Tools of Research

1
Tools of Research

• Week 2 Lecture 1

2
Agenda

• The library and its resources
• Internet
• Techniques of measurement
• Statistics
• The human mind

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The Library and Its Resources

• Electronic Journals
• Week 3, lecture 1 will have detailed introduction
  on how to use the USYD library system

4
Internet

• Finding literature
• Collecting data
• Download secondary data
• Web crawler
• Collect primary data
• Online experiment
• Online survey

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Measurement -- Definition

• Definition
• Measurement is limiting the data of any
  phenomenon substantial or insubstantial so
  those data may be interpreted and, ultimately,
  compared to an acceptable qualitative or
  quantitative standard.
• Substantial measurement
• Execution time, throughput, and so on..
• Insubstantial measurement
• User-friendliness, Attitudes, feelings, opinions

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Measuring insubstantial phenomena

• The scenario
• A group of 9 people, who work together in a
  personnel department of a large corporation, are
  going to attend a recognition dinner at an
  exclusive hotel. After arriving, they greet each
  other and have a brief conversation before
  dinner. They form some conversation groups as
  show in next slides

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Interpersonal relationships

• How to measure the interpersonal dynamics of the
  group?
• Who greet whom with enthusiasm or with
  indifference?
• Who joins in conversation with whom?
• Who seems to be a relative outsider?
• To merely observe the behavior of individuals in
  a particular situation is not to measure it.

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A possible approach

• Ask each person in the group to record three
  choices
• The individual in the group whom the person
  likes most
• The individual in the group whom the person like
  least
• The individual for whom the person has no strong
  feeling one way or another.

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Sociogram

• Weight the data into numerical categories
• 1 for a positive choice
• 0 for indifference
• -1 for a negative choice

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Sociometric matrix
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What we can discover?

• Jeff is the in formal or popular leader
• Probably some schism and tension are present in
  this group
• Friendship pairs may lend cohesion to the group
• Tim apparently is the isolate of the group

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Four scales of measurement

• Nominal scale of measurement
• Measure data to some degree by assigning names
  (numbers) to them.
• Elemental and unrefined,
• typical use classification
• Male-female
• Social classes
• Only a few statistics are appropriate for
  analyzing nominal data

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Four scales of measurement

• Ordinal scales of measurement
• Data can be rank-ordered
• Level of education elementary, high school,
  college and graduate education.
• Distance between attributes do not have any
  meaning
• Typical use rankings
• Preference data
• Attitude measures

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Four scales of measurement

• Interval scale of measurement
• Features
• It has equal units of measurement
• Its zero point has been established arbitrarily
• Typical use
• Temperature scales Fahrenheit and Celsius
• Rating scales employed by many businesses, survey
  groups and professional organizations are often
  assumed to be on interval scales

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Four scales of measurement

• Ratio scale of measurement
• Difference between interval and ratio scales
• Temperature We cant say 30C is twice as warm as
  15C.
• Execution time 30 seconds is twice as fast as 15
  seconds
• Features
• It has equal units of measurement
• It has an absolute zero point
• It is possible to multiply and divide scale
  numbers meaningfully and thereby form ratios

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Measurement Scales summary

• If you can say that
• One object is different from another, you have a
  nominal scale
• One object is bigger or better or more of
  anything than another, you have an ordinal scale
• One object is so many units(degrees, inches) more
  than another, you have an Interval scale
• One object is so many times as big or bright or
  tall or heavy as another, you have a ratio scale.

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Mini workshop

• Indicate the levels of measurements of the
  following variables

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Validity and reliability of measurement

• Validity
• The extent to which the instrument measures what
  it is supposed to measure
• Well-established measurement
• Other measurement, measurement of insubstantial
  phenomena
• To what extent does a standardized IQ test
  actually measure a persons intelligence?
• Problem of Professors availability measurement

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Validity and Reliability of measurement

• Reliability
• The stability and consistency of a measure
• Validity vs. Reliability

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Statistics as a tool of research

• Primary functions of statistics
• Descriptive
• Summarize the general nature of the data obtained
• Whats the average
• How disperse the data are
• How closely two or more characteristics are
  Interrelated
• more
• Inferential
• Help the researcher make decisions about the data
• Statistics software
• Excel
• SPSS, SAS

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The human mind as a tool of research

• Methods of knowing
• Method of tenacity
• Method of authority
• Method of intuition (a priori method)
• Method of Science
• Self-correction

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The human mind as a tool of research

• Deductive Logic
• Starts from one or more premises, draw conclusion
  through logic reasoning
• Premise All tulips are plants
• Premise All plants produce energy through
  photosynthesis
• Conclusion All tulips must produce energy
  through photosynthesis
• Premise can be false
• Premise All metals expand when heated
• Premise Tulips are metals
• Conclusion Tulips will expend when heated
• Deductive logic is extremely valuable for
  generating research hypotheses and testing them

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The human mind as a tool of research

• Inductive Reasoning
• Begins with empirical observations and draw
  general conclusions from them
• Observations Psychiatrists have found that
  psychological problems in patients depend upon
  their experiences in childhood
• Conclusion All psychological problems are based
  on experiences in childhood.
• We can never be 100 percent sure about the
  inductive conclusions

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Induction and Deduction
Laws and theories
deduction
induction
Facts acquired through observation
Explanations and Predictions
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Scientific Method

• Control
• Enable researcher to identify the causes of his
  or her observation
• Operational definition
• Terms must be defined by the steps or operations
  used to measure them
• Anxiety causes students to score poorly in test
• What is meant by anxiety?
• Replication
• The same result must be found if the study is
  repeated
• Hypothesis testing
• being ill is a punishment for being sinful
• Boys are better than girls at mathematics

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Critical thinking

• Verbal reasoning
• Argument analysis
• Decision making
• Critical analysis of prior research

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Facility with language

• Communicating effectively through writing
• Say what you mean to say
• Keep your primary objective in writing your paper
  in mind at all times, and focus your discussion
  accordingly
• Provide an overview of what you will be talking
  about
• Organize your ideas into general and more
  specific categories and use headings and
  subheadings to guide your readers through your
  discussion of these categories
• Provide transitional phrases

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Facility with language

• Use concrete examples to make abstract ideas more
  understandable
• Use appropriate punctuation
• Use figures and tables when such mechanisms can
  more effectively present or organize your ideas
  and findings
• At the conclusion of a chapter or major section,
  summarize what youve said
• Anticipate that you will almost certainly have to
  write multiple drafts.

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Summary

• The library and its resources
• Internet
• Techniques of measurement
• How to measure intangible concept
• Different scales of measurements
• Validity and reliability
• Statistics
• Descriptive and inferential
• Several statistics packages
• The human mind