Course Objectives

Students will gain a knowledge and understanding of the concepts and terminology of empirical methods used in social science research within the library and information science field. Qualitative research methods are included in this course as they are appropriate for certain research investigations. Selection of a particular research method will be determined based on the problem under investigation and its underlying assumptions.

For quantitative methods, emphasis throughout the course will be on theory development with attention to concept formation and confirmation in a research program. Planning, design, and sampling will be covered for various research methods covered in the course. Selected experimental designs, survey research methods, and qualitative methods will be covered as they relate to problems in library and information science research.

Students are expected to gain an introductory knowledge of topics in descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and qualitative research methods. Computer packages will be used to facilitate data analyses. Computer laboratory sessions will be held as an essential component of this course. Application of concepts learned will be demonstrated in papers and an examination.

Organization of the Course

Major Assignments

A. Required textbooks:

1. Williams, Frederick; Monge, Peter.  Reasoning with Statistics; How to Read Quantitative Research.  5^th  edition.  Harcourt College Publishers, 2001. ISBN: 0-155-06815-6 (pbk). ~$46
2. Cresswell, John W. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 2^nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003. ISBN: 0-7619-2442-6 (pbk). ~$40

B. Papers and Examinations: (See Appendices for descriptions of papers.) Papers can be emailed to me.

1. Paper using descriptive statistics with graphic displays is due the 6^th class meeting.

   Paper I: Descriptive Statistics

   The first paper for this course involves the use of descriptive statistics and the creation and interpretation of graphic displays of data.  Measures of central tendency and dispersion will be analyzed using simulated data.  You will be doing an analysis of a data set created by you; that is, you will be making up the numbers to simulate a real study. I will describe how this is done in class.

   The purpose of the paper is to have you go through the first part of the steps and processes of a real research study that uses quantitative methods. However, you have a number of restrictions placed on you and, at best, your research will approximate a pilot study. Remember that this paper is a learning exercise from start to finish. You will be given specific guidelines in class on how you should create the data to be used in your paper. Limits will be placed on the number of cases and variables you should have in your data matrix. This paper will lead directly to Paper II where you will continue your analyses using inferential statistics.

   We will spend class time to address how you might go about designing your study, presenting your theory and models, stating your methodology, defining your variables, and analyzing your data. Creation of graphical displays of your data will be an essential part of your paper. Much emphasis will be placed on how you interpret your data as you display descriptive statistics, interpret graphic displays, and present the results of this study.

Your data set can be analyzed using statistical software such as SPSS (The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) or a spreadsheet program such as Excel. The Computer Laboratory in Room 119 has both of these programs available. You will receive handouts in class explaining the use of SPSS and Excel for our course. Doctoral students are expected to use both Excel and SPSS. MLIS and MCIS students are required to use Excel.

The paper will be graded on your ability to create theoretical and empirical models, articulate a reasonable methodology and study design, analyze descriptive statistics, create appropriate graphic displays, and give full interpretation to all results.

    2.   Paper using inferential statistics with graphic displays is due the 10^th class.

Paper II: Inferential Statistics

This paper continues your first one and it will involve testing hypotheses. The paper uses the same data as Paper I. Please note that Paper I, with my comments, is to be attached to Paper II.

Class time will be spent outlining the requirements for this paper. In essence, you will begin by restating your theoretical and empirical models from Paper I and explaining any underlying assumptions. Then, you will state the premises appropriate to your theoretical model which can be used in the development of hypotheses to test the relationships proposed in your empirical model.

Like Paper I, the purpose of the paper is to have you go through the steps and processes of a real research study. At a minimum you will be conducting one test of differences between two groups; also, you will assess three measures of relationships among continuous variables. Hypotheses will need to be articulated prior to each statistical test and the probability of achieving your findings will need to be reported. For statis­tically significant results, you will need to compute and interpret effect size.

Optionally, exploratory analyses might be done with sub-group data and more advanced tests might also be conducted.  These options will be discussed in class.

It is expected that Paper II will refer to appropriate parts of Paper I with special attention to graphical displays of data. References to the graphs in Paper I are expected; new graphical displays can be used to reinforce the concept of statistical significance.

Your hypothesis testing can be analyzed using statistical software such as SPSS (The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) or a spreadsheet program such as Excel. Both of these programs are available in the Computer Laboratory in Room 119. Handouts are also provided to you on how these programs can be used for this paper using inferential statistics.

The paper will be graded on your ability to articulate your theoretical and empirical models, justify the appropriateness of certain statistical tests, articulate and conduct tests of hypotheses, use graphical displays effectively, and give full analysis to results with attendant interpretation of their implications to your empirical and theoretical models.

Paper III: Review of a Published Research Paper

For this paper you are to simulate the activities of a referee for one of our major journals. You are to assume that a published journal article is still an unsolicited manuscript and that the journal editor has selected you to eval­uate its appropriateness for publication. Further, you are refereeing the man­u­script blind and the identity of the author (or authors) is not known by you. 

Select an article which reports actual research using empirical, quantitative methods or qualitative methods. Avoid review articles which summarize other articles; avoid essays and opinion pieces. Your critique will build on the methods you learned in this course.

Select a journal article from any area which interests you. Feel free to pick a journal and browse through back issues until you find an article of compelling interest to you. You can also locate the article through indexing services but this may take longer than the browsing method. The titles of pertinent journals will be reviewed in class. The article need not be recent; you can go back a dozen or more years. The specific components of the paper will be summarized in class. Articles should come from library, information, or communication journals.

Your critique must be constructive and it must be positive. Your job as a referee is to help a colleague do better research. This in turn helps our field advance. Be sure to evaluate the theory proposed and the appropriateness of the method to investigate the problem at hand. Discuss the variables and how they are measured. Do not summarize the study back to its author; instead, make concrete suggestions of what should be changed. Be specific. Do not ask rhetorical questions but instead tell the author exactly what must be changed in the manuscript if it is to be published. If the manuscript does things correctly, then note that in your critique as well. Look closely at the data analyses: are assumptions articulated; are hypotheses tested properly; and, are the interpreta­tions of results appropriate? Assess the generaliza­tions and conclusions of the article. 

Class lecture/discussions will deal many of the issues relevant to this paper and you will want to apply some of this thinking to your critique. Representativeness of the sample, reliability, validity, and generality are four major topics that will need to be addressed for quantitative studies. At the end of your critique, it is optional if you want to give your overall evaluation of the manuscript in terms of its publication potential.

    4.  Final examination held during 15^th & last class session.

This exam is based on: (a) class lectures; (b) the papers prepared for the class; (c) qualitative methods; and, (d) information contained in the textbook readings.

Methods of Assessment

Course Outline

* Note that we can adjust times and topics as needed. The table above makes some assumptions and we might need to modify things to accommodate those who need additional coverage of certain topics.

Reading Schedule