Biographical Narrative and Motivation for Learning. Reflection on Conceptual and Methodological Decisions (Part One)

Abstract

The document -the first and second part- belongs to the production of Project No. 1748 of CIUNSa.: "Biographical Narrative and Motivation for Learning. In Search of Clues to Rethink the Issue of College Entrance." It intends to reflect on the meanings of research in relation to researchers’ involvement and how this fact influences the conceptual and methodological decisions, also conditioned by institutional contexts. Historical and epistemological analysis coordinated by Wallerstein -Open the Social Sciences (1996)- helps to look at the role of the University in defining disciplinary boundaries. With this background, justification of the importance of selecting certain categories over others is tried. The understanding of the research as a collaborative construction between researchers and reality is made explicit, giving up the scientistic aspiration of neutrality / objectivity and the disciplinary purism, since we consider ourselves part of the research problem and needed to adopt different disciplinary perspectives to advance in their understanding. The Burke’s pentad is taken to define the problem and faces -from there- an explanation of the reasons for choosing the biographical narrative as methodology, understood as constitutive of the self in the social and historical context. Finally, we present the category of motivation to advance in the understanding of the subject under study, discussing the concept of appropriation as internalization and as domain.