Unit 4

Patten

Section 14 Reasons for Reviewing Literature

Currently published research may help form thesis or hypothesis.

Replication of studies

• strict
• modified

can also research to resolve a conflict

Reviewing literature benefits pg. 31

• identify measuring tools
• identify and avoid dead ends
• get ideas for organization

Section 15 Locating Literature Electronically

ERIC is a free database that is accessible from any computer.

Section 16 Organizing a Literature Review

To begin a literature review

• Identify the problem area and explain why it is important or
• give a conceptual definition

Go topic by topic through the review

Section 17 Preparing to Write a Critical Review

Literature Review should be critical review
2 mistakes

• taking all information in a piece of literature as fact
• treating all studies as equals with one another and as though they are better than your study

Things to consider when critically reviewing

• the sample population used
• measurement or instrumentation
• with experiments consider the control conditions

Section 18 Creating a Synthesis

Whole view of what is known and not know, put all the pieces together (pg. 39)

• move from sub-topic to sub-topic
• point out major trends
• point out major discrepancies
• point out gaps in the literature
• give an overview, don't go too in-depth
• use quotes sparingly because they break up the narrative

Cresswell Chapter 2

Create a draft title for your study early on

Literature review found in a journal article is shorter than that used in a master's thesis

literature review can be put into 3 different places

1. introduction - background for the problem
2. in its own section - mostly used with quantitative studies
3. mixed method study introduces literature through each phase in which it belongs

Steps in conducting a literature review

• identify key words
• start your search
• try to find at least 50 possible sources
• skim the initial group and use the best ones of those to find more articles
• creature literature map
• start working on summaries

Priority in selecting material

• look at summaries or abstracts
• look for respected and peer-reviewed journals
• consider books
• recent conference papers
• dissertations
• the Internet - but use this with caution

Literature map 

• visual representation of the research already done on a topic
• no standard way of doing it
• helps understanding of the literature at hand

Abstracting studies

items to focus on when abstracting a study (pg. 38)

• mention the problem being addressed
• state central purpose and focus of the study
• brief information about population, sample, or subjects
• review key results that relate to the proposed study
• point out flaws in the study

Unit 7

Wildemuth Chapters 29-37

Methods for Data Analysis

Content Analysis
Interested only in analyzing the content in relation to the hypothesis

can be used to predict the outcome of a message

Manifest vs latent content
manifest - obvious like a specific word or a color
latent - conceptual not directly observed

Units for analysis

• sampling units
• recording units
• physical
• conceptual
• temporal

Coding scheme development

pg. 300 - Coding - reducing the entire content of the message into quantitatively analyzable data that only describes the variables which you are studying

coding should be done by more than one person to avoid bias, but this is not often done and/or successful

Analysis of coded data

frequencies of each category

Qualitative Analysis of Content

examines meanings, themes, and patterns

3 approaches

• conventional qualitative content analysis
• direct content analysis
• summative content analysis

Process of qualitative content analysis pg. 312-313

• Prepare the data
• should the whole thing be transcribed
• should verbalizations be transcribed literally or in summary
• should observations be transcribed
• Define the unit of analysis
• Develop the categories and coding scheme
• Test your coding scheme on a sample
• Code all the text
• Asses coding consistency
• Draw conclusions from the coded data
• Report your methods and findings

To improve creditability pg. 313

• prolonged time in field
• persistent observation
• triangulation
• negative case analysis
• checking interpretations against raw data
• peer debriefing 
• member checking

transferability - how well the working hypothesis can be applied to another context

Discourse Analysis

Most studies see social phenomena as the products of discourse. pg. 321

Research focusing on how and why the discourse is used

role of speech is to construct the speakers' social worked pg. 321

Analytic Induction

deductive reasoning - given one broader set of facts is true, another more specific fact must also be true

inductive reasoning - examining specific facts and applying those truths to a more general conclusion.

analytic induction

• formalized method
• used for refining theory or hypothesis from data
• used for defining variables or phenomena

used for

• ethnographic observation
• participant observation
• semi-structured and unstructured interviews

Process of analytic induction pg. 330-331

• formulate rough definition of phenomenon you are to explain
• develop hypothetical explanation of the phenomenon
• choose cases and study them - include likely negative cases
• negative case requires 1 of 2 options
• redefine the phenomenon
• reformulate the hypothesis

one challenge is knowing when to stop narrowing phenomenon

Descriptive Statistics

measures of central tendency - how values of a variable cluster together

measure of dispersion - how values for a variable disperse from each other

4 levels of measurement

• nominal variables - categories, no true numerical value can be given for them
• ordinal variables - values can be ranked in order
• interval variables - uniform distance between possible values, can also be ordered
• ratio-level variables - ordered, uniform distance, and have a true zero.

measures of central tendency

• mean - often used, but can be skewed by extremes
• median
• mode - only option for nominal data, actual score from observation

will use one number to describe your entire data set

range - dance from the lowest to the highest number in the set

inter-quartile range - the difference between the value at the 25% and 75% so representative of the range of 50% of the data

when using mean report the standard deviation

confidence intervals - level of confidence you have in the range you set for the mean of the variables

Frequencies, Cross-tabulation, and the Chi-square Statistic

frequency distribution - a table displaying the count of cases in a particular category within a particular variable

calculate relative frequency only when sample size is large

two-way table shows the overlap between two variables, number of instances that satisfy both

3 guidelines for tables pg. 349

1. consider order for rows and columns
2. round numbers off to a point they will be easily interpreted
3. provide a meaningful summary for each row and column

The chi-square statistic

"measures the difference between what is observed and what would be expected in the general population" pg. 349

warnings about chi-square

1. does not work well with low numbers
2. when using a two-by-two column table use Fisher's exact test
3. with too large of a sample size may see relationships that aren't meaningful
4. chi-square only tells you a relationship is likely to exist, not that it does exist

Visualization of data set

graphs and charts are helpful to visualize the data, but need to be accompanied by the actual statistics

• pie charts
• bar charts
• histograms
• line graphs
• box plots

Analyzing Sequence of Events
in LIS most often applied to studying information seeking behaviors and analyzing searching and browsing behaviors.

Working with sequential data pg. 361

• capture a record of the sequence of the behavior being studied
• transform raw data into a form that can be analyzed
• analyze the sequences so that they can be looked at in comparison to the original research question

Coding the data

• select the events that are of interest
• chunk like events together
• assign codes to the events

Analysis

2 categories

• focused on the transitions from one event to another
• based on optional matching

Correlation

Examine the relationship between two variables

strength of relationship is based on the absolute of the correlation value can range from 0 to 1.

correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

Comparing Means:  t Tests and the Analysis of Variance

actual effects from chance effects

two steps to dealing with random variation pg. 383

1. define an appropriate sample
2. use and interpret the appropriate statistics

The t test

3 basic ideas pg. 384

1. large differences are more meaningful than small ones - the bigger the difference between two groups the larger the value of t
2. smaller variances are more reliable than larger ones - smaller variance of responses within groups means a larger value for t.
3. larger samples are more reliable than smaller ones - the larger the size of the sample the larger the value of t.

t  = the difference between the means divided by the standard error

t allows you to determine p (the probability that the difference between the two means is caused by chance).  t and p  are inversely proportional.

Comparing multiple groups: ANOVA
used for comparing more than two groups

still uses means like the t test.

Connaway & Powell Chapter 9: Analysis of Data

statistics allow you to determine the reliability of the conclusion you draw from your data

theoretical and applied statistics

role of statistics
4 basic purposes pg. 261-262

• indicate the central point around which the mass of data revolves
• show how broad and diverse is the spread of data
• how closely related certain features within the mass are
• may indicate if there is a likelihood of a causal relationship between the facts

Steps involved in statistical analysis

• establishment of categories
• coding the data
• analysis

descriptive statistics - pie graph, bar graph

inferential statistics - scatter graph

Unit 6

Connaway & Powell Chapter 5

The Questionnaire

Planning pg. 145-146

• define problem
• consider previous research
• hypothesize a solution
• identify information needed to test hypothesis
• identify potential respondents
• select best technique for collecting data

Advantages

• respondents are encouraged to be frank
• helps eliminate interviewer bias
• elimination of variation on questioning
• especially mail questionnaires allow for respondents to do them in their own time
• can be made so data is easy to collect and analyze
• large amount of info in a short time
• relatively cheap

Disadvantages

• elimination of personal contact
• issues with ambiguous questions
• responses mostly from those that are highly opinionated about the subject
• harder for uneducated participants
• resistance to mail
• non-response is high
• electronic only will not get to those who have limited access to technology

Types of questions pg. 148-149

• factual
• opinion and attitude
• information
• self-perception
• actual past or present behavior
• protective questions

never ask more questions than are necessary

Wildemuth Chapter 18-28

Transaction Logs
Used for user-system interaction behaviors & system-mediated interpersonal interactions (pg. 166)

server-side studies more prevalent

Advantages

·                     record of events as they actually happened

·                     data not dependent on human memory

·                     draws on a large volume of data

·                     can be used for both quantitative and qualitative

·                     used in both experimental and field study

client side logs much more resource intensive

Limitations

·                     context in which the event takes place is not logged

·                     technical limitations

·                     server-side hard to determine individual users

·                     cumbersome to process such large amounts of data

·                     ethical concerns

Process of Transaction Log Analysis pg. 169

1.            identification of appropriate data elements and sources

2.            data collection

3.            data cleansing and preparation

1.            User and session identification

2.            classifying and coding information behaviors

3.            classifying and coding pages and their characteristics

Think-aloud protocols

cognitive process through verbal walk reports of thoughts during experimentation (pg. 178)

Advantages

·                     easy to collect

·                     makes possible investigation of reactions, feelings, and problems

·                     able to see subject work through the process rather than hearing about it later

Disadvantages

·                     concerns about validity

·                     task performance may be slowed

·                     protocol may influence the thought process related to the task

·                     conflicts between theory and practice - no standard

Tips for using think-aloud protocol

·                     prepare warm up tasks

·                     minimize interaction between experimenters and subjects

Variations on the Method

·                     concurrent vs retrospective - think aloud while performing or after task

·                     individual vs collaborative - collaborative may be more natural to human behavior

·                     alternatives to face-to-face

·                     protocols used in combination with other methods

Direct Observation

What people do

focused on behaviors

·                     obtain permission to do the observation

·                     determine your sample/when to observe

·                     which people will be observed, how much detail, how each unit of behavior is defined

·                     observation schedule

Issues in Direct Observation

·                     behaviors not steady, may be hard to catch

·                     context may be important but hard to observe

·                     people don't like being watched

·                     other ethical issues

Participant Observation

from page 199

·                     the researcher is a participant in the setting

·                     participation leads to a better understanding of the people and processes involved

·                     better understanding can lead to better theories

Researcher takes on two roles

Consider how the two roles will be balanced

·                     passive, limited, participant-as-observer

·                     complete or active participation

Pitfalls

from page 202-203

·                     effects of the observer on the setting

·                     possibility that members of the culture will lead researcher to incorrect conclusions

·                     barriers that the characteristics of the setting and method can place in the way of collecting data

Research Diaries

capture life as it is lived

distinct in that they require repeated self-reporting over time, can vary widely

solicited vs unsolicited

·                     unstructured

·                     semi-structured

·                     structured

·                     interval-contingent

·                     signal-contingent

·                     event-contingent

Strengths

·                     ability to research things that might not otherwise be accessible

·                     information is captured at or close to time of occurrence

·                     can be unobtrusive

·                     participants are familiar with the idea

Weaknesses

·                     familiarity with format may lead to preconceived notions and information limitation

·                     diarist may not focus on events that benefit research

·                     significant burden

·                     many recording errors can occur

Design options

·                     establish lines of communication

·                     select willing participants

·                     collect portions of the diary at intervals

considerations

·                     amount of structure

·                     trigger for diary entry

·                     length of time the diary is kept

·                     length of time between recording

·                     technology used for the diary

Unstructured Interviews

no predefined theory, hypothesis, or questions

intention is to expose unintended themes or help get better understanding

disadvantages

·                     time consuming

·                     figuring out the level of control

·                     analyzing the data

Semi-structured Interviews

·                     predetermined questions

·                     question order can be changed

·                     questions can be reworded or not used

interview guide more flexible than questionnaire

developing the interview guide

·                     outline major topics

·                     list questions for each topic that need to be asked

o                  essential questions

o                  extra questions

o                  throw-away questions

o                  probing questions

·                     avoid these

o                  affectively worded questions

o                  questions that cover multiple topics in one question

o                  complex questions

·                     pretest the guide

specific techniques

time-line interviewing

critical incident teqchnique

interviews should be recorded

Focus Groups

a group assembled by researchers to discuss the topic of the research from the perspective of personal experience

strengths

·                     conversation give fuller perspective on a topic than interviews alone can give

·                     mimics natural setting in which people form opinions

·                     efficient

Issues to consider in conducting focus group research

1.            getting focus for the focus group

2.            selecting a moderator

3.            identifying and recruiting participants

4.            conducting the group sessions

5.            analyzing the results

can conduct focus groups online

Survey Research
Used to investigate many different topics such as

·                     program quality

·                     worker satisfaction

·                     information behavior

1 question / 1 response for each variable

Designing the survey

pg. 257 set of items, statements or questions, used to generate a response to each stated item.

brief and simple to complete

consult other studies before designing

pg. 257 19 principles

·                     ask only what can be answered and what is necessary for the objective

·                     ask in complete sentences

·                     use neutral language

·                     give consideration to specificity

·                     avoid double barreled questions

·                     voluntary participation means respondents might not, and should not have to, answer each question

2 types of questions

·                     open ended

·                     closed ended

Organization

suggested 3 parts

·                     introduction - build rapport, easy to answer

·                     substantive questions - essential questions

·                     classification questions - gather basic information

consider physical appearance - progress bar for online surveys

Testing the survey pg. 259

·                     pretesting - review of survey by experts or members of target audience

·                     administration of survey to a sample from the target audience

Administering the survey

Many ways to administer

·                     mail survey

·                     e-mail and ask respond by e-mail

·                     e-mail and request they fill out surveys on a website

·                     arrange online chat

·                     post survey on website

·                     phone people, ask them to reply by phone

·                     auto-phone people and ask them to respond by interactive phone application

Methods to increase response rate

·                     multiple, personalized contacting about the survey

·                     working with specific groups to help with the survey

·                     offering an incentive

Measuring Cognitive and Affective Variables

construct- something put together by scientists to help describe data and attitudes

operationalization - indicators and level of construct defined

develop an inventory

·                     use an existing inventory

o                  faster

o                  more efficient

o                  allows you to see how inventory was used before, strengths and weaknesses

o                  how realiable

o                  validity

reliability - how consistant it measures the construct

Developing new measures

Done if you can not find an appropriate variable to use in your study

examples of constructs already defined for LIS

·                     satisfaction with information systems and services

·                     attitudes towards information systems and services

defining construct

1.            completely satisfied

2.            mostly satisfied

3.            neither satisfied or not

4.            somewhat unsatisfied

5.            completely unsatisfied

Likert Scale

statement then respondent agrees or disagrees with statement

response style or response mode - bias based on how people want to answer

to counteract sometimes reverse the numbers in the ratings

Semantic Differential scale

pairs of adjectives across from each other on a continuum

Other approaches

can you complete this task? "yes" or "no"

Developing a measurement instrument pg. 281

1.            define the construct

2.            develop the items

3.            create an inventory from the set of items

4.            pilot test the inventory