Challenged to Challenge: Gap-Spotting and Problematization

These days, I am reading many articles on research about my topic of interest for my dissertation on health equity. One of the suggested readings for us when I was doing my Ph.D. academics was the article about Problematization.

Honestly, when I first read about it (forced to read because of the Assignment), I did not notice its depth and what essential thought the authors Sandberg and Alvesson (2011) shared in the article. I even found it funny to know that the problematization word exists.

When I had the time to print and read about this article, it introduced vital realizations that are very helpful to anyone who wishes to become the best researcher in this generation.

You may access the paper from this link.

I often think that no one can create something new today because of the flooded inventions and existing pieces of knowledge. And here comes innovation, even this one is very challenging to realize.

We are living in a generation where ALMOST everything already exists. What can now be done are merely improvements of existing ones.

Yet, in the academic community, these improvements are the new insights that will not just add to the growing knowledge (gap-spotting) but introduce new nodes of wisdom, concepts, and realizations that are not yet covered by those existing ones (Problematization).

As researchers in today’s generation, we are challenged to challenge the existing theories, their relevance in today’s issues and concerns, their scope, their depth, their philosophical worldview, and everything about it.

Gap-spotting is a good practice in setting the urgency in the conduct of your study, but with Problematization, you are adding more value to your topic of interest. You are stretching its coverage; you are strengthening its social relevance.