Finding Ideas to Research

1
Chapter 2

• Finding Ideas to Research

2
Generating Topics

• Translate ideas into valid and reliable ways of
  measuring them
• Collect evidence
• Unique Topics
• Innovative but Difficult

3
Reliability and Validity

• The collecting of data (measurement) and doing
  research always raises the issues of reliability
  and validity. The issue of reliability is
  essentially the same for both measurement and
  research design. Reliability attempts to answer
  our concerns about the consistency of the
  information collected, while validity focuses on
  accuracy.

4
Reliability and Validity -- Relationship

• The relationship between reliability and validity
  can be confusing because measurements and
  research can be reliable without being valid, but
  they cannot be valid unless they are reliable.
• For a study to be valid it must consistently
  (reliability) do what it purports to do
  (validity).
•  
• For a measurement to be judged reliable it should
  produce a consistent score.
•  
• For the research study to be considered reliable
  each time it is replicated it too should produce
  similar results.

5
Definition Reliability

• Reliability is the consistency of your
  measurement, or the degree to which an instrument
  measures the same way each time it is used under
  the same condition with the same subjects.
• It is important to remember that reliability is
  not measured, it is estimated.

6
Ways to Estimate Reliability

• Test/retest is a conservative method to estimate
  reliability. The three main components to this
  method are as follows
• implement your measurement instrument at two
  separate times for each subject
• compute the correlation between the two separate
  measurements
• assume there is no change in the underlying
  condition (or trait you are trying to measure)
  between implementation

7
Estimating Reliability

• Internal consistency estimates reliability by
  grouping questions in a questionnaire that
  measure the same concept.
• One common way of computing correlation values
  among the questions on your instruments is by
  using Cronbach's Alpha.
• Cronbach's alpha splits all the questions on your
  instrument every possible way and computes
  correlation values for them all (SPSS will do
  this).
• Like a correlation coefficient, the closer the
  value is to one, the higher the reliability
  estimate of your instrument.

8
Definition Validity

• Cook and Campbell (1979) define validity as the
  "best available approximation to the truth or
  falsity of a given inference, proposition or
  conclusion."
• Basically, were we right?

9
Thought to Ponder

• It is my belief that validity is more important
  than reliability because if an instrument does
  not accurately measure what it is supposed to,
  there is no reason to use it even if it measures
  consistently.

10
Measurement Concepts

• Measurement is the process of assigning numbers
  to represent the amount of a variable (a
  characteristic, attribute, trait present in a
  person, object, situation under study).
  Measurement results that contain little error are
  said to be reliable.
• Sources of measurement error include
• the instrument (eg, improper calibration)
• the environment (eg, noise level)
• the researcher (eg, fatigue, mood)
• data processing (eg, data entry error)

11
How to find a topic?

• Curiosity and Experience
• Too big or Narrow
• Assignments, Theses, and Grants
• RFPs, RFAs, Work related assignments
• Other Research Findings
• Scholarly articles, secondary sources,
  replication, filling in the hole
• Serendipity (by accident)
• A finding that you were not expecting

12
What is a Research Grant?

• Research Grants and contracts are written
  agreements with external sponsors. They contain
  one or more of the following provisions
• A research protocol or other statement of work
• A designated principal investigator(s)
• A designated period of performance
• A budget
• Obligation to account for costs return unspent
  
• Disposition of intellectual property rights

13
Searching for Research

• Internet
• Academic versus Nonacademic
• Library Databases
• Ask New Questions
• Once have articles, use those references
• Popular newspapers/magazines

14
Literature Reviews

• Evaluate Previous Research
• Create a database (or collection)
• Attention to Methodology
• Sampling
• Questions/Hypotheses
• Variables
• Measurement
• Analyses
• Conclusions
• Limitations

15
Once you assess

• Do you want to replicate?
• Same measures or modifications
• Making changes limits the comparisons
• Are there themes? Or links?
• Organize the literature (Chapter 10)

16
Writing a Literature Review

• Your literature review should reflect the
  important thinking in the area that will impact
  your work, and should provide a context for the
  background and importance of the question.  You
  should identify existing knowledge and the gaps
  in the knowledge, and indicate methodologies that
  have been used in other similar research
  questions.  The literature review is often
  included as part of your research proposal.

17
Two levels of Review

• Conducting a literature review
• Your research investigation of the literature
• Writing a literature review
• The review you write for your own project

18
Literature Review Sources

• Looking for resources, start here
•  http//www.uky.edu/Libraries/educ.html
• http//web.pdx.edu/dbls/HowtoWriteLiteratureRevie
  w.htm

19
Theory and Reasoning

• Theory (Nardi, 2006) a set of statements
  logically linked to explain some phenomena in the
  world around us

20
Deductive Reasoning

• Deductive reasoning works from the more general
  to the more specific.
• It is informally called a "top-down" approach.
• We might begin with thinking up a theory about
  our topic of interest. We then narrow that down
  into more specific hypotheses. We narrow down
  even further when we collect observations to
  address the hypotheses. This leads us to be able
  to test the hypotheses with specific data a
  confirmation (or not) of our original theories.

21
Inductive Reasoning

• Inductive reasoning moves from specific
  observations to broader generalizations and
  theories.
• Sometimes called a "bottom up" approach
• In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific
  observations and measures, begin to detect
  patterns and regularities, formulate some
  tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and
  finally end up developing some general
  conclusions or theories.

22
Deductive Versus Inductive

• "Deductive reasoning" refers to the process of
  concluding that something must be true because it
  is a special case of a general principle that is
  known to be true.
• If you know the general principle that the sum of
  the angles in any triangle is always 180 degrees,
  and you have a particular triangle in mind, you
  can then conclude that the sum of the angles in
  your triangle is 180 degrees.
• "Inductive reasoning" is the process of reasoning
  that a general principle is true because the
  special cases you've seen are true.
• If all the people you've ever met from a
  particular town have been very strange, you might
  then say "all the residents of this town are
  strange".

23
Lets do some group work

• What is/are the best way(s) to find research
  ideas? Where did you find your survey idea?
• Explain inductive and deductive reasoning. Is
  either more prominent in survey research?
• How is a literature review helpful in conducting
  survey research?
• List ethical issues related to survey research.
  Discuss one issue related to your survey research
  idea.

24
The Ethics of Research

• These are designed by your governing institution,
  granting agencies, organizations, and yourself
• One such Ethics Standards are presented by AERA
• http//www.aera.net/aboutaera/?id222
• Another is specific to Survey Research
• http//www.casro.org/codeofstandards.cfm

25
IRB

• Institutions that conduct research set up IRB
  Institutional Review Board
• University of Kentucky
• Office of Research Integrity
• http//www.rgs.uky.edu/ori/