| Abstract: | Presents 4 sets of strategies that may be useful for generating new perspectives on familiar research problems. It is suggested that researchers should play with ideas through a process of selecting and applying metaphors, representing ideas graphically, changing the scale, and attending to process. Researchers should also place specific problems in a larger domain, make comparisons outside the problem domain, examine processes in the settings in which they naturally occur, consider the practical implications of research, and probe library resources. It is important for researchers to probe and tinker with assumptions through such techniques as exposing hidden assumptions, making the opposite assumption, and simultaneously trusting and doubting the same assumption. Finally, it is vital that researchers clarify and systematize their conceptual frameworks. They should scrutinize the meanings of key concepts, specify relationships among concepts, and write a concept paper. (69 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
