Key Concepts: Data Analysis Techniques

Powell

• The basic purpose of statistical analysis is to summarize observations/data in such a manner that they provide answers to a hypothesis or research question.
• Descriptive statistics deal with the tabulation of data: their presentation is in tabular, graphical, or pictorial form.  This kind of statistical analysis can characterize what is typical in a group, indicate how widely cases in the group vary, show relationships between variables and groups, and summarize data.
• Inferential statistics are used for making inductive generalizations about populations based on sample data and for testing hypotheses.  This kind of statistical analysis can estimate population parameters and test the significance of relationships between and among variables.

Wildemuth

• Content analysis is the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics.  This form of data analysis is only interested in content characteristics related to the hypothesis or research question.  A set of codes is to capture those characteristics is developed and finalized before analysis begins.  Content analysis is deductive and can deal with large, randomly selected samples.
• Chi-square statistic measures the difference between what was observed and what would be expected in the general population.  The chi-square statistic can be used to test the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between the two variables.

Key Concepts: Data Collection Techniques

Powell

• Focus group - a group interview designed to explore in depth the feelings and beliefs people hold and to learn how these beliefs shape overt behavior.  Generally, the discussions start broadly and gradually narrow down to the focus of the research.
• Usability testing - form of human ethnographic observation combined with ergonomics and cognitive psychology.

 Wildemuth

• Think-aloud protocols - research method used to understand the subjects' cognitive processes based on their verbal reports of their thoughts during experiments. Its purpose is to obtain information about what happens in the human mind when it processes information to solve problems or make decisions in diverse contexts.
• Participant observation - research method in which (1) the researcher is a participant in the setting; (2) such participation leads to a better understanding of the people and social processes that occur within that setting; and (3) this understanding can lead to better theories about social processes in that setting and similar settings.  The challenge to the researcher is balancing the roles of participant and observer.
• Research diaries - research method that that comprises a varied set of data collection instruments and techniques that range from descriptive event logs to narrative personal accounts. Research can conceptually resemble other data collection methods such as the questionnaire, the interview, or observation.

Article Review #2

Ashley Smith

October 7, 2011

Article #2

Bell, S., & Sarr, N. (2010). Case study: Re-engineering an institutional repository to engage users. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(S1), 77-89. doi:10.1080/13614533.2010.509517

Introduction

Institutional repositories (IRs) provide a digital medium in which faculty and graduate students can preserve and disseminate their scholarly work with relative ease.  In 2003, the Libraries at the University of Rochester launched UR Research, an IR initiative that was mostly ignored by the academic community.  To figure out how to obtain academic buy-in of the IR, the Libraries conducted two work-practice studies that focused on the work habits of faculty and graduate students to determine how to redesign an IR that could easily be incorporated into their work flow.  I chose to critique this article because I’m interested in learning about the kinds of features that make an IR attractive to its users.

Problem Statement

The authors focus their research study on how to design an IR that will that complement the work needs of faculty and graduate students.

Literature Review

There is no literature review in the article; however, there is a note section at the end of the article which refers the reader to a literature review written by different authors in a different journal article. 

Method

The researchers designed and conducted two separate work-practice studies on two segments of the academic community, faculty and graduate students, to discover how they use digital technology to do research and disseminate their scholarly materials.  These segments came from diverse academic disciplines: humanities and social and physical sciences.  The researchers videotaped one-hour observations and followed up with phone and group interviews. 

After they finished gathering data from their field work, the researchers transcribed the videotaped observations and interviews and analyzed their findings.  Work-practice studies have their roots in anthropology, and the researchers analyzed the data through a combination of anthropological means and a creative process. 

Caveat

I had a few problems with this article.  First, the authors didn’t discuss or summarize the salient points of their methodology in this article.  Instead, they referred the reader to two previous articles that described the University of Rochester work-practice studies.  I had to read those other articles to gain more in-depth information on the research methodology.  Another problem was how the authors gave little detail of how they analyzed the data.  Despite several readings, I’m still unclear on what exactly it means to analyze data by anthropological means combined with a creative process.  The researchers don’t provide further information about this particular kind analysis, and that raises concerns about the research study’s validity and reliability.  My last problem was the lack of a literature review in the article.  It would be helpful to have some context of how the researchers decided to apply work-practice studies in their research on adapting IRs to better suit faculty and graduate students’ work needs.

References

Foster, N.F. & Gibbons, S. (2005).  Understanding faculty to improve content recruitment for institutional repositories. D-Lib Magazine, 11(1).  Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Randall, R., Smith, J., Clark, K. & Foster, N.F. (2008).  The next generation of academics: A report on a study conducted at the University of Rochester. Retrieved from the University of Rochester, UR Research website: https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action;jsessionid=C6C1FBA84936017FBC34F70A0EA70C06?institutionalItemId=5600&versionNumber=1

Key Concepts: Methods, Ethics, & Theory

Powell

• Evaluative research - a type of applied research that has as its goal the testing of the application of knowledge within a specific program or project. In most evaluative research, there is an implicit (or explicit) hypothesis in which the dependent variable is a desired value, goal, or effect and the independent variable is usually a program or service.  The two general types of evaluative research are summative (outcome) evaluation and formative (process) evaluation  .
• Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) - the U.S. government requires that all universities and other organizations that conduct research involving human subjects and that receive federal funding for research involving human subjects have an IRB.  The purpose of the IRB is: (1) to help ensure that that no harm will come to human subjects; (2) that the human subjects are informed of and consent to the protocol of the research study; and (3) that the human subjects' confidentiality or anonymity will be protected.
• Survey - the survey is a group of research methods commonly used to determine the present status of a given phenomenon.  The basic assumption of most survey research is that one can make inferences about a large group of elements by studying a relatively small number (sample) selected from the larger group (population) by carefully following scientific procedures.
• Sampling error/standard error of the mean - sampling error represents how much the average of the means of an infinite number of samples drawn from a population deviates from the actual mean of that same population.

Wildemuth

• Middle-range theories - theories that are concrete enough to apply to phenomena of interest to a special field, like library and information science, but are also abstract enough to apply to settings beyond the context of which they were originally developed.
• Grounded theory - theory emerges simultaneously with the collection of data.  It isn't a separate process.  Rather than testing an existing theory, the grounded theory approach begins to formulate a theory that fits the data as the data emerge.
• Typology - a comprehensive list of theoretical concepts/categories and their definitions.