COMM 250 Agenda Week 13

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COMM 250 Agenda - Week 13

• Housekeeping
• RAT6 Today
• RP2 Graded Returned to You Today
• Finns Peer Evaluation Form
• Lecture
• Naturalistic Inquiry
• (A Bit More about) Experiments

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Overall Peer Evaluation

• Rate Your Teammates
• Do NOT Rate Yourself
• Total Points 10 times of Teammates
• You Cant Give Everyone the Same Score
• Use Whole Numbers Make Sure They Add Up!
• This is a Secret Ballot
• No Talking or Comparing Scores
• Place Rating Sheets Face Down
• Staple or Clip Them Together

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Naturalistic Inquiry

• The Basic Motives
• Understanding and Explanation
• What makes people tick?
• Why do they believe what they believe?
• How do their beliefs translate into some
  behaviors and not others?
• What are the political consequences of their
  beliefs and actions? How do they affect others
  or the society as a whole?

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Assumptions of theTraditional Scientific
Approach

• Determinism
• Objective Reality, Objective Science
• Human behavior (DVs) is caused by (objective)
  social attributes social forces (IVs).
• The Task ? Determine which attributes or forces
  cause or shape specific social actions or
  behaviors.
• Example ? Studies of the Glass Ceiling

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Missing from the Scientific Approach?

• What does the Glass Ceiling mean,
  experientially?
• What is the experience of women in large
  organizations?
• What is it like to be a woman in a large
  organization? What daily experiences add up to a
  sense of frustration or alienation?
• Imagine the benefits, to a researcher, of talking
  with, and getting to know, women who work in
  large organizations.

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Assumptions of Naturalistic Research

• No assumption of determinism, objective reality,
  objective research
• Human action is not guided by objective social
  forces.
• What people do depends upon what they perceive,
  upon their internalized understanding of their
  social world.
• Human behavior is guided and patterned by the
  meanings that are created by communities and held
  by individuals."

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Four Assumptions Naturalistic Inquiry

• 1. What people say and do are the result of how
  they interpret and understand their social world.
  (Its a Question of Ideology and Worldview.)
• 2. These ideologies are socially constructed.
  (We are socialized into a particular way of
  looking at ourselves and the social world.)

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Four Assumptions Naturalistic Inquiry

• 3. Different communities/societies impose
  different senses onto the same social reality.
  (Loggers versus environmentalists in the Pacific
  Northwest.)
• 4. Different Ideologies/Worldviews carry
  different political implications. (Researchers
  should pay attention to the political
  implications of their consultants worldviews.)

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The Goals of Naturalistic Inquiry

• Understanding peoples social world and social
  actions from THEIR point of view.
• What social experiences make up an individuals
  or community's reality?
• And how do people "make sense" of their reality?
  How does this "sense" guide their actions?
• What are the social and political implications of
  their actions, ideologies, and worldviews?

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The Practice of Naturalistic Research

• Immersion in Social Settings
• Being There.
• Listening Immersion in Language and Informants
  Way of Speaking.
• Immersion in Natural Settings
• What practices and rituals make up the daily life
  of this social community? What ideologies about
  the world inform and animate these daily rituals?
• Discovery through breaking the rules.
• Immersion in Language
• The language informants use holds vital clues re
  how they interpret their world.
• The stories they tell The metaphors they use

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Naturalistic ResearchA Journey of Discovery

• The researcher journeys into new, unknown, or
  misunderstood social terrain.
• The researcher immerses her/himself in the
  ideologies and practices that distinguish this
  social terrain.
• The researcher tries to interpret and make sense
  of this social reality, from the subjects
  (consultants) points of view.

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Review Variables of Interest

• Independent influences another variable
• IV Predictor variable
• Dependent variable influenced by another
• DV Outcome variable
• Control variable one tries to control for
• Could keep constant, balance across groups, or
  extract in the statistical analysis
• Control Var Concomitant variable

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Extraneous Variables

• Intervening Var explains relation bet IV, DV
• The ? a Persons Comm Competence (CC) (the IV),
  the ? the Salary (the DV).
• Since Competence, per se, doesnt get you , Job
  Function is an Intervening Var.

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Extraneous Variables (continued)

• Confounding Var obscure effects
• Surpressor Var. reduces the effect of an IV
• CC could ? of Friends, but also ? difficulty of
  chosen job, which in turn ? time for friends.
• Reinforcer Var. increases the effect of an IV
• CC could ? of Friends, but also ? of events
  one attends, which in turn would further ? of
  friends.
• Lurking Var explains both IV and DV
• Perhaps the var Extroversion affects both CC
  and of Friends.

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Exercise

• Which is the Most Important Variables to control
  for when comparing the ability of groups to reach
  decisions using video conferencing vs. audio
  conferencing ?
• Outside noise
• Quality of connection
• Face to face
• Gender
• Blindness and/or deafness

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Review Experimental Research

• Experimenters Create Situations . . .
• to Control Variables (in order to . . .)
• to Attribute Observable Effects to the IV that
  is . . .
• to Infer Causality
• Control by Exposing Subjects to an IV
• Manipulating (exposure to) an IV (the Active
  Var.)
• Observing (exposure to) an IV (the Attribute
  Var.)
• Control by Ruling Out" Initial Differences
• Random Assignment
• Pretests