Framing Reflections 1 & 2
Rosalind Gorrie – Capilano University
LBST 201 – Danielle Laboissiere and Mahshid Atapour
Spring 2019
Reflection 1
1. How would you define the scientific method?
The scientific method is a tool that researchers can use to answer questions. It involves making hypotheses and testing them, through experimentation and observation, and analyzing the information gathered to generate conclusions about the original question being investigated.
2. How do you define a scientist, and what role do they have in building knowledge?
A scientist is someone who is a part of the scientific community (an interactive group of individuals all participating in the effort of uncovering knowledge about the world using the scientific method). The scientific community peer-review, replicate, and build on each other’s experimentation and analyses to increase understanding on specific phenomena and increase the certainty with which we can support various theories.
3. While research questions may be investigated using qualitative approaches, how mightquantitative methods be useful?
Quantitative methods can be very reliable because they are often easier to replicate and less vulnerable to human subjective biases, interference, or error. Specifically, quantitative research allows researchers to make more reliable predictions through the use of statistical analyses. These sorts of methods allow researchers to generalize their results and draw conclusions about the general population they seek to research with much greater certainty.
4. List three broad topics that you are interested in, and explain how they
could be investigated via quantitative methods?
I am interested in multiculturalism in Canada and a sub-topic of this broad research area that could be studied using quantitative methods could be urban diversity in Canada. Research pertaining to this topic could involve doing an analysis of demographic data related to urban areas in Canada. A hypothesis I could make would be that cities are undergoing an increase in diversity, which the academic literature confirms, and I could analyze census data to determine whether this is true. Age, ethnocultural background, and socioeconomic background data could be studied and compared to determine whether its true that there are more different culture groups living together than before in Canadian urban centres and could also reveal other significant dimensions of observed changes.
I am interested in First Nations pedagogy and education and an issue related to this topic is First Nations student success in Canadian post-secondary schools. It would be easy to study this quantitatively using data related to college and university enrollment, completion, and employment outcomes. Different regions could be compared and correlations with other socioeconomic or health factors could also highlight relationships between potential lack of First Nations enrolment or completion and other factors to inform initiatives and funding decisions.
I am interested in climate change and the global challenges that nations face in action to prevent, mitigate, and cope with climate change. One dilemma that the academic literature has highlighted about this topic is that there is a lack of consensus about who is most responsible and what the obligations are that each nation has to deal with climate change. Quantitative data pertaining to each nations’ greenhouse gas emissions could be compared to help clarify misunderstanding about different nations’ roles.
5. What challenges do you expect to find in conducting research during this course?
Ideologically, I favour the qualitative method because of my partiality to subjectivity over objectivity in life and my belief that conceptions of an objective Truth, which can be accessed by humans through science, are flawed. I also fear that using quantitative methods, while increasing reliability and certainty of results, is restrictive to topics which can be quantified and limits the ability to research rare or infrequent phenomena in one study.
Reflection 2
1. Consider the responses you submitted for Framing Reflection #1. How have your responses changed now that you have undertaken this course?
My responses have become more moderate over the course of the semester. I am less partial to subjectivity as I can see that there is ample opportunity in quantitative research for researchers to consult the academic literature and offer insights through discussion of their results and that, ultimately, the conclusions and suggestions for future research (which most studies offer at the end) are all subjective analyses. I am able to see that quantitative and qualitative research both have important roles to play in building knowledge and that the pursuit of objectivity needs not eradicate or deny subjectivity. Perhaps, its the case that they can exist in parallel and work in unison.
2. How has the way you conceive of a scientist changed through completing this course?
I’m pleased to say that through the completion of this course that I conceive of a scientist differently in one major sense which is that I now see myself as being a member of the scientific community. Through the reading of our required text materials (which offered plenty of information on the fundamentals, steps, and features of research methods), the design and execution of a study of my own with a team of two other researchers, and the completion of the online TCPS ethical research training, I now feel that I am much better equipped to participate in research as a member of the scientific community. I have also become more aware of the dangers of unethical participation in the scientific community and I see scientists as more vulnerable to corruption than before which I am committed to avoid in my future research endeavours.
3. What are some strengths and limitations associated with the use of applying quantitative
methods to investigating a research question?
One major strength of applying quantitative methods is the level of certainty it allows for. The major limitation remains that it can only deal with quantifiable data which is challenging when attempting to study a rare phenomenon or one which is subjective or individual in nature.
4. Which approach to doing research, qualitative or quantitative, do you feel is a better fit for you as a researcher and why?
I often find myself working academically within the critical theoretical paradigm and this often requires an argumentative style of writing. I would like to continue to refine my skills as a quantitative researcher in order to support arguments I make with concrete data because I think this increases any research’s validity. Overall, I would say that due to the prevalence of English literary research I have been involved in and hope to continue doing that qualitative research is a better fit for me as a researcher. I have grown increasingly interested in the disciplines of History and Art History, which are dominated by qualitative research, so I assume this will be the style of research I will continue to use the most. I do not foresee abandoning the quantitative tools I’ve acquired in this course, but rather finding ways to incorporate both types of research in an interdisciplinary way to build knowledge in a more expansive manner.
5. What three main learning points about doing research will you take with you from this course?
Professionalism is important. I have come to believe that collecting and analyzing data in a timely fashion and in a transparent manner is critical to producing good research.
I have learned that Excel is an incredible tool and something I would like to take a course in because I feel I have only skimmed the surface with it and would like to improve my skills as I think it will come in handy in the future.
I am interested in naturalistic observation, due to my aforementioned partiality towards subjective interpretations, but I have learned that it can be very challenging to create operational definitions and methods and to establish inter-rater reliability when conducting quantitative research with data gathered through naturalistic observation. This doesn’t mean its not worth trying to do, but I have learned to appreciate those studies which involve this type of rigour.