I am now more awake and will give this another go--at least until my son wakes up from his nap.
I just read the journal articles after the "experimental" section in the lecture. I have to say, I'm not feeling any more confident about my ability to interpret numerical data. The second article focused on reading scores and attitudes, and the data seemed pretty straightforward except that the researchers threw in an extra variable. Rather than simply making the read-alouds the only difference in the two groups, they threw in extra English instruction. Why did they do that? They do acknowledge this difference in the article, but I still don't understand why they'd do that if they were trying to show a connection between read-alouds and independent reading. Honestly, I find this annoying.
The other study, focused on user satisfaction at a University library before and after specific customer service training, seemed much more valid because they didn't throw in a bunch of extra variables.
Note to self: when designing an experimental study (if I ever do that), don't create extra variables. It just makes it more difficult to interpret the data and makes grad students annoyed.
Qualitative Research: Theory generating rather than hypothesis-testing. Consists of observing or interviewing subjects, field research. Usually about a specific phenomenon or occurrence. Observation, qualitative interview, focus groups. Suggestion for observations: take "sketch notes" (words and phrases), then go rewrite them in more detail asap. Include observations and your interpretations of them (note which is which).
Articles: The Williamson article was so incredibly dry. For whatever reason, it did not hold my interest at all. The McKechnie article was more interesting, but left me with some questions. For example, if all the researchers were mothers, might that have influenced how they viewed the reactions of the children? And what purpose did collecting this data serve? It was, however, a good glimpse into field observation in a very chaotic setting, and I appreciated the candid discussion of the many challenges they faced.
Content Analysis: "unobtrusive" research--method of observing social behavior without affecting it. "The study of recorded human communications, such as books, magazines, web pages, poems, newspapers, songs, paintings, speeches, letters, e-mail messages, bulletin board postings on the Internet, and laws." 2 categories: conceptual analysis and relational analysis. Conceptual analysis records the existence and frequency of concepts. Relational analysis examines the relationships between concepts. Researchers create "concept codes" and record instances of each concept. Pitfalls: how you categorize concepts influences results of study, researchers must ensure concepts are clear to all coding.
From the Koufogiannakis article: "For many library schools, a course in research methods is now mandatory. However, if students are not seeing the practical applicability of the course, the meaning of it may be lost in their practice as a librarian."
I think this is absolutely true, as shown by comments in class discussion already. Of course, the reality is that even if students do see practical applicability, other obstacles (funding, lack of time) interfere.
I think librarianship research may suffer from the same disconnect as much educational research (although there is certainly a lot of that). One of my frustrations as an educator is that we have this huge push for research-based practice, but the reality is that often we do not implement research-based practice because of funding issues. What, then, was the point of doing the research in the first place? If we want research-based practice, then we need to provide the funds, time, and resources to actually implement those practices. Otherwise, it's hard to see the value in the research. At a time when libraries are being closed, privatized, and cut back, I doubt the reasoning behind programming and collection decisions is grounded in research--it's based on budget. As long as budget trumps research, there will probably be this problem of not seeing the 'practical applicability" of research.
Or maybe I'm just grouchy and tired.
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