My andwer disappeared when I made a word Bold. When I have the time again, i will try again.

Dear Nicholas

The philosophical terms can be rather confusing, so I would recommend you start building at the bottom of the pyramid instead of zooming in at the top and trying to find your way back down to the actual research you have designed already.

Perhaps you could start off by placing your research methods within social science typology. If you can describe your research methods in methodologically, recognisable language you can trace your thinking back to your own worldview (= ontology). Creswell uses clear language and can be helpful. It is better to be simple and clear than to create mist and fog with complex terms; it may look clever but it can trip you up.

To start with: if you spoke to a group of young women online in a group setting, and you let them discuss questions you formulated, this could be called “ a focus group”. That is a research method.

If you then recorded the discussion, that is “data collection”. If you analysed what was said, you used “content analysis” for your analysis. This was “data analysis”.

If you used categories to analyse the spoken texts, did you formulate the categories before the analysis, e.g. using Lacanian theory or literature search on the subject? Or did you make up categories up as you went along, based on what they said? These are “coding categories”. Part of content analysis. Pre-set coding categories or developed through the content analysis.

Did you count the number of times something was said, or was it sufficient to just know a theme was mentioned? Quantitative or qualitative research. Or a mix? See Creswell again .

Was your research meant to test a hypothesis or was it meant to explore a new field? Then you know whether it was “exploratory research” or a verification study.

As to ontology, or worldview, regarding young women and their experience of televisual fiction: do you want to study or take into account what they actually see or what is presented to them on screens, as an action undertaken by other people who make that content, then you believe there is a reality out there that exists separately from the minds and feelings of those young women.

Or, alternatively, are you not interested in the outside of their minds, but only in what they feel or think? Or are you convinced that nothing exists outside of their minds, thoughts and feelings, that there is only an inner reality ? These questions and your own answers illustrate where your worldview lies. Post-positivist or post-modern? If it is a mix and you use research methods that make the most sense to you, take a look at the wordview of Pragmatism. Others do not have to agree with your worldview or research methods, as long as you can explain it and reference it.

Epistemologie is the way you think we humans can know what we know or learn about the world. If you use psychoanalysis you have to explain how that helps you learn more about your field of study, and you have to explain how trustworthy it is. Otherwise someone could say that you can use Lacan to explain it one way today but also another way tomorrow. Anything goes.

The worldview of Pragmatism can help you with validating Lacan and Psychoanalysis as methods of analysis and interpretations because PA gives you models that you use to help explain the experiences or feelings of the young women and Pragmatist use what is useful and makes sense.

Build it up in steps so that you have a solid description of how your research fits into research method typology. Whether this will lead you to “idealistic ontology” etc I don’t know. Hope you find this helpful.

I'm not sure why you're concerned with ontology and epistemology. Are you writing for an audience that would require you to address those topics? Otherwise, I think your psychoanalytic framework would be the most important aspect of your research assumptions.

In my experience some supervisors start off by immediately barking “what is your ontology? What is your epistimology?” Intimidating and confounding the phd candidate who has put a lot of work into designing a research subject and research path. The effect is that the candidate goes off to do a lot of reading work, usually floundering in an ocean of non-compatible terminology.

In the meantime the supervisor does not have to spend time having a good look at the research proposal/methods/design etcetera, making up their mind, formulating criticism or recommendations.

I admire Frédéric Tremblay who came up with the idea that the worldview of the young woman, as a result of tv watching, could be the subject of the research.

It's a messy area in which a lot of writing is irrelevant and unhelpful. I always highlight in my doctoral teaching that students should look at what the questions of ontology and epistemology are intended to solve. For me, what is important is that you understand the nature of the thing you're trying to research and the implications of that on how you go about researching it. In practice, trying to understand what people experience, how they make sense of that, and what they say to other people might require different approaches. What I take from David L Morgan's various comments (including what he has contributed above) is that this can be resolved at a methodological level: "Do these methods serve your research question." My own approach in supervision is that *sometimes* explicitly thinking about the research question in ontological terms and methods in epistemological terms can help sharpen that enquiry. In this sense, it's a tool, not an outcome.

Potentially there is a question for your supervisor around what the expectation in your discipline in your university would normally be in addressing this.

I think Lilian's advice is well founded. Leedy & Ormrod have also produced a wonderful Research Methodology book that covers the ground you were discussing in assisting this post graduate student.

Research methodology is axiomatic to the research project and serves to interpret the research question in a way that illuminates both the specifics and the wider view (world-view) which all research should address.

Lilian's step-by-step, thoughtful advice in plain English is right on target, as is her recommendation to review Creswell. Take that and run with it!

An idealist ontology emphasizes the role of ideas and consciousness in shaping our understanding of the world, and this approach can be seen in the emphasis on the role of the unconscious mind in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

A constructivist epistemology, on the other hand, emphasizes the role of social and cultural factors in shaping our knowledge and understanding of the world. This approach can be seen in the way that you are examining young women's experiences of televisual fiction and the methods you are using to collect data, which include oral history/life history interviews and a virtual clinic.

It is worth noting, however, that the relationship between theory, methodology, ontology, and epistemology is often complex and multifaceted, and different scholars may have different interpretations and understandings of these concepts. Therefore, it is important to be clear and transparent about your own theoretical and methodological position, while also engaging critically with different perspectives and approaches.