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Theorybuilding F15
- 1. By Dr. Serena Carpenter
- 2. The focus of this class is not on overviewing the contributions of existing theory or theorists, but rather how to contribute to theory.
- 3. Preferred/First Name On the white board, a research problem or research question of interest (not a topic)
- 4. Briefly describe your exposure to theory and various methodological approach(es). What is theory (do not Google)? List your plans for development including research and teaching goals (revolving around a 5-year period) And lastly, what do you want to be remembered for?
- 5. Bryant & Miron (2004) ◦ Merely referenced (45%), ◦ Using it as a framework (23%), ◦ Constructing it (18%), ◦ Critiquing it (14%) Potter and Riddle (2007) ◦ Not guided by theory (65%)
- 6. “Scientific knowledge is a collection of abstract theoretical statements.” – Reynolds, 1971
- 7. “I’m puzzled as to what exactly you are trying to accomplish here.” “I had to read several pages into the manuscript to get a hint about what you are trying to achieve.” “What exactly is this paper about? After reading it twice, I’m still not sure.” “I am simply tired of reading passages of manuscripts two and three times just to figure out what the authors might be trying to say.” “The authors may have a brilliant idea, but if they can't articulate that idea logically and coherently, we can't evaluate it.”
- 8. What is a concept? What is a construct? What is a hypothesis? What is theory? What is a model? What is science?
- 9. “Description of concepts and specification of the relationships between or among these concepts.” -Baldwin, Perry, & Mofffitt – 2004 “Sets of hypotheses, which are tested by logically deriving observable consequences from them.” –Rosenberg – 2001 “’Good theory’ refers to theory of a kind that produces valid scientific knowledge (understanding, prediction). – Miner, 2003
- 10. Theory: Organized explanation of some recurrent phenomena of interest Theory: A collection of statements asserting a relationships between two or more concepts
- 12. Describe Explain Predict Control
- 13. Abstractness Empirical relevance Intersubjectivity
- 14. What does “making a theoretical contribution” mean? What is theory building? As authors, what are some challenges we face when creating theory?
Editor's Notes
- My job is to help you be able to address the question, “How are you contributing to theory?” ---- story The role of theoreticians to diminish complexity in the world on the basis of explanations and predications. I want you to be on the scientific ledge… challenging knowledge. But you can’t until you know what is theory and what is a theoretical contribution… something that very few people Theory is a tough class because of the level of abstractness. But I believe that it can be systematically taught. I expect you to struggle and express your frustration, but I will also know if you are at a healthy level… You must grow. Trust me, you can do it. I am asking you to trust me. So it like learning a new language, and my job is to refine your lens to make your lives actually easier. You have heard the proverb that “Practice Makes Perfect.” Umm… somewhat. As a PhD student, you must evolve intellectually. What I am looking for? That. I don’t care what level you start. I want to see growth. You will be reading a lot of literature, but you learn how to develop and refine your research lens. Otherwise you will struggle to make it as a scholar. If you have to process each research article you read in its entirety, you will be swamped by complexity. I will teach how to “see” or develop a schemata to fit within this environment. I want to be inspired by your work and thoughtfulness behind your work. If you like puzzles, this is the course for you expect you to tell me if something is not working,
- Often scholars look for theories and use it as a framework for their topic of interest. They use it as a framework to approaching their research. So what is theory as a framework/reporter approach…. Well, we are biased, distorted, partial in the way the see the world (which is why I am not a fan of the grounded theory approach). How do you not let your biases influence your results. Theory as a framework forces us to try to set aside those biases and view the topic through that theory. The quality of our scientific knowledge depends upon the quality of our thought. Theory is “knowledge,” or what we refer to as scientific knowledge, that has been proven and accepted over time. So we are using other scholars’ work as a lens to our research. Excellence in thought is something that has to be systematically cultivated over time. So the learning of theory disciplines our imaginations by holding them to intellectual standards…. A theory as a framework perspective. Whereas theory building ideally involves conceptually mapping reality and adding to it. I am by nature a divergent thinker, and if you want to make change, you have to understand the theory building process
- It is okay that you don’t know.
- Your-name and name of exercise-1stday You will be pulled into different directions, but I want you to remind yourself who you are, your goals, and what really matters. Give a short oral presentation and upload your essay to D2L dropbox. No Googling Please don’t bs me. If you don’t know, that is okay. Then tell me what you don’t know. I need to know so I can tap into the vein to help you during this transformative process.
- Theoretician understand how to go beyond the information given. As a scientist, you must do more than just simply summarize other people’s work. You must play a more active role. Melvin DeFleur has argued that few mass communication scientists have made significant theoretical contributions since the 1980s. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Communication, and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media Potter – 16 journals during odd years from 1993 – 2005 Third-person effect, agenda, ug were the three most commonly mentioned.
- Science is the accumulation of what we know that is testable. So if science is theory… and most of research is atheoretical… that is a problem. Scientific progress involves the correction and improvement of theory’s predictions… The ability to generalize beyond a sample… Small and big theories…. Theories reflect what we know, however most theories are not directly observable. Social science deals with the behavior and institutions of human beings The goal of science, many say, to create research that is generalizable to populations, not just samples. That is why the method is so important. Learning how we know what we know. What is knowledge. What is considered knowledge and what it.
- Writing--- refining your lens means that you become understand how to contribute and become more efficient. Once you and I share in the same language, that is when the magic happens. I often read students’ and other scholars’ work, and it means nothing, it is not organized based any understanding of science and theory. The scholar just does a poor job summarizing previous work. The idea is that this class helps you develop literacy in order to communicate with other scholars. These are actually anonymous reviews of reviewers of journal articles I found in a study. What do I mean by reviewers of journal articles? 1. Think about bigger ideas before you start reading (not through the lens of a topic). What do you want to understand? 2. Seek feedback on ideas and manuscripts 3. Create a road map in the beginning… be clear. Clear writing is clear thinking. I should be able to understand specifically how you are contributing to theory. I found that there is a desire to appear complex, but you should not obscure meaning. A good theoretician understands how to cut to the bone, but you should not expect that I know what you mean. A good theory is a theory that helps us achieve some understanding of the world. The why. Why do some people lack empathy? Why do some students understand theory?
- Assumptions about what you know…. It your responsibility
- To be a scholar requires theory, a theory is something we invent. A theory is a probabilistic coding system that permits us to go beyond the data. Why collect data if do not helps us understand the why or predict in the future? Theory reflects the recorded effort of scientists trying to organize (conceptual systems)… predict and explain human behavior. We as social science researchers cannot directly observe all phenomena. To overcome this obstacle, we create concepts to build and test theory. Observations or data collection should be seen as efforts to confirm or falsify hypotheses. Many scientists cited a definition that theory is a relationship between constructs? Constructs are somewhat controversial from a qualitative perspective because we create those construct whereas they let theory guide in the development of concepts.
- Functions of theory is to organize and to communicate Convey a sense of understanding. Reasoning behind the explanation is logic Dependent and independent variables Hypotheses of relationships between variables
- When students discuss new ideas with me, I instinctively start drawing diagrams. It is a visual aid and story. Two parts… The activity of constructing formal models…. and constructing theoretical constructs means to create a generic coding system for the unobservable. As a theoreticians, we are inventing or producing a coding system.
- Describe what happens in a given context. – Describe features or qualities. So think typology—we organize abstract observations into higher order concepts. Types of organizations; We are categorizing what are the phenomena and what are the most important aspects of that phenomena. So people who build theoretical constructs are describe that particular phenomena. What do I mean by that? So the goal of description is to answer “what” A case study, building a construct, or some sort of typology is descriptive research But we also what to know how and why: Explain/Understand – Explains why things happen. Explain why some messages work better than others in political campaigns. Process knowledge - how something works. Predict – Scientific part – an increase in this leads to a decrease in this, Sometimes referred to as outcome knowledge. Scientists develop theories or formal models to have predictive value, not just describe the data set that they collected. If I cannot apply your research to predict behavior beyond that point and time, the theory is trivial. Control –Need to understand how to produce a phenomenon by setting up the conditions that account for it. This requires understanding the features of an environment and the ability to manipulate those features.
- Reynolds Independent of time and location. Independent of history. Each location would have a unique set of knowledge. Would not be efficient. If it is not abstract, it is not applicable to the future. Are you studying it in a way that the knowledge is useful beyond that environment and period of time. Comment forums… Recording content… are you trying to understand roles… what is related to behavior. Social sciences Perceiving an event. And explaining why. What caused the event. If it is not testable, then it is philosophy. In science, we should focus only on testable theories. Test is under different conditions, then it is not scientific knowledge Agreement about meaning among relevant scientists. Otherwise we can not build. There is agreement about the concept. This is called logical rigor. Falsfication is only possible if there is intersubjective agreement among scientists concerning what is being tested. Mass… how are we defining mass.
- Theory can really best conceived as why. The why.