Key Concepts in Research—LIS 7996—Fall 2011
Week 1—Introductory Readings
Chapter 1: Connaway, L. & Powell, R. (2010). Basic research methods for librarians. 5th ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
Basic research—Conducted for the sake of gaining knowledge, basic research is usually quantitative and very general. It normally does not seek to solve technical or practical problems.
Applied research—Conducted to find solutions to problems; applied research is used extensively in the field of library and information science. Many methods may be used to conduct applied research, including both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Positivist—A positivist tradition of research focuses on quantitative data to solve problems using traditional techniques to gather data.
Interpretivist—A interpretivist tradition of research emphasizes the use of words (qualitative approach) to collect data. The data is often collected through interviews and observation.
Chapter 1: Wildemuth, B. (2009). Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library Science. ABC-CLIO, Incorporated.
Evidence-based practice—When a study is conducted to guide the practices of a service. This would include conducting research to improve practices with a library.
Research methods—There are a multitude of various methods that can be used for researching particular topics and ideas. A method is the means one chooses to conduct a study and analyze the data gathered. Methods may include such things as a survey, transaction log, observation, interview, experiment, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment