Literature Review
Introduction
Research frameworks are foundational to all qualitative and quantitative research (Grant & Osanloo, 2014). My research ideas continue to emerge. The frameworks I explore in this dissertation guide my research path and help me stay on track, while also allowing me to push into new directions. The ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies, and methods outlined in this dissertation frame my research story. In this way, I take you the reader, on a “quest with some guiding principle (theory), using one or more ways of traveling (methods) in order to obtain some hitherto elusive prize (results) that is valuable to one or more interested parties (applications and implications)” (Ellingson, 2017, p. 66). As bell hooks suggests, my “engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond” (p. 11).The theoretical framework, the blueprint, outlines the metaphoric and foundational knowledge for this research (Grant & Osanloo, 2014). In this dissertation, I make a distinction between theoretical and conceptual frameworks as these are “neither interchangeable or synonymous” (Grant & Osanloo, 2014, p. 16). The theoretical framework analyzes my ontological and epistemic lenses. For this PhD research, I will next explicate these core foundational elements as I outline the foundation of this dissertation.
The conceptual framework outlines the factors, constructs, variables, and relationships within the research design (Grant & Osanloo, 2014) while being reflexively analyzed through my ontological and epistemic lenses. In the conceptual framework section of the literature review for this dissertation, I examine research in three key areas and fields of study, as mentioned in the introductory chapter. These include teacher education, with a specific focus on teacher educators in faculties of education, open educational practices, and media and digital literacies.
The literature review section of this dissertation concludes with a graphic rendering, as an element of the crystallization methodology, remixing the theoretical and conceptual frameworks as they impact and shape the research.