KNR 295

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Introduction to research

• Part one Foundations

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Today...

• General goals of the course
• Objectives (what do I want to achieve?)
• Research and its place within undergraduate
  education
• Assessment methods (what sort of practice of
  required skills will I provide, and what sort of
  skills will be expected of you?)
• Understanding and mastering course content
• Blooms taxonomy
• Introductory lecture/discussion/questions
• Following Trochims chapter 1 - Foundations
• For next week
• Reading assignment Questions

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A couple of examples

• Card trick
• Guess my rule

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Foundations of research

• Trochims Yin/Yang map

Theory
Practice
5
Foundations of research

• Types of studies
• Three basic types
• Descriptive
• Relational
• Causal
• Time in research
• Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal designs
• Repeated measures vs. time series designs

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Foundations of research

• Types of relationships
• Their nature
• Correlation and Causality
• Mediation/Moderation
• Patterns of relationships
• None/positive/negative/curvilinear

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Foundations of research

• Variables
• Value or attribute a property of something (may
  or may not be numeric) examples
• Your age
• My age
• Your gender
• My gender
• Variable
• How about all our ages?
• We all have an age, but they are all different
• Age is something we vary by
• Age is a variable that describes a property of
  our group

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Foundations of research

• Variables
• Independent variable
• What you or nature manipulates in some way
• E.g. 1 What happens when you get older?
• Age is the independent variable (nature is the
  manipulator)
• E.g. 2 What happens when you drink?
• Blood alcohol level is the IV (you are the
  manipulator)
• Critiquing IVs Exhaustive? Mutually exclusive
  attributes? See also construct validity (later)

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Foundations of research

• Variables
• Dependent variable
• The thing that is influenced (changed) by your
  independent variable
• E.g. 1 (IV Age) Skin sag, baldness, frequency
  of urine expulsion, memory strength
• E.g. 2 (IV Alcohol consumption) Balance,
  inhibition, frequency of urine expulsion
• Critiquing DVs see operationalization,
  reliability, measurement validity (all later)

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Foundations of research

• Hypotheses
• A specific statement of prediction
• Inductive vs. deductive research
• Deductive has em, inductive often doesnt
• Types
• Alternative vs. null
• One-tailed vs. two-tailed
• Hypothetical-deductive model
• 2 mutually exclusive statements (null,
  alternative)
• Tests designed to specify which can be rejected
  and which cannot

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Foundations of research

• Types of data
• Qualitative vs. quantitative
• More a case of philosophical difference than
  numerical difference (in the better debates, at
  least)
• The unit of analysis
• Group vs. Individual vs. Artifact vs.
  Geographical unit vs. Social interaction
• Hierarchical modeling

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Foundations of research

• Fallacies
• A variety of errors of either logic or premise
  strength that can result in weak arguments being
  formed.
• Beyond the remit of this course, but very
  important nonetheless for good research papers

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Foundations of research

• Philosophy of research
• Structure of research

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Foundations of research

• Structure of research
• Components of a study
• Research Problem
• Research Question
• The treatment (or program/event the purported
  cause)
• The sample (the unit)
• The outcome (purported effect of treatment)
• The design

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Foundations of research

• Deduction vs. induction

Deduction
Induction
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Foundations of research

• Positivism vs. post-positivism
• Positivism
• Science can only address that which is directly
  observable
• Observation and measurement is the only means to
  the truth
• Post-positivism critical realism
• Simply put
• all measurements are potentially faulty
• Truth, though it exists, is unlikely to ever be
  known with certainty
• The point of science is to maintain the search
  for the truth despite knowing that one may never
  reach it
• Hence seek reality, while being critical of ones
  current estimation of it

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Foundations of research

• Post-positivism critical realism
• Because we are critical of our grasp on reality,
  we
• Take multiple measures
• Critique the measures we have
• Engage in hearty arguments about our perspectives
  and their influence on our thought processes
  (that we might not be aware of)
• It is only through such critique that objectivity
  can be approximated an individual cannot be
  objective, but if a viewpoint is generalizable
  across many perspectives and cultures it may
  possess some objectivity

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Foundations of research

• Post-positivism critical realism
• The natural selection theory of knowledge
• That which survives can claim a degree of
  objectivity or approximation to the truth
• Here lies the value of research that we do, and
  the criticism to which we subject it
• Its pretty much the only way that our (eventual)
  understanding can claim a degree of objectivity
• (according to critical realism, that isnow, if
  youre a relativist)

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Foundations of research

• Validity
• the best available approximation to the truth of
  a given proposition, inference, or conclusion
• (allows for criticism this is where we come
  in)
• What you wish to say within a study ( therefore
  the kinds of validity you are going to claim)
  depends on the type of study you are conducting
  (see slide 5)

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Foundations of research

• Validity
• Operationalization

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Foundations of research

• Validity

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Foundations of research

• Validity
• For each validity type there are typical threats,
  and ways to reduce them (we deal with these in
  later weeks)
• This gives us a framework within which to
  critique the overall validity of our (or any
  other) study

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Foundations of research

• Ethics
• Protect participants vs. Deprive others of
  knowledge
• A tricky balance
• One problem is that we are notoriously
  untrustworthy as a species (see Milgram,
  Tuskagee, Stanford prison experiments on web),
  suggesting the need for strong ethical procedures
• Another is that strong ethical procedures can
  deprive individuals of free will

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Foundations of research

• Ethics
• Institutional Review Boards
• Informed Consent
• these are the ways we currently constrain our
  practices to keep them ethical

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Foundations of research

• Conceptualizing research
• How do you get started/develop and idea/formulate
  a research plan/conceptualize and area of
  research?
• All this is really for those who wish to conduct
  research
• For now, Id rather focus on a framework for
  understanding and critiquing the research that
  already exists well get to the doing stage if
  time allows (for now, assume that the tried and
  tested method of asking a faculty member for a
  question is the best method)