foundationsThese academic values inform the actions that are performed by the academic
community. meaningful actions are the ones that, given the value system of the academic
community, will compose the significant research activity. The concepts and actions
that are mobilized in a research project or thesis are joined together in a particular way
that forges the research activity, and which is done through an argument. Connection
through argumentation refers to a structure that produces an argument rather than any
one particular argument – meaning that it refers to the rational connection of ideas
rather than the advocacy of a particular position. This is a special kind of narrative that
networks concepts and authorities in a way that is particular to the academy.
elsewhere we have claimed that there are four issues that are persistently indicative
of the research activity that is meaningful to the academic community: the possession
of a question and an answer, the presence of something corresponding to the term
‘knowledge’, a method that connected the answers in a meaningful way to the
questions that were asked, and an audience for whom all this would have significance
(Biggs and Büchler 2009). The network within which these elements exist is what
makes them significant as academic research to the academic community. academic
argumentation refers to the building of a network in which a case is made for the
instrumentality of these elements. The academic community has spent a long time
refining these meaningful actions into requirements, to the point of conventionalizing
them. however, these requirements only have meaning as research in the context of
the academy, i.e. they do not have intrinsic context- independent value.
one value held in the academic community is that research is a cumulative
process (Biggs and Büchler 2008b). This helps to differentiate two common and non-
interchangeable uses of the term ‘research’: in academic research and in personal
research. in the latter, one is concerned to find out about something that one does
not already know, but which may already be known by others. as such it is personal
development. in the former, one is concerned to find out about something that nobody
knows, and will result in a contribution to knowledge and understanding (Biggs and
Büchler 2007). if research is defined as being cumulative then it is clear that one is
concerned with academic research. Therefore the methods need to include inquiry
into what has been done already, and making the outcomes public so that other
researchers do not duplicate the work. it also clarifies that research is something done
by communities resulting in collective benefit rather than by the isolated genius who
does not share their work and whose potential contribution remains unknown.
as a consequence of the value of accumulation, there are criteria by which research
can be identified and to which it should conform. such criteria are complex to
identify because they both constitute, and are constituted by, the works themselves.
however, this is not an intractable circular problem as we have described elsewhere
(Biggs and Büchler 2008b). To avoid the circularity problem, we took an axiomatic
approach and developed a logical system that describes how actions can be taken in
line with academic values. The axiom we adopted was that research is cumulative.
This enabled us to propose a set of four generic requirements that must be met by
academic research in all disciplines. The generic requirements consist of ‘question and
answer’, ‘method’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘audience’. These can be construed as a network of
interdependent concepts. assuming that research is cumulative, one needs a question
in order to provide an answer. The answer will add to our knowledge and to what is