Why Is Abstract Thinking Rarely Taught? (Researcher’s Superpower – Part 2)

If abstract thinking is such an important skill - arguably the most important skill in research - it raises an obvious question: why is it almost never explicitly taught?

In this second instalment of the Researcher's Superpower series, I explore a paradox at the heart of research training. While abstract thinking underpins everything from theorisation to making a contribution to knowledge, most programmes rely on indirect ways of developing it. In practice, researchers learn through the apprenticeship model: learning by doing, through writing, feedback, and discussions with supervisors. There are reasons for this approach to develop abstract thinking skills, but in the end opportunities to strengthen abstract thinking are often limited, indirect and inconsistent across students, depending heavily on the quality of supervision and feedback.

This video invites you to reflect on your own experience: how much of your development as a researcher has been intentional? How much has been left to chance? Watch the video to explore why this gap exists, and why making abstract thinking more explicit could transform the way we train researchers.

Videos will be available in this playlist as they are released. To go to this week's video, press skip forward once the first video starts.

Subscribers of the Virtual Tutor resource access all videos as they are finalised, and they can now access the first four videos in the series. Besides these videos which address abstract thinking head on, the Virtual Tutor resource features many tips and tools aimed at helping you develop your abstract thinking skills across key stages of the research process: from literature review and writing the introduction, to data analysis and building conceptual frameworks.

If you want more personalised support, I also work with students and researchers to help them move beyond simply describing data toward conceptualising and synthesising. Whether you are refining your research focus, building your conceptual framework, desigining your data collection instrument or strengthening the theoretical contribution of your work, the focus of my support is always the same: helping you step back from the details to identify the patterns, relationships, and principles that define strong research. You can find more details about my personalised support here.