Course Notes for RLS 210

Course Review

• Course Code: RLS 210
• Weight of Final Exam: 30% of final grade.
• Coverage: Cumulative; includes all materials from lectures, textbooks, and class activities.
• Exam Format:
  • Part 1: 30 multiple choice questions (1 mark each; total 30 marks).
  • Part 2: 3 short answer questions; choose 2 (5 marks each; total 10 marks).
  • Part 3: 3 short answer questions; choose 2 (5 marks each; total 10 marks).
• Exam Date: Monday, April 14th, 1:00 - 3:00 (ED 254).

What is Research?

• Definition:
  • A process: Series of actions taken to investigate a topic.
  • A way of knowing: Systematic investigation.
  • Steps in Research Process:
  • Identify and clarify the research question.
  • Collect data through observations.
  • Analyze and interpret the results.

Purposes of Research

• Types of Research Purposes:
  • Exploration: Initial understanding of a phenomenon.
  • Description: Detailed account of characteristics and contexts.
  • Explanation: Understanding causes and connections.

Sources of Knowledge

• Epistemology: The science of knowing.
• Sources:
  • Tradition: Knowledge shaped by cultural contexts and common beliefs.
  • Authority: Trustworthiness based on credentials and specialized training.

Approaches to Understanding Truth

• Premodern View: Truth derived from authoritative sources; only one truth.
• Modern View: Objective truths exist, independent of human experience, understood through reason.
• Postmodern View: Truth is subjective and context-dependent; skepticism about obtaining objective knowledge.

Types of Explanation

• Idiographic Explanations: In-depth understanding of specific phenomena.
• Nomothetic Explanations: General theories explaining classes of events, not focused on individual cases.

Types of Reasoning

• Inductive Reasoning:
  • Moving from specific observations to broader generalizations.
  • Example: Observing specific instances and deriving a principle.
• Deductive Reasoning:
  • Starting with a general principle and predicting specific outcomes.
  • Example: Using a theory to predict results in specific cases.

Understanding Paradigms

• Definition:
  • A framework of accepted concepts and methods in a community affecting research and analysis.

Research Paradigms

• Positivism: Knowledge derived from empirical, objective observation.
• Post-positivism: Acceptance of uncertainty; phenomena understood as probabilistic rather than certain.
• Constructivism: Reality is interpreted through individual constructs; focus on understanding perspectives.

Theories and Their Importance

• Theory: A systematic explanation of observations in a specific area of life.
• Cycle of Scientific Inquiry:
  • Observations lead to patterns; patterns lead to hypotheses; hypotheses lead to theories.

Criteria for Causation (Nomothetic Causality)

1. Correlation between variables.
2. Temporal precedence: Cause must occur before the effect.
3. Non-spurious relationships: No false cause-effect conclusion.

Ecological Fallacy

• Definition: Making incorrect inferences about individuals based on group-level data or observations.

Concepts, Meanings, and Definitions

• Concepts: Abstract, non-empirical categories that aid in organizing experiences.
• Definitions:
  • Conceptual Definitions: Relating concepts to each other.
  • Operational Definitions: Defining a concept through specific procedures and observations.

Research Constraints and Ethics

• Key Ethical Principles:
  1. Respect for persons: Honoring individual autonomy.
  2. Concern for welfare: Prioritizing participant well-being.
  3. Justice: Fair distribution of research benefits and burdens.
• Confidentiality Issues:
  • Identity Disclosure: Revealing identities of participants;
  • Attribute Disclosure: Disclosing confidential information linked to an individual.
  • Residual Disclosure: Identifying through combinations of information.

Readings

• Chapters covered: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, & 14.