Friday, September 30, 2011

Key Concepts Blog: Methods/Ethics/ Theory Readings

Connaway and Powell (2007)
Chapter 3 Selecting the Research Method

Action Research – is a type of applied research.  It has direct application to immediate workplace.  It is usually done by external researcher who works with organizational members to solve a problem.  Applied research may have broader purpose to contribute to the profession.  But action research is for direct application.

Historical Research – is reconstructing the past systematically and objectively by collecting, evaluating, verifying and synthesizing evidence.  It is usually done in relation to hypothesis concerning causes, effects and trends of past events.

Connaway and Powell (2007) 
Chapter 4 Survey Research and Sampling

Survey research is studying a small number selected from a large group and make inferences about the large group.  It is used to gather contemporary data (unlike historical), to study large number of cases and for exploratory analysis of relationships.  It does not manipulate the independent variable like experimental research.

Purposes of descriptive survey:
-        Describes the characteristics of the population.
-        Estimates proportions in the population.
-        Make specific predictions.
-        Test associational relationships.
Descriptive survey cannot test casual relationship.  However it can show correlation between variables.

Wildemuth (2009) 
Chapter 6 Questions Related to Theory

Theory according to Mintzberg (2005)
-        It is not true.  Instead, it is simplification of complicated realities.
-        Theory development is neither objective nor deductive.
-        Developing theory is inductive, but testing theory is deductive.

Theory according to Kuhn (1996)
-        Theories are essentially, if not actually, true.
-        They describe a phenomenon well.
-        A theory works only until a “critical mass of anomalies and exceptions to it are found” – then it has to be replaced.

Sources

Connaway, L. S. & Powell, R.R. (2007). Chapter 3 & 4. In Basic Research Methods or Librarians (5th ed.). California.
Wildemuth, B. M. (2009). Chapter 6. In Applications of Social Research Methods to Questions in Information and Library Science. Connecticut.

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