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The Mystery of Research Design

The Mystery of Research Design. Casey & Ted March 12, 2007 Week #5. Law: Multiple Worlds. Contradictions are important This creates a need for rules of thumb for judgment What counts as “best” is circumstantial. Law: Multiple Worlds. Duality of science: Reinforces a singular perspective

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The Mystery of Research Design

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  1. The Mystery of Research Design Casey & Ted March 12, 2007 Week #5

  2. Law:Multiple Worlds • Contradictions are important • This creates a need for rules of thumb for judgment • What counts as “best” is circumstantial

  3. Law:Multiple Worlds • Duality of science: • Reinforces a singular perspective • Manufactures multiple realities • Neither the object nor the representation of the object exist alone (54) In-here vs. Out-there

  4. Law:Multiple Worlds • Fractionality • The possibility of partial connections (neither singular nor plural meanings/realities, rather composites) • Slippage • Singular object changing shape/meaning between different sites/practices

  5. Becker:Substantive & Scientific Imagery • Substantive: • Without personal experience, we cannot tell the interesting from the mundane (16) • Scientific: • Abstractions visible only by professionals with specific training • “Scientific Stories”: • Must “make sense” (inaccurate?) • Must fit the facts (messy?)

  6. Becker:The Null Hypothesis Trick • Hypothesize that the selection of participants was random • everyone in the larger pool of potential participants was equally likely to be chosen • no “selection” was being made by anyone or even by the workings of social structure (21) • Can also be applied to choices made • “We can begin with the null hypothesis that the choice of what to do [in some particular situation] was made by using random numbers to choose from a complete list of possible actions” (24)

  7. Becker:The Tricks • The Society is a Big Machine Trick • The Society as Organism Trick

  8. Becker:The Tricks • The Turning People into Activities Trick • 2 “Everything has to be Someplace” Tricks

  9. Becker:The Tricks • The Ask “How?” Not “Why?” Trick • Process “…a good theoretical trick”

  10. Becker:Coincidence and Sampling • Events/steps not solely dependent on one’s own actions, but on exterior choices & events • Everything Is Possible

  11. Becker:Obstacles • Other people’s ideas? • Triviality? • Other people’s information

  12. Alford:The Craft of Inquiry • The punishment of interdisciplinary work • DWM assumptions: • Interaction between assumptions & objects • Conscious actions of embedded actors • Empirical regularities of behavior, perception & experience • Crises of solidarity, rationality & production • Do DWM’s methods fit their theories? • What are the consequences of research choices?

  13. Alford:Choices & Research Design Personal experience (motive, interest, personal history) Problems in discipline (learned tools, methods, theories) Problems in society (history, politics, media) PROBLEM (theme, issue, concern) Theoretical Framework Empirical Evidence Research Question Theoretical Question (driven by unresolved larger issues) Empirical Question (Driven by data) If you want to DO/CHANGE, then Action/Agenda Social (Policy) Change

  14. Alford:Exorcism • “The importance of asking the right question is widely recognized, of course, but is seldom treated as a central issue in the research process.” (25) • Separating aspects of a problem into those you can finish with the resources at hand (27)

  15. Alford:Paradigms of Inquiry • Multivariate • Interpretive • Historical See Chart, p. 51

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