The first part of my PhD involved developing a meaningful method for data collection and analysis. Unfortunately, the uncontrolled situated observational method that was required, did not conform to the normal prerequisites of the controlled quantitative methodologies that are derived from the Positivist philosophical tradition, so I had to explore the problem in greater philosophical depth to justify the situated method. Finally, I turned to the more nuanced philosophical approach of Critical Realism proposed by Roy Bhaskar.
Critical realism treats the world as having real structures and mechanisms, that exist independently of our ability to observe them. Critical realism insists that ontology is real and not reducible to epistemology; and epistemology is socially and historically situated, and therefore relative. Hence, in scientific inquiry, this means researchers look beyond surface‑level events to identify the underlying causal forces that generate them, accepting that knowledge is always partial and theory‑laden when coming to any conclusions. This left me free to use an uncontrolled method that preserved the Radiologist’s behaviour, but having a sound philosophical footing when developing a model of the causal factors.
This talk covers the journey that I took towards developing this approach, and a more detailed description of the application of Critical realism.