background preloader

Social Research Methods

Social Research Methods
Related:  Research & methods

Grounded_Theory_intro An Introduction to Grounded Theory The study presented in the paper was an evaluation of an individually configured multimedia learning application used in real contexts. The necessity to evaluate learning applications in this way has been discussed by Squires (1996). In addition, the aim of the study involved assessing the benefit of the application to a user in the delivery of effective learning. Thus, the complexity of the final study precluded a simple experimental approach, yet there was a great deal of useful data available that would facilitate qualitative analysis. To Top Selection of a qualitative methodology The general area of qualitative research includes several research methods, often referred to as ‘ethnography’. An important qualitative method that has regularly been employed in educational and social research is Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Grounded Theory Grounded Theory is a research method developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967). Stages in Grounded Theory

Extracting audio from visual information Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass. In other experiments, they extracted useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant. “When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,” says Abe Davis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and first author on the new paper. Joining Davis on the Siggraph paper are Frédo Durand and Bill Freeman, both MIT professors of computer science and engineering; Neal Wadhwa, a graduate student in Freeman’s group; Michael Rubinstein of Microsoft Research, who did his PhD with Freeman; and Gautham Mysore of Adobe Research. Commodity hardware

Introduction to Grounded Theory By Steve Borgatti Discussion drawn from: Glaser and Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strauss and Corbin. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research. Goals and Perspective The phrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of data. Grounded theory takes a case rather than variable perspective, although the distinction is nearly impossible to draw. Part and parcel of the case-orientation is a comparative orientation. The grounded theory approach, particularly the way Strauss develops it, consists of a set of steps whose careful execution is thought to "guarantee" a good theory as the outcome. Although not part of the grounded theory rhetoric, it is apparent that grounded theorists are concerned with or largely influenced by emic understandings of the world: they use categories drawn from respondents themselves and tend to focus on making implicit belief systems explicit. Methods Open Coding Text Fragment 1 An example of a code note is found here.

6 Critical Thinking Skills You Need to Master Now Critical thinking skills are extremely important in developing a successful career. Have you heard that before? Chances are you’ve heard it many times, such as when you began applying for your first job or maybe when you were passed over for a promotion. Whenever it was, there is usually one problem. They never tell you what critical skills are, why you need them or how to get them! College students and young professionals alike are flooded with advice on why they need to develop these skills. In an effort to help you make sense of it all and finally get some answers, I broke down the six core critical thinking skills you need for your career to help you both understand why you need them and how you can develop them. Identifying a list of skills critical to your professional career is not as easy as it may seem. Skill #1: Interpretation Throughout your career you will be presented with a variety of information in many different types of situations. Skill #2: Analysis Skill #3: Inference

Text Analysis Tools Definition: Text analysis software enables users to determine the frequency with which words or phrases are used, create concordances, view words in context, and otherwise study patterns in texts. Tools: Resources: caqdas Networking Project: "We provide practical support, training and information in the use of a range of software programs designed to assist qualitative data analysis." References: Evaluating the Quality of Electronic Texts, Lisa Spiro, director of the Digital Media Center at Fondren Library, Rice University. See Also:

The Experience of interactive art: a curatorial study Abstract: Interactive art exists through the participation of its audience. There is an increasing awareness amongst artists, critics and curators that the audience's experience is of central importance to the understanding, creation and exhibition of interactive art. Because of its emphasis on experience and participation, as well as engagement with science and technology, interactive art offers challenges and opportunities for curatorial practice in museums and galleries.

Analyzing, Interpreting and Reporting Basic Research Results © Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Adapted from the Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation and Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development. Sections of This Topic Include Analyzing and Interpreting InformationReporting ResultsWho Should Carry Out the Research? General Information and Resources Ethics and Conducting Research Also see Related Library Topics Also See the Library's Blogs Related to Analyzing Research Results In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to Analyzing Research Results. Library's Business Planning Blog Library's Building a Business Blog Library's Strategic Planning Blog Analyzing and Interpreting Information Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data is often the topic of advanced research and evaluation methods courses. Always start with your research goals Basic analysis of "quantitative" information Read through all the data. Nonprofit

Research material | Affective Sciences On this page we propose research materials and tools that we are willing to share, free of charge, with qualified emotion researchers, irrespective of their discipline, for use in non-commercial research projects. We have developed, validated and published a number of instruments to test emotion recognition ability in different modalities. Many of these instruments are shared with qualified researchers. We have also developed a research corpus with many major emotions enacted by professional actors, using affect induction procedures – the Geneva Multimodal Emotion Portrayals (GEMEP), recorded on high quality video. Below we list materials and tools for emotion research in general, developed in the course of our earlier research, that are currently available for downloading. 1. GAQ English versionGAQ Version FrançaiseGAQ Deutsche Version 2. 3. This file provides over one hundred lexical labels for affective states and emotions in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Welcome to online QDA April 2013: Ethnomining and the combination of qualitative & quantitative data Image from Fabien Girardin After the two previous editions (Openness and Stories to action), it’s now time for our April edition on combining qualitative and quantitative data. While ethnography generally draws on qualitative data, it does not not mean that quantitative approaches shouldn’t be employed in the research process. Combining the two leads to a “mixed-method approach” that can take various forms: data collection and analysis can be either separated or addressed together, and each of them can be used in service of the other. Of course, this isn’t new in academic circles and corporate ethnography but there seems to be a renewed interest lately in this topic. One of the driving forces of this renewed interest is the huge amount of information produced by people, things, space and their interactions — what some have called “Big Data“. Although most of the work of Big Data has focused on quantitative analysis, it is interesting to observe how ethnographers relate to it.

What is Subjective Well-Being? Understanding and Measuring Subjective Well-Being Published: 2010-01-16 Brian Albuquerque Subjective well-being (SWB) is defined as ‘a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life’ (Diener, Lucas, & Oshi, 2002, p. 63). The cognitive element refers to what one thinks about his or her life satisfaction in global terms (life as a whole) and in domain terms (in specific areas of life such as work, relationships, etc.) The affective element refers to emotions, moods and feelings. The Concept of Subjective Well-Being A person who has a high level of satisfaction with their life, and who experiences a greater positive affect and little or less negative affect, would be deemed to have a high level of SWB [or in simpler terms, be very happy]. The concept of SWB falls within the ‘hedonic’ perspective that defines well-being or happiness as being fundamentally about maximising pleasure and avoiding or minimizing pain. Measuring Subjective Well-Being The three components of SWB are: life satisfactionpositive affectnegative affect

Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers | Exploring the Evidence Base This is an archive copy of the latest edition of Beall’s list before it went dark. As scholarly publishing moves quickly, this static list will lose relevancy over time. Check out this check-list to help make future decision making easier. Beall’s List: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. We hope that tenure and promotion committees can also decide for themselves how importantly or not to rate articles published in these journals in the context of their own institutional standards and/or geocultural locus. Last updated December 31, 2016 Like this: Like Loading...

Related: