Preparing for the Assignment

1. Preparing for the Assignment Principles of Research Design and Philosophy of Knowledge The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-1

2. Prologue Facts About the assignment PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-2

3. The Assignment Task An essay done in two parts: • PART 1 Philosophical Positioning • 2,500 words not including references • that explains the philosophical assumptions behind doing research, in particular about the nature of the knowledge you will produce • PART 2 Research Design • 2,500 words not including references • a detailed justification for your specific choice of method(s), referring to PART 1 in the justification (among other things) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-3

4. Submission • Submitted via Moodle (the “Turnitin Assignments” link at the right of the Unit) • Submitted as TWO separate word documents (part 1 and part 2) each with their title, own reference list etc. • By end of 29th June 2018 Only three possibilities: • You submit it before midnight on that day (it is your responsibility to do it well before this time, just in case) • You submit a request for Extra Time using the “Exceptional Factors” with reasons well before the 29th • In the case of some emergency at the time (e.g. Medical) you submit a request for Extra Time using the “Exceptional Factors” after the 29thbut you will have to provide proof (e.g. a dated Doctor’s note) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-4

5. Marking it • The two parts are equally weighted and you will be given a single mark out of 100 together with specific feedback on your work and suggestions about improving it. • Work will normally be marked and returned within 4 weeks via the Moodle portal. • If you get an official extension to this deadline, and thus submit later, it may take much longer to mark. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-5

6. Assessment Assessed against these 4 criteria, to demonstrate: • understanding of the intellectual debates in your discipline • understanding of key arguments with citations informing your research project through critical evaluation • good arguments in the justification for the positions taken and the research design backed up with appropriate citations • clarity of evidence warranting claims and decisions made in the paper. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-6

7. Overview Developing the Assignment PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-7

8. How to think about assignment Think of these as earlyprototypes of the parts of your thesis where you • describe your philosophical position/assumptions and • describe and justify the design of your research method. Do this as clearly as possible, and situate/justify statements by referring to the literature and practices in your field PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-8

9. How to approach your assignment Having read the literature and talked to people… • Decide what you think about the nature of the knowledge you will conclude with • Think about the assumptions behind this • Write down your position clearly, justify it • Relate it/compare it to other relevant positions From this and your research questions… • Work out the best way to answer your questions • Write this down clearly as a research plan • Justify this with reference to: your questions, your assumptions about knowledge, and alternative ways you might have gone about the research PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-9

10. Elements of the assignment • Research Questions • The nature of your knowledge • Relation to Philosophical positions • Justifying your position/assumptions! • The Impact of Theory • Considering Possible Approaches • Justifying your Choice of Approach • Describing the detail of your research plan and justifying the details PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-10

11. Part 1 of the Assignment The Philosophy of Knowledge PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-11

12. Research Questions Posing good research questions is hard. You need these to… • be clear and precise so one can tellwhether they have been answered • be ambitious – to provide novel and significant knowledge when answered • be constrained enough to be able to be answered by you in 3 years Research questions usually evolve a bit during the course of the PhD PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-12

13. Kinds of question Questions • What? • How? • Why? Example Knowledge • 84% of women are “not satisfied emotionally with their relationships” • How supply chain relationships work in practice in a particular industry • A recent study shows that 65% of lottery winners say they want to continue working despite the millions won. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-13

14. In pairs… In turn, show your research questions to the other and discuss the extent to which they are: • Clear – anyone could understand them • Precise – are not vague at all • Constrained – possible to answer • Novel – produce knowledge not known • Significant – worth answering • Interesting – you want people to read it PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-14

15. Assumptions Think about the nature of the knowledge that youwill produce in your thesis: • What kind of knowledge is it? • How reliable it is? • How context/culture-dependent is it? • How objective is it? • How much does it depend on prior theory and assumptions, what are these? • What is the role of evidence behind it? PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-15

16. Brainstorm of assumptions… • People organise • Everyone is deceptive • People have different social constructions of their environment • People do not have much VR experience • Policy is ideally based on evidence • Policy is based on power • People make sense of things in different ways PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-16

17. Recap on Truth Rationalism Empiricism Reductionism • Where does truth come from? • A correspondence with reality, however imperfect, difficulty and indirect this may be • Something useful gained from interaction with the world • Something built up in a creative process, either individually or collectively • A simplification of all the detail of what happens at a lower level • Reasoning about knowledge • From perceptions and evidence Critical Realism Pragmatism Realism RadicalConstructivism SocialConstructivism Positivism is not about Truth, but Method! The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-17

18. Some Final Meta-Questions… • Can one choose which philosophical position to take based on what is convenient for oneself? Or what is useful to oneself? • Or is it a matter of conviction? • Does it matter if one does pick&mix from philosophical positions? • Are there limitations on what philosophical positions one can take? • Are some incompatible with others? The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-18

19. Paradigmatic ‘Hairballs’ Positivism Intepretivism Constructivist Rationalist Holist Confirmatory Qualitative Relativist or Pragmatist theories of truth • Realist • Empiricist • Reductionist • Belief in Falsification • Quantitative • Correspondence theory of truth Which side do you feel sympathy for? What mix holds in your research? Think of examples where some of each side is appropriate? The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-19

20. A critical reflection on some characteristics of philosophy • Seeking abstract truths above or behind the world of contingencies and particularities… • …and the backlash against this. • The tendency to ‘seal off’ its issues from other concerns (making it its only critic) • The fact that philosophy is such an intensively linguistic activity • Shaped by ungainsayable ‘moves’ • An obsession with certainty and generality The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-20

21. What has been gained so far? • Some strong critiques, especially useful when applied to ones own work • An indication of some of the traps and dangers in some assumptions and approaches • Some different ways of reflecting about (or framing) issues • A (sub)language and a developed culture for talking about such issues The Linguistic Turn. MMUBS Mres Epistemology, http://cfpm.org/~bruce slide-21

22. Relate your assumptions to the philosophy in your field With reference to the positions in your field: • Do your assumptions fit within any particular established position? • How do they relate to other positions? • Consider other positions in your field seriously, critiquing them… • ...but not reducing them to a “straw man”! • List the difficulties with your own position • Reference thinking within your own field PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-22

23. Justification! It is no good just stating your position It is no good just adopting the position of someone else (supervisor etc.) You should not argue “backwards” – I am going to do A therefore my position is B Nor wishful thinking – e.g. I want my knowledge to be objective so I am a positivist Rather it should be a principled justification: • based on the nature of knowledge in your domain • based on arguments (including critique) • based on the assumptions you are making PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-23

24. Shallow approaches do not work • You can not cut&paste others’ opinions and ideas • but you have to think it out for yourself • develop a coherent idea of what your assumptions and position • that you can defend within your field. • If you do try to do this and relate this to the existing academic landscape you will pass Part 1 of the assignment. • Does not matter if you change your mind • This is the start of a journey, I will be thinking… could this be developed to become the part of your thesis that describes/ justifies your assumptions/position? PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-24

25. It can be helpful to imagine… You are in a court: • Where the charge is that you have been sloppy, unclear and your conclusions are unjustified • You have to put up a defense for your position, justify yourself • Imagine how the prosecution might question you, how they might question/reveal the weaknesses in your defense and answer them PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-25

26. Recap on Part 1! Having read the literature and talked to people… • Very Briefly, describe your field and research questions • Decide what you think about the nature of the knowledge you will conclude with • Think about the assumptions behind this • Write down your position clearly, justify it • Relate it/compare it to other relevant positions Questions about Part 1 please! PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-26

27. Part 2 of the Assignment – Principles of Research Design PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-27

28. Back to your research questions • Your research design should flow from your research questions… • ...limited by what is feasible. • In other words be howyou are going to go about answering your questions • Using rigourous and established methods • So as to convincethose reading your thesis (including your examiners) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-28

29. Novelty in your Research Generally One of the following is new in every research plan: • The theory that is assumed • The method that is used • The case(s) which you research For example, it is standard to: • test an existing theory on a new situation using an established method • try out a new method on a case that has already been established with same theory There is BIG difficulty if more than one of these things are new at once! BEWARE! PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-29

30. In pairs… • In turn, describe to each other what is new in your research plan • Are these in theory, method, application area, or what? • Then, in turn, describe why you feel you can rely on the parts that are not new PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-30

31. The Roles of theory • Theory may shape your research design – informing questions, forming hypotheses or propositions, choosing/ justifying method, analysis, interpretations • Testing existing theory – validation, confirmation/ disconfirmation. Testing hypotheses / propositions • Theory may be the product of your research – building theories e.g. from case evidence, from qualitative data, from quantitative data, from a grounded theory study, from a sensemaking study, from discourse, from narratives etc. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-31

32. Impact of theory • Theory both constrains and shapes how we think about things, so it can bias us (e.g. not notice things that contradict that theory – Kuhn’s “Theoretical Spectacles”) • But it is usually infeasible to ignore all theory, but need to accept some to structure our understanding and plan • but this should be made explicit! • Need to distinguish between merely assumed theory and reliable, well-validated theory • Theory can vary from nomothetic (general laws) to ideographic (about details) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-32

33. A Warning! • One of the very valuable things that students get out of doing a PhD is developing their own way of thinking about their issues/topic/cases • It is tempting to want to tell the world about this way of thinking about stuff • However, this is private not public knowledge – everybody has their own way! • To get others to change their mind you have to do concrete stuff to demonstrate/prove your ideas • These need to be specific ideas/critiques etc. NOT a whole way of thinking about things • And these need to be convincing and justified! • A large proportion of a thesis is concerned with justifying your conclusions – your contribution to (public!) knowledge PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-33

34. Testing A Theory • A common research aim is to test a theory (either an existing one or one of yours) • Theory has to be made precise as a model or a specific research question • Qualitative research may provide counter examples (hence maybe suggest caveats) • Quantitative research may test if its better than a null hypotheses to some probability • Interpretations of the test should be cautious PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-34

35. Developing Theory • Research can suggest new theory or inform the development of existing theory • Case study or qualitative research can suggest mechanisms and complex causation • Theory development with quantitative methods is slow as it involves the repeated hypothesising of theory and then testing it • New theory can be inferred from other theory, but only if this is well-validated PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-35

36. In pairs… • In turn, describe to each other which theories you will be assuming or using to structure your research • Then, in turn, describe any theory/hypotheses you might be testing/critiquing • Finally, in turn, describe any theory you are hoping to develop PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-36

37. Characteristics of Typical Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches Quantitative Qualitative Natural Language Meaning Understanding Contextual Purposeful sample Exploratory Accepts subjectivity Open system (ecological validity) • Formal representation • Measurement • Explanation • Often aims at general • Representative sample • Hypothesis testing • Aims for objectivity • Closed system (experimental control) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-37

38. Qualitative Methods • Interviews (structured, semi-structured, unstructured, focus gps) • Ethnography – participant observation • Non-participant observation • Visual ethnography • Narrative research • Discourse analysis • Textual methods • Qualitative case study • Grounded theory • Cognitive maps • Concept maps • Repertory grid – Personal construct theory • Semiotic method • Historical method PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-38

39. Quantitative Methods • Statistical methods and analysis • Descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode) • Tabular data analysis • Comparison of means (one way ANOVA, ‘t’ test) • Mathematical modeling (Linear programs, Bayesian, SEM) • Time series & forecast models • Simple and multiple regression (e.g. least squares) • Correlation methods (partial, bivariate) • Cluster methods • Factor analysis • Correspondence analysis • Multidimensional scaling • Non-parametric methods (chi-squared) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-39

40. Case Studies • Pick one or a few examples of what you want to understand – research facts/data about them • Choosing and justifying whichcases you pick is very important • Aims to get a comprehensive and rounded description of the key facts, events, context etc. • Detail matters here! PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-40

41. Cross-Sectional Study • Easily the most common type of research project - Fast and efficient. • Typically involves conducting a survey of a sample of population elements at one point in time. • Useful because it provides a quick snapshot of what’s going on with the variables of interest for our research problem. • Sampling is critical (non-bias, valid & reliable) PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-41

42. Longitudinal Study • An investigation that involves taking repeated measures over time. • Useful for conducting trend analysis, tracking changes in behavior over time (e.g., brand switching, levels of awareness, turnover) and monitoring long-term effects of marketing activities (e.g., market share, pricing effects) • Problem is time – may be for post doctoral research – depends on whether you need to gather primary data or the data already exists in secondary sources. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-42

43. Sources of Existing Data UK social science – Economic and Social Data Service (esds.ac.uk) • Economic and social, qualitative and quatitative, survey and longitudinal • e.g. Understand Society (formerly known as BHPS) Office of National Statistics EuroStat/ EuroSurvey PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-43

44. In pairs… • In turn, briefly describe the method you plan to use in your research • Then, in turn, briefly describe how you hope these will lead you to new knowledge PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-44

45. Data Analysis • Describe approach for data processing in detail: Raw Data → Analysis → Interpretation → Conclusions • These stages should not be a “black box” but clearly described • Is each stage described • Could someone else follow the same steps from your description • Are there any “just look at it and see” stages? • Are these standard methods or do they need special justification? PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-45

46. Advantages/Dangers of Numbers “When statistics are not based on strictly accurate calculations, they mislead instead of guide. The mind easily lets itself be taken in by the false appearance of exactitude which statistics retain in their mistakes, and confidently adopts errors clothed in the form of mathematical truth” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America • People believe numbers must be right even when they are wrong • It is difficult to get beyond the numbers once they are in print PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-46

47. Our responsibility as social scientists • As social scientists it is our responsibility if not our duty to ensure when we design research that the numbers we acquire, analyse and present are accurate. • Decisions rely on numbers – thus it is incumbent on researchers to be accurate in their representations, claims and statements using statistics. • Individuals, organizations and institutions use statistical evidence provided by social science research. • Of course numbers alone are only one side of this picture. We need qualitative data also to understand numbers and research problems. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-47

48. In pairs… • In turn, describe the method by which you plan to analyse your data • How can you make this method crystal clear? • Could someone else follow your steps to replicate what you did? • In turn, describe how you are going to interpret your results • Is this process of interpretation describable? • Do you think you can account for any biases due to assumptions and theory? PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-48

49. Research Plan Should Cover What you intend to achieve • Specific Aims • Key objectives (drawn from questions) Why it is important • Background and Significance (evidence from the literature where other research studies have pointed the way) What has been done so far (preliminary studies, e.g. for RD2 etc.) How you are going to do it • Research Design and Methods • include how the data will be collected, analysed and interpreted • Timeline, milestones etc. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-49

50. Methodology and Method • Describe any new methodology and its advantage over existing methodologies. • Describe any novel concepts, approaches, tools, or technologies for the proposed study. • Be cautious about ‘novel’ in the sense it is so novel that no one apart from you understands it or trusts it • Be confident about novel if there is a clear research logic based on evidence. PKPRD, Preparing for the Assignment, Bruce Edmonds, slide-50