perspectives, but today I'd like to put forward an investigation from Marxist / Feminist /etc... perspectives."  And then I would briefly describe assumptions, and present my analysis based on those assumptions.  And when they gave comments, I would say that I appreciated learning more about other ways of seeing. Many times, the comments led to further arguments among themselves; I became a listener, and got away with it.

Hope my experience is relevant.

Regards,

Cameen

Yes Cameen, it is very relevant. I think it is important to make clear your position, and your assumptions to a diverse audience. Pls dont call me Dr! I'm just a student :) 

I suggest presenters and facilitators approach discussing epistemological representations and research with a humility, to be open to learning something from another. We are all incomplete, or we wouldn't be in this business. When passions get involved, it is always fair to "agree to disagree," and let go. The word "prove," to me, seems contentious.  "Convince" is less inflammatory. I like Cameen Kettanun's response.

Would it be possible to identify (or even anticipate) dominant competing or contrary views and then address these in your own work or presentation? Taking Popper's view of falsification or corroboration of research findings one might wish to communicate the views against wish your own position was tested.

It is not always about presenting a non-objectionable presentation to appease the audience.

some times they need hear and see the different approach with all the differences. This is your time to present your perspective ... Not theirs

encouraging bit of argy bargey (technical term) will always get you remembered. What is more important for your work and the junior scholar brand AND if you are completing a Ph.D. you might unearth some potential examiners worth exploring further.

brad

Dear Bruna,

If the audience does not share your position, the position of your particular epistemology up on which your research is done then your research follows a different theory of knowledge in which the audiences have hard time to accept the epistemology you follow and your work as well, not difficulty to understand your work. It might also be a possibility that the facilitator may not know the theory you are following and the works you have done and unable to communicate to the audience properly what your works are, in that case it is a good time for you to convincingly display what your work is.  . 

The other possibility is that your theory might be  totally new and that might be the reason for the problem. In that case you are not alone, there are several such incidents in science where new ideas were totally rejected by contemporary leading people of research as being bad, evil, etc.

Georg Cantor was one such example who died of colleague persecution driven insane because of his ideas on infinity, no colleague wanted to believe him, which later all what he said were found to be true. 

It is an interesting question. It relates to understanding other individuals' experience via sharing similar experiences. I recall the time when assistants still typed our manuscripts for publishers and for our own organizations. I recall I could not explain how to type the text until i brought MacIntosh based examples of technical activities such as "copying", "pasting", "saving", and "publishing". All explanations have INSTANTLY  become clear and productive just by introducing the language of practical typing activities.

It looks as though a similar situation happens in all kinds of mutual understanding between individuals (not only scientists). Some degree of common experience with technicality of every day's activity needs to be shared. Without this shared technical experience there will be no communication and no understanding.

Bruna,

Very common occurrence especially when we venture into heterogeneous academic spaces.  Recent example; have seen economists in an audience critiquing the dependent variables used by organisation psychologists as being too subjective; their preference being employee performance evaluations and not self-reports from employees or supervisors.   

While both are generally classed as social scientists, their frames of reference are totally different.

More on knowledge frameworks, ie how we know what we know,  in attached paper.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236941623_Building_a_knowledge_society_one_individual_at_a_time_a_multi-level_review

Working Paper Building a knowledge society one individual at a time: a mul...

it's very common that we faced that type of audience. Your role in communicating to them is ensure you communicate it correctly, easy to understand and objectively.

Yes, it not an easy task when the basis for understanding each other is not there. It can degenerate into an argument where the discussion revolve around who can argue better than sharing information with each other to contribute to a better understanding.