I think one is really doing good research, when they are following the data and thinking and creativity and not just repeating what they already believe. This recently happened to me with a research article just published where I wrote:
"What This Critical Inquiry Has Taught Me
This essay is not a report of my previous work. It is an inquiry into it and beyond it. New emergent ideas and connections came from thinking and writing in a rather spontaneous way at times. I practiced fearlessness by letting go, and releasement at times of the habitual ways of talking about my work in articles. It was very satisfying to learn new things.
At the same time, I also was aware that I may be writing to an audience that finds this all too complicated or "too soft" to be valid. I agree, in part, much of this is speculative, and I look forward to the day when I, and/or others, can write about some of the ideas here with more empirical rigor and applications. That said, I feel it is a strong piece, and some of the best writing I've done. We'll see what you think, and that's an invitation to further dialogue.
As for new findings from this writing inquiry, the most outstanding was how I realized my notion of "transformation" and "transformative learning" has to change now. The critical fearlessness pedagogy unfolding in the essay was ahead of me. I was trying to catch up to it. I don't think I ever fully did, but it left its traces. My position now is to not use "transformative learning" or "transformational education" as labels. I believe they are dubious and presumptuous. That's new. I used to cherish them and locate my work within them." [see Fisher, R. M. (2011). A critique of critical thinking: Towards a critical pedagogy of fearlessness. NUML: Journal of Critical Inquiry, 9(2), 92-164]
So, I'm suggesting, all faculty and students at CSIIE use "transformation" and "transformative learning" with extra attention to reality, to theory, to real development and to stability of developmental change (i.e., stages or levels of consciousness, for e.g.). That we do not water-down and use those terms so easily and apply it like a condiment on everything. Of course, this is open for discussion and dialogue, even debate. I'm not making a "rule." Point is, I am really correcting myself in this particular forum, as you'll see that in two or more forums prior to this one I use "transformation" or "transformative" too easily, and comfortably, for my own liking and in accordance with what my own research has informed me.