MIOP: Weekly Readings

Subjective / Objective

• Intuitive Inquiry: Interpreting Objective and Subjective Data - Discusses the aspects of intuitive inquiry. Overview of intuitive inquiry; Principle of resonance; Cycles of interpretation that intuitive inquiry requires; Research skills for the intuitive researcher.
• The art and science of clinical knowledge: evidence beyond measures and numbers - Clinical knowledge consists of interpretive action and interaction--factors that involve communication, opinions, and experiences. 
• Ethical Review of Interpretive Research: Problems and Solutions - The article focuses on interpretive research using qualitative methods and describes tensions that can be applied to other forms of emergent inquiry.
• Interpretive Inquiry: A Practical and Moral Activity - Focuses on the use of interpretative inquiry in research described as a practical and moral activity.

Literature Review

• A narrative literature review process for an academic business research thesis - The purpose of this study is to increase understanding about the narrative literature review process.
• Working at a Cathedral: Building a method for phenomenological literature-reviewing - The author reimagines literature-reviewing from first principles as a phenomenological enterprise central to the conduct, as well as the contextualization of research and invites comment, correction, and alternative reimagining from the community.

Epistemology & Ontology

• Concepts and measurement: Ontology and epistemology - This article discusses some ontological and epistemological differences in qualitative and quantitative approaches to concepts and measurement.

Scientific Inquiry

• Searching for a common ground – A literature review of empirical research on scientific inquiry activities - A review of the research literature on scientific inquiry was conducted based on a widespread approach to defining scientific inquiry as activities that students engage in.
• Making Quantitative Research Work: From Positivist Dogma to Actual Social Scientific Inquiry - Researchers misunderstand their role in creating ethical problems when they allow dogmas to purportedly divorce scientists and scientific practices from the values that they embody.

Qualitative Research

• Opening the black box and searching for smoking guns: Process causality in qualitative research - The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of qualitative research in causality, with particular emphasis on process causality.
• Observations of supervisors and an actuarial research student on the qualitative research process - A report on lessons and insights concerning an interview‐based, qualitative research thesis undertaken by an honours-year university student in actuarial studies, who had no previous experience with qualitative research.
• Editors’ note on special issue on indigenous knowledges, priorities and processes in qualitative research - A special issue that focuses on Indigenous knowledge and research methodologies, encouraging authors to critically reflect on the processes and activities of qualitative research in Indigenous contexts, Indigenous approaches to research design and implementation, and/or the challenges and opportunities resulting from Indigenous research strategies.

Quantitative Research

• Is Quantitative Research Ethical? Tools for Ethically Practicing, Evaluating, and Using Quantitative Research - This editorial offers new ways to ethically practice, evaluate, and use quantitative research (QR).
• Making Quantitative Research Work: From Positivist Dogma to Actual Social Scientific Inquiry - Researchers misunderstand their role in creating ethical problems when they allow dogmas to purportedly divorce scientists and scientific practices from the values that they embody. The authors help us clarify and further develop our position by responding to our critique of, and alternatives to, this misleading separation.
• Can Quantitative Research Solve Social Problems? Pragmatism and the Ethics of Social Research - Journal of Business Ethics recently published a critique of ethical practices in quantitative research by Zyphur and Pierides (J Bus Ethics 143:1–16, 2017). The authors argued that quantitative research prevents researchers from addressing urgent problems facing humanity today, such as poverty, racial inequality, and climate change. I offer comments and observations on the authors’ critique.

Hypothesis

• Scientific Hypotheses: Writing, Promoting, and Predicting Implications - Scientific hypotheses are essential for progress in rapidly developing academic disciplines. Proposing new ideas and hypotheses require thorough analyses of evidence-based data and predictions of the implications.

Quantitative Research Questions

• "What else are you worried about?" – Integrating textual responses into quantitative social science research - In this study, the authors demonstrate straightforward procedures that can be applied to process and analyze textual data for the purposes of quantitative social science research.
• A Practical Guide to Writing Quantitative and Qualitative Research Questions and Hypotheses in Scholarly Articles - The development of research questions is a process based on knowledge of current trends, cutting-edge studies, and technological advances in the research field.
• Why Open-Ended Survey Questions Are Unlikely to Support Rigorous Qualitative Insights - Health professions education researchers are increasingly relying on a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to explore complex questions in the field.

Methodology & Method

• Of methods and methodology - The purpose of this paper is to explore what the term "methodology" might be taken to mean.
• Research dilemmas : paradigms, methods and methodology - In this article the authors discuss issues faced by early career researchers, including the dichotomy, which many research textbooks and journal articles create and perpetuate between qualitative and quantitative research methodology despite considerable literature to support the use of mixed methods.

The Research Proposal

• Steps to Writing a Research Proposal - This article discusses how to write a research proposal. It goes through the process, step by step, and presents key concepts.
• Changes in search tactics and relevance judgements when preparing a research proposal. A summary of the findings of a longitudinal study: Conceptual, Linguistic and Task-Based IR: Research at the University of Tampere - The article summarizes the empirical results on relations between students' problem stages in the course of writing their research proposals for their master's theses and the information sought, choice of search terms and tactics and relevance assessments of the information found for that task.

How to Write a Literature Review

• Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines - This paper discusses literature review as a methodology for conducting research and offers an overview of different types of reviews, as well as some guidelines to how to both conduct and evaluate a literature review paper. It also discusses common pitfalls and how to get literature reviews published.

Writing a First Draft

• How to write a research proposal? - A search was conducted with keywords such as research proposal, writing proposal and qualitative using search engines, namely, PubMed and Google Scholar, and an attempt has been made to provide broad guidelines for writing a scientifically appropriate research proposal.

Questionnaire Design

• Research into Questionnaire Design: A Summary of the Literature - In this article, cognitive and communication research is reviewed that has tested the impact of different question and answer alternatives on the responses obtained.
• Writing Survey Questions - In this article, the Pew Research Center discuss the pitfalls and best practices of designing questionnaires.

How to choose the method to answer your question

• The Dictatorship of the Problem: Choosing Research Methods - It is relatively easy to investigate how to employ a particular research method in the social sciences. It is considerably more difficult to decide which to use.
• Choose your research methods wisely - Balancing ambition and realism in your research design is key to a successful dissertation, experts say.

Data collection

• Best Practices in Data Collection and Preparation: Recommendations for Reviewers, Editors, and Authors - Best-practice recommendations for journal reviewers, editors, and authors regarding data collection and preparation. Our recommendations are applicable to research adopting different epistemological and ontological perspectives—including both quantitative and qualitative approaches—as well as research addressing micro (i.e., individuals, teams) and macro (i.e., organizations, industries) levels of analysis.
• The Interview: Data Collection in Descriptive Phenomenological Human Scientific Research - In this article, interviewing from a descriptive, phenomenological, human scientific perspective is examined. Methodological issues are raised in relation to evaluative criteria as well as reflective matters that concern the phenomenological researcher.
• What’s to Like? Facebook as a Tool for Survey Data Collection - The authors explore the use of Facebook targeted advertisements for the collection of survey data. They illustrate the potential of survey sampling and recruitment on Facebook through the example of building a large employee–employer linked data set as part of The Shift Project.

Data analysis

• What is Data Analysis? Methods, Process and Types Explained - No one makes important decisions without first finding out what’s at stake, the pros and cons, and the possible outcomes. Similarly, no company that wants to succeed should make decisions based on bad data. Organizations need information; they need data. This is where data analysis or data analytics enters the picture.
• 5 Types of Qualitative Methods - Similar to the way you can group usability testing methods, there are also a number of ways to segment qualitative methods.
• Your Modern Business Guide To Data Analysis Methods And Techniques - In our data-rich age, understanding how to analyze and extract true meaning from our business’s digital insights is one of the primary drivers of success.

Editing a literature review

• Editing a Literature Review - A literature review is a critical summary of published research literature relevant to your research topic.
• How to Proofread your Manuscript - An error-free document ensures editors and reviewers can focus on what's important - the information contained in your manuscript.
• Revising Your Work - This section will guide you through various revision and proofreading stages by asking you to reflect on critical questions and feedback by providing strategies you can use to review and revise your work.

Pilot questionnaire

• Pilot Studies: Common Uses and Misuses - Although pilot studies are a critical step in the process of intervention development and testing, several misconceptions exist on their true uses and misuses.
• The importance of pilot studies - Pilot studies are a crucial element of a good study design. Conducting a pilot study does not guarantee success in the main study, but it does increase the likelihood of success.

Introduction and Conclusion

• What goes in the introduction, what goes in the conclusion? - It can feel like you’re just writing an overview of your research twice under different headings, so what do you put in your thesis introduction and what do you put in your conclusion?
• The structure of PhD conclusion chapters - This paper considers the generic structure of Conclusion chapters in PhD theses or dissertations.
• Introductions and Conclusions - Introductions and conclusions play a special role in the academic essay, and they frequently demand much of your attention as a writer.

Data analytics

• Data Analytics vs Data Analysis: What’s The Difference? - Data analysis, data analytics. Two terms for the same concept? Or different, but related, terms?
• What is Data Analytics? A Complete Guide for Beginners - In this guide, you’ll find a complete and comprehensive introduction to data analytics—starting with a simple, easy-to-understand definition and working up to some of the most important tools and techniques.
• Impact of big data analytics on business performance - Following a methodical review, a framework for the interpretation of importance big data is presented in the paper.

Data visualization

• Data visualization (2016) - Data visualization involves presenting data in graphical or pictorial form which makes the information easy to understand.
• Data visualization (2014) - The human mind is very visual; data visualization is an ancient need.

Formatting academic results

• Scientific sinkhole: The pernicious price of formatting - To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the cost of manuscript formatting in scientific publishing.
• APA Format for Academic Papers: Guidelines & Examples - The American Psychological Association (APA) style is one of the most widely used methods for scientific communication today.

Limitations and delimitations

• Scope, limitations, and delimitations - Clarification of terms.
• Research Methods and Strategies: Let’s Stop the Madness Part 2: Understanding the Difference Between Limitations vs. Delimitations - The purpose of this article is to provide insight on the distinct differences between limitations and delimitations.

Generalizability

• The generalizability crisis - Focusing on the most widely used class of model in psychology – the linear mixed model – the author explores the consequences of failing to statistically operationalize verbal hypotheses in a way that respects researchers’ actual generalization intentions.
• The generalizability of survey experiments - Survey experiments have become a central methodology across the social sciences. Researchers can combine experiments’ causal power with the generalizability of populationbased samples.

Research ethics

• Research ethics - Qualitative research, especially studies in educational contexts, often brings up questions of ethics because the study design involves human subjects, some of whom are under age (e.g. data collected in primary education classrooms).
• Approving or Improving Research Ethics in Management Journals - This paper argues that ethical concern for the research subject merely in terms of institutional rule compliance and avoidance of harm to individual participants is insufficient, and calls for explicitly positive engagement with both the individual and the collective subject of management research should receive due ethical consideration.
• What Is Ethics in Research & Why Is It Important? - Although most people acquire their sense of right and wrong during childhood, moral development occurs throughout life and human beings pass through different stages of growth as they mature.

Confidentiality and Anonymity

• Simplifying the Complexity of Confidentiality in Research - In the context of research, confidentiality is the agreement to limit access to a subject’s information.
• The Management of Confidentiality and Anonymity in Social Research - This article explores the ways in which social researchers manage issues of confidentiality and the contexts in which deliberate and accidental disclosures occur.

Statistical analyses

• Basic statistical tools in research and data analysis - The statistical analysis gives meaning to the meaningless numbers, thereby breathing life into a lifeless data.
• A Survey of Outlier Detection Methodologies - This article introduces a survey of contemporary techniques for outlier detection.
• Discordancy tests for outlier detection in multi-item questionnaires - Different approaches to detecting outliers in discrete data

Sections of a research paper

• Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper - Offers detailed guidance on how to develop, organize, and write a college-level research paper in the social and behavioral sciences.
• Research Paper Structure - Discusses the structure of research papers according to APA style.

Presenting results to business

• All research is interpretive - This article advocates recognition of interpretive elements in business research and the need for improvement of the researcher's interpretive skills.
• Four Steps to Communicate Research Insights to Your Stakeholders - There are four steps in communicating research insights to stakeholders.
• Presenting Content Data to Stakeholders? 4 Things to Keep in Mind - This page highlights a few tactics to keep in mind when presenting visualizations to stakeholders.

Proofreading

• Proofreading: The Skill We've Neglected to Teach - Strategies for teaching students how to proofread are discussed, including reading their work out loud and focusing on error patterns. Computer applications for proofreading are examined.
• Seven Effective Ways to Proofread Writing - Regardless of the method you choose, proofreading is a critical part of the writing process and should never be overlooked.

ROI

• What Is ROI? - Here's everything you should know about return on investment and how to use it to ensure your business spending is increasing your earnings.
• Return on Investment: Training and Development - This module investigates the value of measuring return on investment (ROI) when conducting training and development activities. The module reviews assessment, evaluation, stakeholders, accounting and reporting.
• Why It’s So Hard to Measure ROI in Training and Development - Measuring the ROI in training and development is never easy, and learning leaders continue to seek different ways to evaluate the success of their courses on multiple levels.