Ontology: the visibility of the researcher

PhD students in Education are commonly faced with the word Ontology, so here are a few of my thoughts that I hope are helpful.
What is Ontology?
The term comes from the Greek 'study of being' - the study of what is, of reality.
There is an issue here, how do we know 'what is' as opposed to 'what we think is'. An ontology cannot be written in absolute terms: we have to be satisfied with exploring what we consider to be reality. We may have a realistic certainty about some things - about our bodies and environment, for example, believing these to be real rather than fantasy. Nevertheless, some individuals live in fantasy with little perception of reality.
There is an alternative term, phenomenology, meaning 'study of appearances'. This ties in well with 'what we consider to be real' and it is no surprise that phenomenology has become an alternative or replacement term. Phenomenology tends to refer to biographical rather than autobiographical information.

How are Ontologies Used?
Mainly to locate the researcher vis a vis the research. In any research there are issues of bias and reliability so it is useful to see how the researcher came to be in the position of researcher. This will give a clue about the nature and objectives of the research, and even its significance and importance. Research into education by a practitioner will be different in many ways from research done by an outsider. That is not to say it will be better or worse, just different. Ethnography has traditionally been done by outsider observers, which need not imply that it is better than an insider observer.
Thus, the ontology provides a description of the personal involvement of the researcher with the research, which is part of the general context of the research.

The ontology has a particular role to play in an action research where the focus is centrally placed on the researcher as actor in the action - i.e. researching one's own actions in context. Action research is far more than 'this is my problem, this is my plan, this is how it went'. There has to be an inherent criticality to all issues involved. In particular, the place of the researcher in the action needs to be decontructed. A teacher beginning an action research may have a completely false view of their own performance and influence in the social nexus that we call the school or classroom. Teachers generally will not see themselves as the source of the problem but focus on the pupils being the problem: this may be an entirely false position. The ontology therefore needs some sort of critical underpinning to ask questions about the assumptions being taken for granted. We use the word 'critical' as shorthand for a wide range of fundamental questions.

Autobiography in research.
Research is wrongly stereotyped as 'objective'. In all research, the researcher has to make choices and decisions based subjectively on attitudes, values and assumptions. However, research labelled as positivist (e.g. experimental science) sidelines this area of researcher choice. Thomas Kuhn's hard-hitting study (1961 and with later expanded editions) showed that research assumptions are consolidated into a paradigm, or generally accepted framework, which prevented new contradictory research from being funded, and its results being accepted. The first step of autobiography therefore is to challenge assumptions, however unassailable they seem at the time.

Various fields use autobiography as a central methodology, in particular those on the critical research paradigm. These traditionally focus on race, class, gender or disability, but could address any aspect of social oppression. Paulo Freire was a key figure in the movement. Of these, feminist research has taken autobiography the furthest, examining the psyche of women in society. Here nothing is sacred - even academic studies of female bodyshock after mastectomies. The key question is are there areas relevant to human life worthy of research which can only be researched using an autobiological methodology. This is not dissimilar to the question faced by Glaser and Strauss which led to qualitative methodology and grounded theory: how can people's experience of the closeness of death be researched?

Dangers and threats in the use of autobiography.
The greatest danger is of self-deception leading to bias. To strengthen reliability triangulation should be sought - other people's views and memories of the same events. This is not totally dissimilar to threats to reliability on positivist paradigms, but demonstrating reliability in autobiographical research is perhaps more challenging. Some methods bracket away truth claims to solve this: autobiography makes a truth claim but need not be accepted as truth. The research therefore focuses on perceptions rather than their absolute truth.

All research contains a danger of over-claiming significance in making generalisations. Autobiography has to be particularly cautious in this.

Summary.
Ontology is a statement of where, why and how a researcher stands vis a vis his/her research, stating what they regard as reality. The statement should explain why. Thus, ontology declares the researcher's engagement with the research topic, explaining why the topic is important. It should also contain details of distancing techniques to ensure that the autobiographical interpretations are not fantasy.