Theoretical foundations meaning: We explain what the theoretical foundations of a project or research are, and its elements. Also, instructions to do them.
What are the theoretical foundations?
The theoretical foundations (or the theoretical framework) of a project or research is the set formed by the documentation and prior reflection regarding the topic to be investigated that the researchers have compiled and analyzed, and that serves as conceptual support for their work or final project.
This means that researchers draw from various theoretical sources their specific way of conceptually approaching and analyzing the research topic, turning to those who have previously studied it in depth. It is essential that those who carry out research can distinguish their own ideas from those they have inherited from specialized literature.
The theoretical foundations of an investigation allow us to understand the problem in depth, based on current perspectives on the topic. Take this Strategy information with you!
So, for example, if someone intends to study a Chinese work of art, the logical thing is to go to what the great specialists on the subject have said: historians, art critics, sinologists and other specialists who can offer points of view, key arguments and useful tools for understanding and interpreting Chinese artwork. Otherwise, you run the risk of repeating what others have said before or remaining in the most superficial layers of available knowledge.
The theoretical foundations of all research are made up of:
The investigative background:
That is, the research work, inside and outside the academy, that has been previously done on the topic.
The theoretical and conceptual bases:
that is, the works of reflection, interpretation and theorization around the topic that constitute specialized literature. This may include a specialized glossary, that is, a set of key definitions, as well as a series of theoretical or conceptual proposals.
The legal bases:
That is, the set of legal and moral provisions and considerations that, if any, are relevant to the project or research.
All of this must be taken into account when writing the theoretical framework of the research, in order to provide the reader or evaluator with a clear and complete picture of what the researcher’s point of view is and how much has been documented. That is, how deeply you understand the problem you are setting out to investigate.
How to carry out the theoretical foundation of a project or research?
To carry out a correct theoretical foundation for a project or research, it is important to understand that a lot has already been said regarding any possible topic, so research does not mean starting from scratch in the study of a topic, but rather starting from the accumulated knowledge that we allows you to see beyond. Therefore, the more we document ourselves and the better we understand our ideas, the better we will be when explaining them to a third party.
To write the theoretical framework, it is advisable to take into account the following steps or stages:
Step 1: Document yourself
The first step towards theoretical foundation is reading. We must do a bibliographic archaeological search or search for sources regarding the topic in academic and specialized databases (also in other open sources, such as Google, but the risk of coming across a lot of low-quality information is high). Our task will be to gather the greatest amount of quality information and know what our most valuable background information is. We can, for example, search for previous research and go to their bibliography, to see what texts and theoretical authors they consulted, and thus add them to ours if appropriate. Take this Research Techniques information with you!
Step 2: Rank
Once we have a theoretical overview of the topic, we must establish certain necessary hierarchies regarding the quality and usefulness of the information. Everything serves to document, but not to the same extent: it is always better to go to the original sources and the fundamental texts of a discipline, to be able to understand what other researchers, in turn, contributed. So in this step we will select which texts will be central to our work and which only provide complementary information. At this stage it will be useful to create mental or conceptual maps to locate all the information and its respective authors.
Step 3: Extract
The third step is to take note of the most important passages from our central sources, either in a notebook or on index cards that allow us to organize the information. We must take reliable textual quotes, also looking at the page, title, author and other details of the text that we will need for the bibliography and to be able to cite them correctly when necessary. Once we have the information documented, we can begin to organize it according to a conceptual scheme, that is, determining which concept we should use first and which ones later, to undertake a theoretical path towards the starting point of our research.
Step 4: Recompose
Writing the theoretical framework will be the fourth step and will consist of explaining to the reader, in an organized, clear and concise manner, the theoretical path that we have outlined at the end of the previous step. In other words, we must guide him through previous studies of the topic and the main contributions of previous research, so that he understands which authors we consult and why, what concepts we will borrow from them and why, and ultimately which will be our theoretical starting point and why. In addition, if relevant, the legal aspects of the project must also appear in this section.
Step 5: Clarify
If necessary, a fifth step will help us develop a glossary of specialized terms, so that the reader can handle the theoretical language that interests us. The reader can return to the glossary if he or she has questions later, or can begin reading the project by understanding exactly what we mean by certain terms, especially if they are polysemic, complicated or even debatable terms.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that all the theoretical texts consulted must be available to the reader in the bibliography. All of them are part, even those that we decide not to use or those that we decide to oppose, of our research and our theoretical knowledge on the subject.
