Interdisciplinarity and Convergence: A Required Research Design Class

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Interdisciplinarity and Convergence A Required
Research Design Class
The Future of iSchool Doctoral Education May 29,
2009, University of Maryland
Lori Kendall
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Course Components

• A. Logic of inquiry
• Epistemology, style of inquiry, inductive vs.
  deductive logics, philosophy
• Includes two hands-on exercises
• 1. conducting a qualitative interview,
  transcribing it, and doing initial coding and
• 2. Creating a hypothesis, designing a
  questionnaire (group).
• B. Research Design Issues
• Figuring out project boundaries, sampling,
  ethics, writing a research proposal (the final
  project)
• C. That Brief Survey of Methods (now confined to
  two weeks)
• Includes interviewing a faculty member about
  their research strategies and processes

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Wallaces Wheel of Science
Theories
Logical Deduction
Creative Leaps
Sensitizing Concepts
Hypothesis
Empirical Generalizations
Statistical or Verbal Summarization
Measurement
Observations
From Adler and Clark, How Its Done, Wadsworth
2003, adapted from Walter Wallace The Logic of
Science in Sociology, Aldine 1971.
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• Renear, Allen, et al. 2003. An XML document
  corresponds to which FRBR Group 1 entity?
  Extreme Markup
• Witten, I. and Frank, E. 2005. Chapter 1
  Whats it all about?, from Data Mining.
• Smith, Linda. 1981. Citation Analysis.
  Library Trends
• Hoppman, Talke Klara. 2009. Examining the
  point of frustration. The think-aloud method
  applied to online search tasks. Quantity and
  Quality
• White, Marilyn and Emily Marsh. 2006. Content
  analysis a flexible methodology, Library Trends
• Haythornthwaite, Caroline. 1996. Social
  Network Analysis Library Information Science
  Research
• Palmer, Carole, Melissa Cragin, and Timothy
  Hogan. 2004. Information at the intersections
  of discovery Case studies in neuroscience,
  ASIST Proceedings
• Kendall, Lori. 2008. James Bond, Peter Pan,
  and A Sticky Night of Love Irony and
  masculinities in amateur animated videos, The
  Journal of Mens Studies
• McDowell, Kate. 2008. Toward a History of
  Children as Readers, 1890-1930, Book History
• Becker, Howard. 2001. The epistemology of
  qualitative research, from Contemporary Field
  Research
• K'Meyer, Tracy E. "'It's Not Just Common Sense'
  A Blueprint for Teaching Oral History." The Oral
  History Review

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What It Still Needs

• More and better readings about epistemology and
  philosophy
• I bit more decentering of social science
• Better connections between the different
  components of the class
• (A student suggestion each student starts with
  a project idea and applies all exercises to that
  project.)

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Thanks!Id love to hear your thoughtsand
questions. And if you have readings to
suggest,please send them to me
atloriken_at_illinois.edu