How to construct a categories system

Abstract

The research project: “Characteristics and significance of the academic practices in the undergraduate programs at the University of Antioquia” developed by the “Grupo Interdisciplinario de Investigación de prácticas académicas”, is a study with a qualitative perspective which pretends, not only to build with diverse participants understandings through the dialogue and intersubjetivity, but also to show the way to elaborate them.

This article presents the reflexive and collective process in the elaboration of the methodological memory of the research, characterized by the aperture, flexibity and emergence. The purpose is to share, with the participants of the research and the academic community, the differences between the research design and its implementation; the methodological, theoretical, ethical and instrumental dilemmas confronted and the ways to resolve them; the decisions taken and the arguments which support them. It tells how trough interdisciplinary and collective work the categorial system which oriented the research, was built, the moments of its elaboration with the theoretical and mythological transits of the research group.

This reflection is for the research group a pedagogical and human experience which implies the rebuilding of the experience, to evaluate it and learn from it. Its purpose is to give an answer about the question of how the understandings of the academic practices in the University of Antioquia were built.