Methods/Ethics/Theories Readings

Powell-Chapter 3

Action Research: A type of applied research that typically involves an external researcher who focuses on defining a problem and resolving it with workable solutions.

Evaluative Research: A type of applied research that is concerned with testing an application of knowledge for a program or project in particular. This is typically a practical form of research.

Powell-Chapter 4

Cohort Study: Survey’s that are used to collect data from a population over and over again. However, while the population is the same, the people surveyed from the population are not.

Sociometric Study: A survey that works with more than one group and reveals and studies the relationships between the groups.

Wildemuth-Chapter 6

Theory: Theory has many definitions. It could mean something as simple as a “casual hunch” about something.  Generally, a theory encompasses things like working hypothesis, speculations, and axiomatic systems of thought.  It can also make predictions about the outcome of observations.

Middle-Range Theories: Middle-Range Theories are at the center of the theory continuum, between special theories that are only applicable to a small range of phenomena and general theories which are applicable to a large range of phenomena.

Literature Review Readings

University of Toronto:

Information Seeking: Effective scanning of literature for sources that might be useful.

Critical Appraisal: The act of appraising the review with principles of analysis to identify well done and unbiased research from biased research.

University of North Carolina:

Before Writing a Literature Review:

Clarify your Assignment
Find Models
Narrow Your Topic
Make sure your Sources are Current

Basic Categories of a Literature Review:

Introduction
Body
Conclusions/Recommendations

Widener University:

Outlining: Provides a linear structure to your research that can be followed logically and sequentially.

Ways of Organizing a Literature Review:

Thematic Organization
Arguments in the Field
Conceptual Analysis
Critical Review of Methodology

Developing the Study

Wildemuth:

Research Question: A research question is a guiding factor in what you research and how you research it.  It is a clear statement that you can build your study around.  Having a clear research question can also help when having to request and justify funding.

Hypothesis: This is typically a statement that the researcher assumes to be true, or in other words, a question that we think we already know the answer to. Often a hypothesis is assuming the relationship between two variables.

Williamson:

Problem Statement: The problem statement states the major questions in full grammatical sentences that the researcher is trying to answer through either quantitative or qualitative research.

Sub-questions: The act of creating sub-questions when researching helps to break down research into smaller pieces, often making it more manageable for the researcher.  All sub-questions should be a part of and relate directly back to the larger research question.

Patten:

Case Study 14:

Strict Replication (of a study): A strict replication of a study is where a researcher decided to conduct a study that has already been done in the exact manner it was done before (in regards to the major and important parts of the study).  When doing this, the researcher is attempting to see whether or not the same results will be achieved.

Modified Replication (of a study): A modified replication of a study is where a researcher modifies certain aspects of a study that has already been conducted to see what differences in results will be found.

Case Study 15:

Sociofile: A digital source that has copies of the print versions of Sociological Abstracts  as well as Social Planning/Policy and Development Abstracts.

Record: In regards to a journal article, the record contains  fields with information about the article.

Case Study 16:

Topic-by-topic description (or relevant research): The topic-by-topic description of relevant research contains the subheadings  necessary to help a reader delve into a long literature review.

Steps to a Literature Review:

·      Name the broad problem

·      Discuss why the problem is important

·      Write the topic-by-topic description of the relevant research

·      Discuss the results of the relevant research

·      Summarize the literature review

Pyrczak:

Abstracts: An abstract to a study should describe the purpose, highlight the research methodology, mention the important parts of the results, discuss any theories involved and avoid any references to future research.

Literature Reviews: A research review should identify the problem and why it’s important, discuss any theories involved, have subsections when necessary, define key terms when necessary, have citations for “factual” statements, and have the hypotheses or research questions logically in the introductory material.

Article Review #1

Samantha Finefield
September 20, 2011
Article Review #1

Article:

Sei-Ching Joanna Sin (2011), Neighborhood disparities in access to information resources: Measuring and mapping U.S. public libraries’ funding and service landscapes, Library & Information Science Research, 33:1, 41-53.

Introduction:

This article serves to address the inequities present in public library funding between affluent neighborhoods and lower income urban neighborhoods. The author, Sei Ching Joanna Sin, recognizes the public library as a tool to “bridge such inequities”. This study is one of the only ones that recognizes neighborhood-level variations and examines statistics from all of the 9000 library systems in the country. The conclusions found were that there were huge disparities in funding between library systems, and that in most cases, the library systems in low-income areas were not properly funded and had less to offer their patrons. This is particularly unfortunate due to the fact that the impoverished are a segment of our population that can most benefit from library services.  I chose to review this article because I want to research the status of American library services towards the impoverished and perhaps the homeless. This subject is important to me because the library that I work for is in an urban environment and has a large amount of traffic from the extremely impoverished and transient patron.

Problem Statement:

Public libraries that are not properly funded suffer from a lack of information resources, which in turn makes these libraries incapable of “narrowing the information gap”. The problem that this study aims to analyze is two fold: firstly, the extent to which funding varies across public library systems in the United States must be ascertained. Secondly, where the significant disparities are present this study aims to discover how much these disparities are related to the income level of the area that the library is in.

Literature Review:

The earlier studies that the author used were more focused on physical access to materials that library patrons had. More recent studies also chose to focus on factors such as access quality and have made these important factors. The author also examined context, and environmental factors, but the most important areas of research focused on unequal access to information resources and unequal access to public library services.

Method:

This study was largely quantitative. It relied on statistics gathered from the Public Libraries Survey (PLS), National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Census data was also ascertained for this study.

Caveats:

Some of the caveats and limitations that the author mentions is that while the household income was based on values from the surveys ascertained, the data was not altered to reflect and cost of living disparities between areas of the country. Purchasing power was also not taken into consideration.

As this study is mostly quantitative, it doesn’t take the qualitative approach of examining how patrons view their library’s effectiveness and services, and this area could be studied further.

The data studied was also from 2004 mostly, so significant changes could have happened and this study could be repeated with more recent data.

Introductory Readings

Williamson:

Positivist:  The positivist tradition of research is defined as when researchers use methods that would typically be applied to natural science research to areas in the social sciences.

Interpretivist:  The interpretivist research tradition is where researchers pay closer attention and give more emphasis to the meanings that people make as they interpret the world around them.

Connaway and Powell:

Deductive or systematic logic: Deductive logic involves the use of a syllogism, which begins with a basic idea. Once the researcher has their basic idea, they then apply that to a case.

Inductive reasoning: Inductive reasoning is sort of the opposite of deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning starts with something that is fact and works towards something that is a theory.

Eldredge:

Analysis: An analysis is when the researcher examines something in detail in an attempt to grasp the ideas and nature of what is being examined.

Case Study: The case study is a very popular way to research. A case study depends on the researcher experiencing something. It could be a variety of things, a process, a technology, a project, etc.  Typically a case study examines something in real life.

Patten:

Topic 1:

Empirical Approach to Knowledge: Based on observations. The empirical approach is used in day-to-day life. While useful, these observations can be misleading.

Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a question that the researcher thinks they already know the answer to.

Topic 2:

Experiments: An experiment is where a researcher uses treatments to see if behavioral changes result.

Nonexperimental studies: Nonexperimental studies rely more on the observations of the researcher on those who are being researched. Typically these describe the studied how they are naturally without any treatments.

Topic 3:

Cause-and-effect: When observing cause and effect, a researcher typically wants to conduct an experimental research by giving a treatment and seeing it’s effect. Sometimes this isn’t possible because of ethical or legal considerations.

Causal-comparative study:  In these studies we typically look at a problem or condition and try to identify what might have caused it. In example, if obesity is the condition we would want to identify the cause of this, which in most cases would be overeating, but could be thyroid issues or other health problems as well.

Topic 4:

Census: A census is when you observe and perhaps count all members of one population. This can be animal or human.

Longitudinal research: Longitudinal research is when a trait is repeatedly observed and measured to observe any trends that may develop.

Topic 5:

Variable: A variable is something like a characteristic that must apply to at least two categories.

Mutually exclusive categories: When a subject can only belong to one category.

Topic 6:

Independent variable: In experimental studies, an independent variable is physically manipulated by researchers. This means that the researcher is physically doing something to a subject. In a nonexperimental study independent variables are observed as they occur.

Dependent variables: Dependent variables are variables that are changed by independent variables. The changes are dependent on the independent variables.

Topic 7:

Research hypothesis: Often called an educated guess, this is a theory that a researcher makes on the outcome of what their research question is.

Directional hypothesis: A directional hypothesis is where we try to guess which group we are studying will have more of something.

Nondirectional hypothesis:  A non directional hypothesis is where on states a research purpose.

Topic 8:

Conceptual definitions: Conceptual definitions are what we typically get from dictionary definitions- a concept of something, not necessarily a practical demonstration of something.

Operational definition: An operation definition is what happens when we add physical  action to a conceptual definition.

Topic 9:

Deductive approach: This is the approach that a quantitative researcher would use. Typically it involves researching literature  to plan the approach or hypotheses to be used in the research.

Inductive approach: This is the approach that a qualitative researcher would use. This researcher would begin to gather data on their subject right away and then use early research to plan other research.

Topic 10:

When should quantitative research be used:

·      Anytime you want to measure by numbers

·      When subjects are not available for observation

·      When money is low

·      When “hard numbers” are required by the audience

When should qualitative research be used:

·      When little is known about a topic

·      When closed or secretive cultures are examined

·      When emotions and subjective variables are involved predominantly.

Pyrczak Appendix A:

Steps to conducting Quantitative Research:

·      Begin with an explicit hypothesis

·      Choose a random sample to study

·      Make sure the participant sample is fairly large

·      Use instruments that are scored objectively

·      Describe results statistically

·      Try to have limited contact with subjects

.

Steps to conducting Qualitative Research:

·      Begin with a  more general research question

·      Do not select a random sample-select a purposive sample.

·      Use a small sample

·      Use unstructured instruments for observation

·      Spend a lot of time with sample

·      Present results in word form-not statistically

Standards for Reporting Humanities-Oriented Research

Humanities Oriented Research: An all encompassing term that involves many genres of the humanities for which social science research standards would not be appropriate.

Reflexive Education Research: This is research that takes education as the object of research

Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research

Problem Formulation: The problem formulation is designed to give a clear purpose to a study by describing the problem or question the study addresses.

Review of the relevant scholarship: This is a general overview of the scholarly works that relate to the topic being researched and should also include the criteria used to identify the scholarship.

Chapter 1 Terms

Wildemuth, Chapter 1 Terms

Evidence-Based Practice: This term is defined exactly as it sounds it should be.  It is where research is applied in practical ways to determine the effectiveness of research.

Connaway and Powell Chapter 1 Terms

Quantitative Research: Quantitative research is typically more mathematical in nature and involves many more measurements than qualitative research would. It is a more rigid method of research.

Qualitative Research: Qualitative Research is often done from the vantage point of those that are involved in the research. The researcher then tries to interpret the behaviors of those being studied. There is far less math in this type of research, although often qualitative and quantitative research must be done in conjunction with one another.

Williamson Chapter 1 Terms

Basic Research: Basic Research is very theoretical and revolves mostly around new knowledge and information and is directly connected to how new information is applied to specific situations and problems. It is a general type of research.

Applied Research: Applied Research has more to do with day-to-day “real” problems than the more theoretical basic research. Applied research is used mostly in information settings.