Archive for the ‘Research methods’ Category
Being a better Researcher
Research involves a lot of information and data which have to be easily and efficiently managed under tight deadlines and time restraints. The following steps will offer you a bit of insight into how you can become a better researcher using some simple web tools like mind maps and bookmarklets.
The Dictatorship of the Problem: Choosing Research Methods
It is relatively easy to investigate how to employ a particular research method in the social sciences. It is considerably more difficult to decide which to use. Which method to use is arguably a more important question than how to use that method. ‘Which method?’ is, at least, the necessarily prior question. One cannot look up how to do something until one has decided what that something is. Methodological innovation depends directly on methodological choice. Researchers continuing a tradition, or working within a paradigm can often avoid making difficult methodological choices. Researchers seeking to innovate cannot. The question ‘which method?’ is particularly important for selecting research designs, because design choice importantly shapes most of the other choices researchers make. Designs are most effective and have the greatest potential for innovation when they are dictated by the nature of the research problem.
Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies
The Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies is the only handbook to make connections regarding many of the perspectives of the “new” critical theorists and emerging indigenous methodologies.
Built on the foundation of the landmark SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, the Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies extends beyond the investigation of qualitative inquiry itself to explore the indigenous and nonindigenous voices that inform research, policy, politics, and social justice, explore in depth some of the newer formulations of critical theories and many indigenous perspectives, and seek to make transparent the linkages between the two.
- Contains global examples including South African, Hawaiian, Maori, Central African and Islamic ones.
- Includes a “Who’s Who” of educators and researchers in critical methodologies.
- Provides a comprehensive body of work that represents the state of the art for critical methodologies and indigenous discourses
- Covers the history of critical and indigenous theory and how it came to inform and impact qualitative research
- Offers an historical representation of critical theory, critical pedagogy, and indigenous discourse.
- Explores critical theory and action theory, and their hybrid discourses: PAR, feminism, action research, social constructivism, ethnodrama, community action research, poetics.
- Presents a candid conversation between indigenous and nonindigenous discourses.
This Handbook serves as a guide to help Western researchers understand the new and reconfigured territories they might wish to explore.
Decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples
From the vantage point of the colonized, the term ‘research‘ is inextricably linked with European colonialism; the ways in which scientific research has been implicated in the worst excesses of imperialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world’s colonized peoples. Here, an indigenous researcher issues a clarion call for the decolonization of research methods.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first, the author critically examines the historical and philosophical base of Western research. Extending the work of Foucault, she explores the intersections of imperialism, knowledge and research, and the different ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and methodologies as ‘regimes of truth‘. Providing a history of knowledge from the Enlightenment to Postcoloniality, she also discusses the fate of concepts such as ‘discovery, ‘claiming’ and ‘naming’ through which the west has incorporated and continues to incorporate the indigenous world within its own web.
The second part of the book meets the urgent need for people who are carrying out their own research projects, for literature which validates their frustrations in dealing with various western paradigms, academic traditions and methodologies, which continue to position the indigenous as ‘Other’. In setting an agenda for planning and implementing indigenous research, the author shows how such programmes are part of the wider project of reclaiming control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.
Exploring the broad range of issues which have confronted, and continue to confront, indigenous peoples, in their encounters with western knowledge, this book also sets a standard for truly emancipatory research. It brilliantly demonstrates that ‘when indigenous peoples become the researchers and not merely the researched, the activity of research is transformed.’
How to do Research – Kids Research Portal
“The Kentucky Virtual Library presents: How to do research! Step 1: Plan your project. Plan your project tutorial Define your subject Brainstorm What do you already know? Group similar ideas Identify key words and phrases Make a quest strategy Gather your tools Step 2: Search for information . Search for information tutorial The Kentucky Virtual Library The library catalog Encyclopedia Reference books: table of contents and index Magazines and newspaper articles Dictionary Search the World Wide Web What if you can’t find anything? Step 3: Take Notes. Take notes tutorial The KWL method Fact finder method Data sheets Clustering method (also called mapping or webbing) Venn diagram method Note cards Prints and photocopies Bibliography page Step 4: Use the information. Use the information tutorial Scan the page first The five finger test Is the information true or bogus? Put it in your own words Organize the information Compare and contrast Put the information in order Add your own conclusions Step 5: Report. Share what you’ve learned tutorial Step 6: Evaluate. Ask yourself, “How did I do?”
Ten Simple Rules for Getting Help from Online Scientific Communities
The increasing complexity of research requires scientists to work at the intersection of multiple fields and to face problems for which their formal education has not prepared them. For example, biologists with no or little background in programming are now often using complex scripts to handle the results from their experiments; vice versa, programmers wishing to enter the world of bioinformatics must know about biochemistry, genetics, and other fields.
In this context, communication tools such as mailing lists, web forums, and online communities acquire increasing importance. These tools permit scientists to quickly contact people skilled in a specialized field. A question posed properly to the right online scientific community can help in solving difficult problems, often faster than screening literature or writing to publication authors. The growth of active online scientific communities, such as those listed in Table S1, demonstrates how these tools are becoming an important source of support for an increasing number of researchers.
Nevertheless, making proper use of these resources is not easy. Adhering to the social norms of World Wide Web communication—loosely termed “netiquette”—is both important and non-trivial.
In this article, we take inspiration from our experience on Internet-shared scientific knowledge, and from similar documents such as “Asking the Questions the Smart Way” and “Getting Answers”, to provide guidelines and suggestions on how to use online communities to solve scientific problems.
Aprendizaje por Proyectos: El Modelo Kuhlthau
Carol Kuhltaul, una destacada académica estadounidense, experta en manejo de información, planteó este exhaustivo modelo con el objetivo de distinguir las etapas que permiten resolver los problemas en el manejo de la información. Este modelo se basa en el supuesto de que cuando un estudiante inicia una tarea o proyecto de investigación posee conocimientos previos sobre el tema elegido, sin embargo, dichos conocimientos no son suficientes para completar satisfactoriamente esa tarea o proyecto. Existe, por lo tanto, una brecha entre lo que el estudiante sabe del tema y lo que requiere saber para resolverlo, esa brecha es reconocida por Kuhlthau como un problema de información.
Para resolverlo, ella propone el siguiente modelo de siete pasos sucesivos, aunque reconoce que en la práctica —y dependiendo de diversos factores, como las habilidades de los estudiantes, la calidad de los recursos disponibles, etc.,— estas etapas pueden traslaparse, fusionarse o combinarse, haciendo que los estudiantes avancen o retrocedan en el proceso.
Information Search Process
The Information Search Process (ISP) is a six stage model of the users’ holistic experience in the process of information seeking. The ISP model, based on two decades of empirical research, identifies three realms of experience: the affective (feelings), the cognitive (thoughts) and the physical (actions) common to each stage. Central to the ISP is the notion that uncertainty, both affective and cognitive, increases and decreases in the process of information seeking. A principle of uncertainty for information seeking is proposed that states that information commonly increases uncertainty in the early stages of the search process. Increased uncertainty indicates a zone of intervention for intermediaries and system designers.
The ‘information search process’ revisited: is the model still useful?
Introduction. This paper examines the continued usefulness of Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process as a model of information behaviour in new, technologically rich information environments.
Method. A comprehensive review of research that has explored the model in various settings and a study employing qualitative and quantitative methods undertaken in the context of an inquiry project among school students (n=574). Students were interviewed at three stages of the information search process, during which nine feelings were identified and tracked.
Results. Findings show individual patterns, but confirm the Information Search Process as a valid model in the changing information environment for describing information behaviour in tasks that require knowledge construction. The findings support the progression of feelings, thoughts and actions as suggested by the search process model.
Conclusions. The information search process model remains useful for explaining students’ information behaviour. The model was found to have value as a research tool as well as for practical application.
