I'm interested to know, which skills should (particularly political / policy) researchers focus on which are often neglected?
Dear Jason:
"What are important skills which most researchers lack?" You ask.
What follows is a short answer to your question.
There is a myriad of skills which researchers should have: knowlede, self-confidence, intellectual curiosity, perseverance, motivation, and the like.
As I see it, the most important skill researchers should have is their ability to raise, say, irritating questions, that is, questions who response leads us to advance knowledege and a better knowledge of the unknown. All great scientists were able to raise irritating questions. Note that we had and have a multitude of scientists, and only some of them were or are great scientists. Why this is the case? On my views, this is the case because many scientists prefer to follow the mainstrean to raising irritating questions and doubts. So, what many reseachers lack is an ability to raise, say, irritating doubts and questions. Irritating questions are in their very nature original and even revolutionary doubts and questions. Most reseachers also look suspiciously at conceptual or philosophical investigations or clarifications as Wittgenstein put it. However, an experiment run in at atmosphere of conceptual confusion rarely, if ever clarifies anything. As R. Horgan (1999) once noted, all empiricism in the world cannot salvage a bad and unclear idea. In other words, most researchers often forget that they should be first "students of logic" and conceptual clarity and only after that "students of nature" or students concerned with empirical testing and findings. It is not a mere coincidence that great philosophers were also great scientists. Leibniz is just an example of a great philosopher and a great scientist.
Besr regards,
Orlando
Hi, Jason,
As my father often said, "every generalization is false, including this one," but I would suggest that most researchers may lack the skills to translate their findings into everyday language so that the implications of their findings can be communicated to non-specialists.
It may be the ability to decompose the general problem into specialization. As the question you saised, it is very difficult to answer. Ha-ha
Thank you very much to you all for your very interesting contributions.
its also about dis-aggregating the findings and building linkages between existing theories and findings including challenging or propounding new theories to advance knowledge.
What are important skills which most researchers lack?
The lacking can include the following:
Hi there,
I think , Systems Thinking ability is the most neglected one.
Best.
Hello Jason,
I think most researchers lack in time management, curiosity, hard working, passion, motivation, confidence, literacy.
I think that many researchers lack robust understanding of research methods and how to select right methods. In addition many do wonderful reflection on concepts, do great fieldwork, but fail to bring concept and empirical findings together.
I am not certain that one can agree with Zinat above. While these properties are important I would not say that 'most researchers' lack them. If this would be the case then the selection of research students and other researchers would be a complete failure..........
In my opinion, some researchers focus so much on the laboratory that they neglect a little the administrative part of applying for funding for their projects and prefer that a person from the research group be in charge of doing the corresponding bureaucratic procedures
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