Monday, November 29, 2010
Ethics and the anthros
Our class on ethics reminded me of this song. I don't think I can speak (or sing) on the topic as eloquently as Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman so I'll leave it to him.
Good luck on your proposal
PS I will follow-up with a post that is actually based on the weekly readings ASAP :)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Ethics
involve more participant in the adult programs by reaching out to the community to meet their needs.
Although my research is not design for individuals to pursue their personal concern or interest, but human is the main subject.
Human in my research is a key person who is the main informant of an organization, therefore related organizational objectives and guidelines should be considered and the ethics policies and regulations must be followed.
In Knight, listed pragmatic responses is a good reminding point to prevent accident.
Nahid
Last Hurdle
BTW the very helpful and lightening website that gave me the answer to my puzzle is
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/
(found it by way of a Cornell university research course).
D/K if it was one of the links given in another post last week? If so, thanks! If not and anyone else finds it useful please let me know.
good luck to all,
larissa
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Ethics Dilemma
Thursday, November 25, 2010
tunnel vision
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Elements
Programmes for adult with different abilities
Educational programmes
Training programmes
Technology programmes
Programmes for older adult
Need to say that reading Knight’s chapter eight, made a clear sense of data gathering, although I am still not sure how to develop qualitative data analysis in the case of adult programme in the public library.
Nahid
Death by analysis
On to this week's chapters on the analysing of quantitative data. An aspect of the research process that I have always approached with dread and avoided as far as possible. Surprisingly, Laker's exposition of the various options gave me some hope that this might not always be so. I began to dimly feel the beauty of information hidden behind the cryptic face of unreadable numbers; and the potential excitements of gradually seeing that information take shape, like a photograph developing, as the data yield coherence and pictures.
Qualitative information, I see now, can't have that kind of mystery, because something is always readable on the surface, albeit partial or misleading.
But maybe the mystery would pall as I come to understand the techniques well enough to be able, possibly, to anticipate patterns in the choices?
Maybe. But that moment is a long way in the future for now. The thought of quantitative data analysis is still a form of instant soma. Not the pleasant kind. If indeed that existed.
I want also to thank all of you who write so extensively about the readings, your thoughts and reflections on their content, applications and particular uses for you. Much of interest, and really appreciated!
Knight, colours on a palette, and questerviews
I don't know, I can rant a bit more about Knight but I'll maybe just end by saying that I think Knight is quite balanced and a good source to have handy when writing a research proposal, which is what i think we are all in the process of doing. I will definitely be citing Knight's wisdom in my proposal. And by the way, best of luck to everyone on this assignment, it certainly feels a bit daunting to me.
Aggravation...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Questerviews????
I came across this really novel method called a questerview. Its not even in the dictionary!!! Basically what it is is the combination of questionnaires (e.g. the kind used in quantitative studies) and interviews (e.g. the kind used in qualitative research). How it works is that respondents are tape-recorded as they complete a questionnaire and are asked questions relating to their understanding of the terms in the questionnaire. The data collected from questerviews would be so informative and rich compared to questionnaires alone.
So what a neat idea for strengthening a study against validity threats and using qualitative and quantitative methods in tandem. This idea is just brilliant if you ask me.
Check out this site for more details:
http://jhsrp.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/139
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Monday, November 15, 2010
SOS
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Finding boundaries
When I think about my research, it is somehow ethnography/culturally related. One aspect of developing and planning adult programmes in the library is to know the cultures of the community and their expectations.
Finding demographic data is very helpful in general but to get it in a more pertinent domain we have to come up with creative ideas and topics. Then, we must put them into work using different methodology (surveying or interviewing) and collecting data from individual members, community outreach and various organizations.
Nahid
The Possibilities..
I found the article The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics by Eric T Lofgren and Nina H Fefferman to be extremely interesting. I have never been one for gaming. I get too frustrated and have never been interested enough to learn. However, I have always enjoyed watching others game because they were actually good. I spent my childhood watching my brother play, which suited him fine because he never had to share the controller. This was all before online gaming, which opens up a new world, both for the players and for researchers. Not only can researchers observe how the game is played but also can now observe how players all around the world interact.
The case study of the World of Warcraft and the Corrupted Blood epidemic is now offering researchers a new arena to study human responses to epidemics without having to actually be infected. I can remember vividly the news reports from the SARS epidemic and the H1N1 epidemic last year. The images of people wearing masks, attempting to escape 'hot zones' of contamination were very real. And to think, these real life reactions to epidemics could be replicated in an online world is amazing. The fact that this was also unplanned, led to the very real reactions of the gamers. As the authors state, for many of the gamers this virtual world is a very real part of their own worlds. (p. 627) I think that there are endless opportunities for researchers to use online worlds to replicate real world scenarios and issues such as epidemics. Since the article was published in 2007, I wonder if any researchers have begun to devise plans to complete research in online worlds.
Validity and Originality
Is it possible for a completely original qualitative method or measure to be valid? I have been toying with this question because I have been rethinking validity in general, having bungled the matter somewhat in my peer review, and because I have been wondering about the legitimation of methods and measures.
The more I think about validity, the more I think that conventional validation is really a matter of social process. Measures are valid when other people—subjects, peers, reviewers—agree that they are valid. Construct validity is an obvious example. Knight maintains that you have construct validity when you operationalize a measure in a such a way that it is acceptable to other people (p. 136). You are investigating what you set out to investigate because other people agree with your description of the concept. Face validity seems to be similar. Presumably, face validity increases with the number of people who agree that your measures are valid. Content validity, too, depends on some kind of agreement about the capacity of your questions to get at the domain or dimensions of the concept. In each case validation seems to be a matter of fitting your research into a social consensus about the relationship between a measure and a concept. Here's how one researcher put the matter:
[Mishler] starts from the process of validating (instead of from the state of validity) and defines "validation as the social construction of knowledge", by which we "evaluate the 'trustworthiness' of reported observations, interpretations, and generalizations". Finally, "reformulating validation as the social discourse through which trustworthiness is established elides such familiar shibboleths as reliability, falsifiability, and objectivity" (qtd. in Flick, An introduction to qualitative research, pp. 226-227).
So what happens when you use a method or measure in an unconventional way or, more to the point, if you invent a method or measure from scratch? Clearly, you no longer enjoy as much social approval as a more conventional researcher. Does that mean that your findings will be invalid? No. It does mean that your research may have to be the catalyst for a new or revised social consensus. The tricky part is that your findings may be the only things that justify the validity of your research. In other words, you may have to do all of the research in order to prove that your approach was valid. However, you're not alone. I suspect that a lot of qualitative researcher use their findings to justify their design. Hine implied as much at the conclusion of her article in Internet inquiry. She wrote that "the key recourse has to be the dialogues in which the study is able to engage: If we can do studies [. . .] that say something interesting and that advance debate [. . .], then our studies will have some claim to adequacy" (p. 18-19). I can imagine David Gauntlett saying something similar about Serious Play. Knight calls this a "post-structuralist" view of validity (p. 135). But I think that we distort the discussion of research methods when we posit this kind of validation as an exception to the norm. Instead, it is better to think of it as producing the norm. To my mind, the various discourses of validity reflect something like the Kuhnian model of scientific progress, a dialectic between paradigm and disruption.
Karl
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
virtual communities
Monday, November 8, 2010
What is the secret of creativity?
AHA Moment!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Case Study
In my particular research, case study could be used to find out about varies adult programmes that is offered to the libraries with similar size population.
Nahid
Falling over the line
Earlier today heard a CBC program on gaming -- reminded me of the discussion we started in class a few weeks ago, about the effect of video games on children. What about adults? These game masters and developers are suggesting that"gamification" is the next cultural definer (?) after Facebook. The concepts under discussion went from the role of cognitive psychology and ethics in gaming --motivation v. manipulation -- to whether game design is an art form. Also apparently the industry/field needs more diversity. I'd be interested to learn more about this, especially after reading Boellstorff''s paper.
I have not read the articles for this week. But I'm looking forward to class anyway, if only to drop off the review! which became a torture to finalize. Hope you all had an easier time with yours.