Janet is a doctoral student in Humanistic Engineering. She is a United States citizen who has extensive international travel experience. Since she was a young child, she has travelled abroad with her family on Christian mission trips, a practice she continued to facilitate for herself through adulthood. Her lifelong travel experiences have informed her research agenda. She has begun finalizing her research questions for her doctoral dissertation and hopes to propose an inquiry project that seeks to design a rainwater collection system for rural communities suffering from drought in Northern Africa.
Janet’s advisor, Lu, has asked for a prospectus of her dissertation with a draft of her research purpose, problem, questions and methodology. Lu is concerned about Janet’s prospectus, as her early writings indicate that Janet has not thoroughly reflected on or examined the Western paradigm through which she is viewing her study.
Lu meets with Janet and challenges her to explore scholarship that attends to the imposition of Western paradigms in humanitarian engineering projects. Lu also encourages Janet to explore community-based and participatory frameworks so that design solutions could be deliberated and co-implemented with the communities that Janet intends to support with her research.
Janet’s initial response is frustration, disappointment and dismissal. Janet asserts that as a world traveler, she understands the research context and that Lu’s assigned tasks are an impediment to her timely progress to graduation. Lu holds firm on her expectation, and further asserts the context in which Janet travelled the world also requires examination. With some time to reflect and process, Janet agrees to engage Lu’s readings. Janet sets a timeline to resubmit her prospectus and to provide an annotated bibliography for Lu’s assigned readings.
- The Issue: Janet is approaching her doctoral dissertation with an unexamined research paradigm and may pursue a line of inquiry abroad that may be potentially ineffective or problematic.
- The Deliberation: Janet is challenged by her advisor, Lu, to reflect on her research paradigm with more rigor. Lu assigns new readings and asks Janet for a revision to her prospectus and an annotated bibliography.
- The Growth: Janet works through her arrogance and defensiveness and is able to join Lu in a learning partnership with potential to expand her critical thought and improve the efficacy of her research design.